Bánh bột lọc is not something you really go looking for. It is one of those Vietnamese dishes that tends to appear on a menu when you are already slightly confused, slightly hungry, and not in the mood to decode every single line in front of you. That was exactly the situation in Phnom Penh,…
The Vietnamese like noodles and they like soup, so combining the two is basically a national habit. That is what led me to bun mam (bún mắm) on a rainy day in Hanoi, when the streets were slick, traffic was chaos as always, and the smell of something fermented and seafood-heavy drifting out of a…
Banh Tam Bi is one of those southern Vietnamese dishes that does not get anywhere near the international attention it deserves, probably because it sits in that awkward space where it looks simple at first glance but turns into something far more interesting once it actually arrives in front of you. It is the kind…
Is there a Panda Express in China? The short easy answer to this is no, there is not. This is American Chinese fast food, although there was briefly a knock-off version in Kunming. There are though, apparently at least plans to bring the chain to the Middle Kingdom. What could go wrong? What is Panda…
When in search of the best bar to watch football in Beijing I discovered a few things. Firstly that the expats left here tend to be embassy and high-end toffs, secondly that the Scottish Premier League is fixed and lastly that Paddy O’Shea’s is the best place for live football. As an Irish bar of…
By recommendation we boarded our bus to head to the new Clock Tower Restaurant down in the Pyonghattan Hwasong district of Pyongyang. The reason? Because we were told it was the best restaurant in Pyongyang. They did not let us down at all. Not only was this the most deluxe and exclusive restaurant that I…
