Day #24 – Canh cua – Crab Soup

Day 24 – Com Bin Dan (Affordable rice for the people)- Canh cua – Crab Soup

This leafy crab soup is comprised of a handful of Malabor Spinach and a topping of ground crab. The aroma is light and this dish is warming and slightly filling. You get to fill exceptionally healthy as you down the broth and good scooping of spinach. Major Danger loves this dish demanding it by saying “Drink!… Driiinnk!”

Interesting enough this is one of the dishes Vietnamese consider soups. It is merely broth meat and vegetable. When you add something like noodles it ceases to be a soup and becomes something else. So all of the Pho’s and Bun’s and Mien’s that we know in love are not considered soups by the Vietnamese but an entirely different type of dish.

#2 Pagoda, Hung Ky Hanoi

So the other morning we headed off to Hung Ky Pagoda. A tiny Pagoda off of Minh Khai street on the south side of Hanoi.

What we found was a courtyard under construction with new stone slabs being added in to renovate their entry bell-tower. As we moved to the rear of the temple, among whispering of nuns in training they had a small orchid garden. An Ancient alter decorated in a unique recycled mosaic way that was great to observe.

Soon afterwards the locals became very friendly but crowded the wee-bairn Major Danger. They offered a picnic and in hindsight we will return one day and take them up on it but at the moment I could tell both Major danger and the wife were feeling claustrophobic so we went and explored the front again.

Back in the front we paid more attention to the Pagoda itself, and the presence of the female Buddha.

There a small nun-in-training approached and we had a small conversation outside. I think in the future we will start carrying things to entertain people and have mini-English lessons prepared to help.