Brown Rice Weekend

Just 2 months after his last trip, Tarek went for his jungle trekking again ... and I find myelf sleeping with Elsie again (we slept on the same bed on both occasions!).

This time, we decided not to go out of HCMC so I packed my little bag and moved into Sky Garden, Phu My Hung in District 7 (I live in District 2) - Elsie's home. Elsie lives in a 2 bedroom apartment with her flatmate, Claudia.



Our first stop was to go down to the FIVI supermarket to buy groceries. Their supermarket is way cooler than the one in An Phu - I love their fresh meat and veg section!

This weekend, Elsie had offered to cook me Singaporean dishes! For lunch, she made fish soup with brown rice (brown rice is more nutritious, so says Dr Elsie Ng, and so she eats that instead of white rice at home). Before that, she had already prepared some ginseng with pork soup (very nutritious and Expensive!) while Claudia had brewed some sweet soup (dessert) with lotus seeds and red dates. YUM!
And for dinner, we had chye poh eggs, steamed corn, lotus root soup with brown rice!
I was stuffing myself the whole day (I miss home cooked food!!)... and still snackng in between.

To repay her kindness, I did all the washing up.

After dinner, we showered, got dressed and went out to ZanZ bar where Juram was performing again! I wanted to take Elsie to watch him perform. After raving so much about him, the speakers at ZanZ was fucked so it wasn't as enjoyable. Nonetheless, we had a good time - sitting by the bar, listening to great music and having a drink.







Coincidentally, my drink matched my outfit again!



We came back to hers after and went straight to bed. I must add that the woman has some weird sleeping habits! She sleeps with the aircon on and yet she puts on thick socks and a jacket when she goes to bed! Of cos she was nicely cosied up in bed while I was struggling to keep warm with a tiny airplane blanket.

This morning, I woke up and found her on the floor (mat), on her knees and kowtowing to the window - like a Muslim praying in the direction of the sun. She was merely doing her morning yoga.

For lunch, we had Brown Rice porridge (YES, Brown Rice AGAIN! Hence the subject title) - Elsie's own recipe.

We then went down and took a walk to Gloria Jeans. Elsie wanted to show me the beautiful scenery. PMH is indeed another world of it's own. Much unlike the rest of Ho Chi Minh City, they have clean and wide roads and it is absolutely peaceful and quiet - It's a real joy walking around without feeling the traffic and pollution. We actually walked for an hour! The most exercise I've done in years.





On our way back, I bought lots of meat, fish, groceries to stock up my fridge. After the weekend at Elsie's, I am really inspired to cook more and it's really nice opening up to a well stocked fridge. I found red dates, lotus roots, barley, rock sugar, kim chi, miso paste in PMH ... and am looking forward to experimenting new dishes in my kitchen.

Thank u Elsie! My days in Vietnam will be so empty and meaningless without you.