Bento #227 & a story

Once upon a time, there lived a red elephant king. His most prized possession was his precious tree which bore delicious juicy grapes. The king enjoyed his precious fruit tree very much as it gave him a lot of pleasure – eating, viewing and also making jams and enzyme wines (with the help of his wine makers).

To guard his precious tree from any thieves or unwanted guest, he hired the services of a ruthless grizzly bear. Truth be told that the king was in fact very demanding and selfish as he would not share the juicy fruit with anyone but himself.

Tired of the king’s selfish ways, his former advisor (the tomato head) planned to teach the king a lesson.

One dark night, the advisor quietly let a giant orange caterpillar called ‘Curly’ into the palace.

As the night was cool, the security grizzly bear-guard nodded off to sleep and was soon snoring deeply. The poor bear didn’t notice or hear Curly eating ALL the king's delicious sweet grapes!!

Needless to say the king was upset the next morning when he discovered the disappearance of his beloved tree and fruits!! He could only sulk at his loss!!

Ha ha....hope you enjoyed that blurp!!

Here's a close up view.

In the box comprise a ham and cheese sandwich, egg, grapes, cereal and soya sauce (in the container).

Eating in Hanoi

Been wanting to post this for a while now (more for my own record than anything). But if anyone is interested or wants/needs a closer 'zoom' on any of the cards, do let me know.

I have always enjoyed Vietnamese food although authentic local Vietnamese food needs some guidance least you get tummy woes. After all, the last thing you want to do on any trip is to make the toilet your permanent abode!

Here are the list of places I've been to and tried. All of them are good...just depends what you feel like :)

1. Eel noodles – Can get dry, soup or porridge style. I prefer the dry (kon-low) type. They add more herbs and roasted peanuts, nice. Note that it is a very Vietnamese style of eating together with authentic ‘squatting’ stools!!

2. Ashima – More posh style restaurant (i.e. proper chair and tables with waitress to cook and serve you). Similar to our Chinese steam boat but the only difference and speciality is the many different types of mushrooms available. I never imagined that there would be so many but we had more than 10 different types of mushrooms. They also serve noodles, vegetables, thin slices of meat and seafood.

3. Noodles with spring rolls – Vermicelli noodles dipped in sauce and eaten with deep fried parcel of spring rolls.

4. Hot pot and salad – I really liked the Vietnamese salad here. Very light and refreshing. We also tried the duck hot pot here. Not bad at all.

5. Pate with baguette – This was the HIGHLIGHT (in terms of food) of my trip!!! Super yummy – a slice of pate with freshly baked baguette. We packed them and ate it at a coffee specialist shop – freshly brewed coffee with freshly baked bread – I was truly in heaven!! If you are not keen on pate, the shop also sells fried egg with baguette; I didn’t try this but my friend who tried it said that the pate was better!!!

6. Wanton noodles (no card) – Located next door to the pate shop, there is a wanton noodles shop – dry or soup noodles with wanton, pork slices, fish or tripe (your choice). The noodle was nice, very springy! And unlike Malaysian dry (kon-low) wanton noodles, theirs is pale in colour as they do not use the thick dark soya sauce.

7. Vietnamese Chee Cheong Fun (no card) – Opposite along on the same road, there is a small shop selling this. I really enjoyed this tasty noodle. Its different from the Hong Kong style CCF that we are accustomed here. Bits of mince meat are added and rolled in the steamed rice noodles and then eaten dipped in sauce/soup.


As we were returning back to the office from lunch, I couldn’t help but take this picture – it was such a beautiful sight. Sigh…if only DH would present me with such a large bouquet of roses!! Ha ha ha