Vang Đàlạt Classic White Wine

2018, Whites

Vang Đàlạt Classic White Wine

At last I found a locally-produced wine, made right here by the good people in Vietnam!  What?  Wine made in the tropical climate of Vietnam?  Here’s what wikipedia has to say:

The area was first cultivated for viticulture during the French colonial rule of the region in the late 19th century. The region’s tropical climate was ill-suited for the type of Vitis vinifera that the French colonists were used to and the wine industry turned its attention to fruit wineproduction. The late 20th century saw renewed focus on the development of Vitis vinifera with the assistance of flying winemakers from regions like Australia. In 1995, a joint venture with Australian winemakers started an aggressive planting scheme to reintroduce international grape varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnayto land that was until recently littered with landmines left over from the Vietnam War.[1]

As I didn’t have a wine key of any kind along, I bought that barely-functional overly decorative souvenir de-corkifier, because I needed one and I’m a sucker for silly things to begin with.

So, what’s the wine like, Steve? Ok, I’m really a terrible wine taster as I can’t stop eating spicy food.  In fact, I sometimes eat food so spicy that people next to me start sweating.  So it’s no surprise that subtle flavors may escape me.  I think I can detect a little bit of pear and apple, it’s really a perfectly fine uncomplicated light white wine.  Not fabulous, but nothing wrong with it.

Google Translate of the wine description from their web site reads as follows:

With the complete fermentation technology from the bunch of Cardinal grape varieties to ripen to create notes of notes of grapefruit and lemon. Sour taste in harmony with the light aroma of balance. Dalat White Wine – Classic is the perfect choice for enjoying dishes made from seafood, poultry or salad.

These guys are a bit more judgemental, though they were drinking the red (which I haven’t seen yet) and it had to travel in a suitcase to NYC.

What A Sommelier Thinks Of Vang Dalat, The Mighty Table Wine Of Vietnam

Later that night I was relaxing in something like a Vietnamese sports bar, a simple place with cheap food, copious amounts of cheap beer, big TV screens and good people watching.  In another collision with our Western society, the Strongbow Cider brand ambassador girls came by.

More Beer in Saigon

2018, Beer

And so, we continue our tour through beer available here in Ho Chi Mihn City.   Here we have Blue Cap from Sapporo (Japan), Tiger Crystal (Vietnam) and Huda (Vietnam).

They’re all pretty much budweiser, which is fine given the heat and humidity here. I did enjoy the Blue Cap a bit more than other versions of Bud, but it’s hard to really properly nerd-test these things while also eating kimchee.  But that’s the way it’s supposed to be drunk anyway, right?

Huda wins the award for the most interesting can.  It comes very close to having not one word of English on it.  Appears to be brewed by Carlsberg Vietnam.

Saturday we took the Apple Dumpling Gang out for Dim Sum, shopping and chocolate.

Me in front of An Dong Market. If you go up to the third floor there’s numerous stalls with good nick-nacks to bring back. It’s far lower key than Ben Thanh Market. Feel free to haggle a little bit to keep your bargaining skills strong.

The House That Chocolate Bars Built:

Maison Marou

Maison Marou makes fine French-style chocolates using beans grown in Vietnam.  One word – YUM.  Stop in and get some drinking chocolate.

Yep.  Tasty, tasty macarons. This plate set me back about $3.50.

Noah settling into a nice dark chocolate high.

Here Trevor takes a break from bugging me to play Minecraft for a quick photo in my hat.

Noah’s youngest.  She’s a cutie!

Ron Pampero Blanco

2018, Spirits

Went into a new-to-me grocery store here in Ho Chi Mihn City and made some new discoveries, including this: Ron Pampero Blanco from Venezuela.

The label is all in Spanish, which is so refreshing as that’s a non-English language I can actually read!  (So far my Vietnamese hasn’t progressed past “thank you” and “I’m sorry”) The label says this rum has flavors of ripe banana, carmel and vanilla.

Now, I know my tongue is scoured by my daily intake of a quart of  kimchee so I may not be the best person to be tasting subtle flavors.  In my mouth this rum is so light it’s nearly vodka.  Not that it’s bad or anything, made a perfectly good Cuba Libre.

Circle K is big around here, somehow. Also notice the excellent local wiring.

The energy coffee that changes life!

Walking along the river at night.

Cheese!  If you look closely you’ll see the “american style” prepackaged cheese slices are named by their intended use, for those who don’t know how to use cheese, apparently.  Sandwich, Toast and Hamburger.  If you look close you can also see a cheddar labelled “strong and bitey”.

Kitteh!

BiaCraft Artisan Ales, Ho Chi Mihn City

2018, Beer, good, On-Site

“But this is a wine blog!” you may say.  But it’s not really.  It’s a beverage blog… but it’s more than that.  It’s an experience blog.  Sure, once and a while you’ll get a beverage that’s authentically bad-tasting, but mostly “taste” is what you like, and that’s subjective.   We like to write about what it’s like and sometimes what it means.

BiaCraft Artisan Ales

Friendly staff, when I stepped out of the cab in a downpour I was greeted by a smiling young lady with a very large umbrella.

They seem to have turned to South Park for inspiration on anything with a name here.

  • Itty Bitty Chicken Titties = grilled chicken breast
  • Don’t F*ck With Me Pale Ale (they sold out of this)
  • No Cookie No Nookie Oreo Cream Stout
  • F*cking Liar India Summer Ale (medium body, some hints of spices, refreshing)
  • The Jonah Falcondog Foursome = meter long hot dog “done four ways” (whatever that means)

I managed to order the least healty meal I’ve had not only in Vietnam, but the least healthy thing I’ve eaten in months.  Grilled sausage and french fries.  The french fries were pretty damn good, especially for a country that has no business growing potatos.  My “Beef Injection Sausage” (300g southern spiced link, says the menu) came quite pink in the middle still, which is not generally how you want sausage, so using Google Translate I sent it back.  The waitron came back from the kitchen and told me the Chef thought it was cooked correctly, but they could cook it a few more minutes for me.  When it returned, as far as I could tell it hadn’t been heated by anything more serious than the cook’s explitives about damn customers and I decided to give up and eat it.  This place servers lots of westerners and seems to have a good rep.

If I die, tell my wife I love her.

This place is known for it’s wide selection of local craft brews, of which there are a surprisingly large selection.  If you’re missing the USA they even have beer from (one of my former clients) Rogue Ales and Anderson Valley.  Also, fine brews from France, Australia, Japan and a couple other far-away places.

The BiaCraft brews are light compared to what we drink back in the Pacific Northwest, but pretty much every beer is light compared to what we drink in the land where hops are grown.  That said, this Wildberry Wheat could duke it out with any craft beer anywhere for flavor and quality.

After so many decades of war (kicked out the French, kicked out the yanks, then fought off the Cambodians and the Chinese) and it’s clear they are very hungry to join the modern world.  I get the sense that they are looking at Singapore, Japan, etc and thinking we want what you have!

Ask your server for more information.  Or Don’t.  Whatever.

 

Fighting Rhino Strange Strange Mouth

2018, Spirits

Clearly Uncle Ho is no more interested in your sobriety than Uncle Sam is.  Earlier today while walking home from the office here in Ho Chi Mihn City I ran across a western-style Supermarket.  Inside, it’s delicious.

Found a selection of local products on the shelves and brought them home.  I mean, I guess they’re local because it’s all in Vietnamese, which I can’t read.

Mekong Royal Rhum

Took me a while to place the flavor.  Finally I realized it’s bubblegum.  A 630ml bottle of this will set you back about $2.50.  Poking about thar intarwubs a bit about this stuff and found this factoid.  So now you know…

Ingredients: Ethanol (31.25%), water (68.45%), synthetic rhino

Ruou De Bach Ma

On this keyboard I’m not going to attempt to punch in all the appropriate appropriate accent marks on the name.  Looking at the selection on the shelf my Bukowski-sense tingling, I figured this was a version of local rice booze.  Sure enough, the aroma of rice is obvious on pouring and the flavor in this example is quite nice.  Slightly sweet, deep and warming.  Well worthy of sipping on it’s own without a mixer.  Note: I did buy the most expensive bottle I saw, $5 vs. the average hooch $1 – $2.  So your hooch milage may vary.

“Rượu đế” appears to be the official designation, and it has an interesting history on Wikipedia.  Read about it here.

Ruou Chanh Rhum

Light, lower in alcohol and with a slight pleasant carmel flavor, at about $1.80 per 500ml, you’ll have plenty of money left over for a stay in rehab.

https://cachlammonngon.vn/cach-lam-chanh-rhum-ngon/ tells us:

Incredibly with how to make lemon rhum wind for the whole house.

Ah, so much better than the kind of wind usually generated inside the house.  Follow this site for more recipies in Vietnamese.  Also for endless amusement with Google translate.  Here’s two examples of other articles:

Uncovering the way to make rhubarb orange cat

and

Fighting rhino strange strange mouth

…and now some more travel photos.  Traffic here is quite the experience.  Crossing the street is like diving into a swarm of bees.  Yet, somehow I’ve yet to see a single altercation.  Back when I was commuting daily from the Hillsboro area into SE Portland on hwy 26, I generally saw one accident per day, sometimes more.  Here, not so much.

 

What’s In Your Fridge?

2018, Beer

Hello again from Ho Chi Mihn City, while we continue our tour or locally available beverages.  What do we have today?

Zorok Lager Beer – made somewhere in Vietnam… or maybe not.  I can’t read any of the local languages.
Gauden Schwarzbier –  from the Red Rock Brewing Company in Singapore
“THIS BEAR NEVER SLEEPS“

I’ll keep this simple.  Zorok is another local example of Budweiser.  Given the climate here, that’s pretty much what you want anyway.  The Gauden?  It’s quite good.  An excellent example of a schwarzbier with all that yummy dark beer flavors but not heavy like a stout.

My favorite comment on their facebook page:

Black and loose mineral dynamics (do not have to increase the movement) :)) ♥ ♥ ♥

What more could you want?

Some more photos of street scenes in Ho Chi Mihn City:

What You Buy When You Don’t Know What To Buy

2018

Things one might pick up on a shopping trip in Ho Chi Mihn City, when you’re dazed and confused from travel and find a nearby mini-mart.

Let’s run down these purchases:

From left to right:

  1. RedBull
  2. Korean sake, “firewater” in this case
  3. Budweiser
  4. Green tea Kit-Kat, yay!
  5. Water, thank God!
  6. Convenience store kimchee

Meanwhile…

We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto!

Rum in Ho Chi Mihn City

2018, Spirits

Rum, it’s what’s for dinner.

Saigon Rum, product of Vietbev
Caribbean Dark Rum Superior, product of Viet Beverage Corporation

Been looking for something worth-while to bring back fom Vietnam, always looking for local examples of interesting beverages.  It may be a bad thing that these labels are in English instead of Vietnamese. I’m not sure, I’m new here.  The city so far, seems awash in the kinds of alcohol you’d get in the Duty Free shop instead of something made nearby.

The dark rum has a strong brown sugar flavor, the light a pleasant vanilla flavor.  Neither are very complex, but they were about $6/each so perhaps they are intended as more of something fun to take home vs a vital part of  local culture.

In fact, taking a closer look at the label on the Caribbean Rum it says, “Blended and Bottled from French Rum Concentrate”.  Ingredients list “French rum concentrate, food grade ethanol, pure water”.