Lunch at Totoya with Kakis!

I went to Totoya Japanese Restaurant the second time with my friends last Wednesday and enjoyed the meal. Guess it was partly due to the great company. :) Heard from Soo that another restaurant down the road called "New Sake" was equally good. Will definitely pop by to try next time. Enough said, here are some pictures to whet my appetite again.

The appetizers served before the main course

My unagi don (what M had previously)

L's udon set

Soo's tempura set

I hope I don't end up gaining weight this summer. :p

The Darkest Hours in Hanoi

I went through the darkest moments of my stay in Hanoi in the past 3 days. Literally.

Power shortage has been a serious problem plaguing Vietnam. Due the the limited supply and overwhelming demand, especially in summer, the government had to come up with a series of intiatives to overcome this issue. One tried and tested method was to rotate the supply of electricity amongst various areas. And the area where my house was located happened to be the "chosen" one for the last 3 days.

Typically, the government will send a letter of notification to all households in that area before cutting off the power supply for the entire day. By night, the power supply normally resumes. However, we were quite unfortunate as this round, there was no prior notice given. What made it worse was the supply was cut for most periods in the day and night. On the first night, we were left "powerless". With no aircon, no fan and no wind, it was really a mission impossible to fall asleep. We opened all the windows and kicked away our blankets. But with the summer heat lingering, we got all sweaty and uncomfortable. The amazing thing was I still managed to fall asleep! I don't know how I did that.. but by 11pm.. I was dozing off in bed. M didn't sleep well until the power supply came back at 4am in the morning.

On the second day, this pattern repeated itself. Desperate for a good bath (the water tank in my house runs on power so when there is no electricity, I can only get a trickling shower), I headed over to Sheraton Hotel to use the gym and shower facilities there. At night, we experienced a blackout again. :( Luckily, M's friend, A, was really nice and offered to let us stay in his apartment (quite near to where we live) for a night.

By the third day, our patience had run dry and we demanded for a back-up generator from our housing agent. It did arrive in the afternoon but I could tell that it was fairly old and worn out. Well well.. can't really complain here as this is how things work here. After some massive installation effort, it was finally in working condition in the evening.

So far, things have been working so I am quite thankful for it. Really hate to go through another hot, humid and sleepless night. At least there's some consolation now as there is this old and noisy back-up generator in my backyard. But hopefully, I won't need to use it. Keeping my fingers crossed...

Thai Vine Restaurant (2nd Attempt)

M had been quite eager to try Thai Vine as he read numerous raving reviews about it. After reading about their weekend lunch promotion last week, we decided to lunch there on Sunday.

The restaurant was not crowded when we went there, probably because most people preferred to dine at night where the ambience was nicer. We took a table at the small room right at the back. The interior decor was very nice. I decided to take the lunch special of Thai chicken noodle while M had his usual Thai Green Curry with rice. The waitress recommended us the "drink of the day", which was Beal Fruit Tea. I haven't heard of this tea before but a quick check on the Internet showed that this tea is quite famous in Thailand. So I am the ignorant one.. :p

The exterior view of the restaurant

The interior view

My chicken noodle was average.. as I couldn't really tell the difference between this and the local Vietnamese chicken noodle. M's curry was nice though it was not spicy at all! We should have requested for additional servings of chilli.. as being typical Singaporeans, we enjoy the "shiok" chilli factor. The Beal tea was quite nice though.. just a little bit too sweet.

The appetizers

My Thai chicken noodle

M's Green Chicken Curry

The Beal Fruit Tea

The condiments served in a pretty box

We decided to have some desserts to complete our meal and opted for the Red Ruby. They were yummy! The crunchy water chestnuts were coated with chewy glutinous flour before being cooked in a sweet coconut soup and topped with thin slices of jackfruit. I enjoyed it very much.

The Red Ruby

With Ice

The total meal came up to less than SGD 20 due to the lunch promotion. Considering the ambience was great, service was good and proximity of the place, I would say it was a decent meal.

Thai Vine Restaurant
31A Xuan Dieu
Tay Ho, Hanoi
Tel: 04-719 1448

Hoa Vien Chinese Restaurant

My friends and I decided to go to Hoa Vien (华园) Chinese Restaurant for lunch yesterday. Located at Heritage Hotel, Hoa Vien serves decent Northern Chinese food at reasonable prices. The restaurant is run by a Taiwanese lady who speaks fluent Mandarin. This place is very popular amongst the Chinese, Taiwanese and Singaporean population in Hanoi. In fact, most Taiwanese tour groups will bring the visitors here for meals. So I guess the food is quite authentic. :)

We decided to order a few dishes to share amongst the 6 of us. We had a noodle, some fried vegetables, cold cucumber salad and a plate of fried dumplings (锅贴) to share.

Stir fried potato strips with green capsicum

Cold cucumber salad

Stir fried melon with egg

Stir fried beancurd with pork

Pan fried dumplings!

The oily noodles

The fried dumplings were good (though I would have preferred steamed ones) but the vegetables were a bit too oily for my liking. We had wanted a mixed Szechuan noodles with pork but they gave us "mee goreng". The noodles were practically swimming in the oil and I took only a few bites.

The dishes came up to around VND 64,000 per person (total 6 pax) so it was really quite a decent meal. However, the dishes were really too oily for me today. Quite a disappointment.

Nha Hang Hoa Vien (Hoa Vien Restaurant)
625 Duong La Thanh
Ba Dinh, Hanoi
Tel: 04-7724347 (Heritage Hotel)
HP: 0904032244

Totoya (Kim Ma) Japanese Restaurant

It's unbelievable but we went for Japanese food again last Saturday.. Totoya was recommended by our Japanese friend but the branch near Vincom Towers has closed down. So we decided to try the Kim Ma branch instead.

The ambience of the restaurant was very cozy and nice, though a little warm. We took a corner seat in a small room. There were Japanese posters put up all around which reminded me of those little shops we frequented during our Japan tour.



The set lunch menu was rather comprehensive and inexpensive, ranging from USD 5 to 8. Considering that this included the main course with soup, appetizer, side dishes and coffee, it was pretty good value for money.

Appetizers...

Chawanmushi..

M ordered a unagi don set (yes, again!) while I had a maki set. We were enjoying our appetizers when a waitress brought us a california maki roll to share. I thought this was one of the starter items so chomped it down happily (turned out that this was a mistake but the waitress who thought we wanted an extra maki order.. so we had to pay for it).

California maki

Then my maki set came and at one glance, I knew I made the wrong choice. The maki rolls were very nice but it was too much rice for me in a meal. I felt so stuffed.. all because of the wrong california maki order.

My maki set

The unagi don was much much better than Ren. The unagi serving was generous (80% unagi and 20% egg) and delicious. M enjoyed himself quite a bit.

Unagi Don

Overall, we both enjoyed our lunch experience very much. This is a place I would definitely come back again.

Totoya (Kim Ma)
637 Kim Ma, Ba Dinh District
Hanoi
Tel: (04) 834 7844