On eating out

I finally got around to trying KFC here, and that’s about the extent of what there is to report. The food doesn’t cost much less and tastes only slightly worse than KFC in America. The only interesting part is the service: instead of punk teenagers, we were welcomed by stewardess-like women who also held the door open when we left.

Still, the restaurant wasn’t as interesting as local eateries. My first night here, I had fish for dinner with my cousins at a small restaurant which, like most others, had three walls, food and cookware at the entrance instead of a kitchen, and rooms upstairs where the owners lived. Not knowing what to do with the fish bones as I ate, I looked up to see my cousin dropping them on the floor. “Go ahead,” he said, seeing my puzzled face. “You're supposed to.”

Only in the smaller restaurants – smaller than Starbucks small – is it permissible to leave trash on the floor, or in a small wastebasket if there's one near the table. But most restaurants are small.

The U.S. State Department started a website to consult before going abroad, and among its many pieces of wisdom is the suggestion to scrutinize a restaurant before patronizing it. If you notice the dining area is not very clean, the website warns, the kitchen is probably worse. Good advice. But it would have ruled out the majority of places where I've eaten so far.

I don’t mean it as a judgment or a complaint, it just is. I left California loaded with enough advice to know to be wary of the local fare. I remember the scene from Babel when Kate Blanchett orders bottled water in Morocco and then tosses the ice from her husband Brad Pitt's Coke. I've been warned that no matter how cautious I am, I will get food poisoning of some form or another.

The part I didn't anticipate is that it is not only visitors to Vietnam who are careful about their food. Wherever I've eaten (except at the larger restaurants) there have usually been tissues or napkins at the table so that patrons can wipe their chopsticks and bowls before eating.

And so far, no food poisoning!