Traveling Healthy while Chimming Everything

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Alright folks the results are in, at least for the first third of this little challenge. As most of you know I'm on a mission a mission from the food and fitness gods to eats everything but keep the pounds off. As you may or may not know I've become slighty obsessed with two things, exercising and eating. You would think these would counter act each other and I suppose they do, lets just be thankful I love them both othewise I'd either return to america a stick figure or come rolling in.

My missions now is to take my love for both of these things on the road. Food is such a huge part of exploring the culture and I wanted to try it all! But to prevent packing on the pounds after eating fried spring rolls, delicious crepes and chimming (Thaiglish for tasting) dog I couldn't just pop in a P90X video or hop on the old school elliptical in my village so I had to get creative.

Vietnam! The cuisine here is most recognized for its use of fresh ingredients, minimal oil usage (praise foodie gods), and use of herbs and veggies. Because of all that it is one of the healthiest cuisines out there. SCORE!! What I took away from it, you eat a lot of noodle dishes with various forms of meat sometimes, just sometimes, mystery meat.

Starting in Hoi An I wikitraveled what I should do here. And by what I should do, I mean what I should eat. First things first however. Remember how I was sharing a hotel with the lovely Bina? Well her fancy shmancy hotel had the most fabulous buffet ever! Sure Vietnamese food might be healthy, but not when it's all you can eat and I practically take that as a challenge!

Yogurt, muesli, fruits, and juice instantly consumed. Eggs and baguette, check and check. Strange mystery Vietnamese food, wish you were labelled because it was all delicious. Oh how the passion fruit tickled my taste buds and the delicious crunch of bread. Not just bread but baguette. And cheese! Sure fake gross processed cheese but I have no clue when I had cheese last. Vietnam was doing me fabulous and this was only meal one!

After eating my weight in everything delicious there is but one solution, to work it off. As fortunate for the food I was, I was ten times more fortunate to find that this very same hotel had a gYm. And by gym I mean one treadmill and weights too heavy for me to even do curls but hey a treadmill is all I needed so I popped on my gym clothes and burned off some calories!

Calling it a draw I headed into town for some exploration. This is what i ate in the following couple of day that i spent in Hoi An.

Wikitravels had told me to hit up White Rose Restaurant and so when hunger came (not until late afternoon thanks to breakfast) I did just that. Turns out I had had white rose during breakfast but I had a proper chimming at this restaurant which boasts the best white rose in town.

White rosé is a specialty in Hoi An. Banh bao vac is a shrimp dumpling made with white translucent dough which is formed into a pretty little rose. They are quite tasty, my favorite part being the fried, crispy onion sprinkled on it. To top it off the dipping sauce was to die for. I have a thing for sauces, they are all so tasty and delicious, this one being a bit spicy with some peanuts thrown in there. Add peanuts and I'm a happy girl.

Cao Lao is the other Hoi An specialty that must be consumers here and only here. What makes it so special is that a true cao Lao is made with water drawn from one and only one specific well. It's a noodle dish closer to the pasta family than the pho family and although not quite spicy enough for myself it was quite good.

Coi lan is one of the special little treats sold on the streets as you meander through town. It is made from sweet potato, green beans, sugar and coconut water. For 5,000 dong is there a better deal? The answer is oh yeah!

Banh mi simply made my night. First off the whole bread thing was new and exciting to me. When asked what I want on it I said everything. What did I get, who knows. Here we're veggies, mystery meat, chili sauce, and pâté. No doubt there was even more on there band whatever it was I enjoyed it.

While in Hoi An I had decided to splurge on a buffet meal at White Lotus. Please if you are considering doing this DON'T. it was expensive and the food was dreadful and cold on top of it! I tried the Banh Xeo which could have been tasty perhaps if they weren't cold. The soup was nothing special and the salad and fruit that was included was a few pierces of lettuce and a tiny built of watermelon. Ca Tim Kho Tu was what I was most interested in trying, the eggplant and tomato dish sounded fabulous, but it simply wasn't. I suppose attempting to get the most bang for my buck with a buffet was foolish, but I love me a good buffet! I suppose you win some and you loose some right?

Wonton

Hanoi

Banh bao apparently isn't traditionally Vietnamese but you can find it everywhere. It is basically just a steamed, spongy bun with different types of fillings inside. I avoided it until my last day in Hanoi when I decided to chim a vegetarian version. The vegetarian version had nothing in it all, I suppose they didn't exactly lie, but that was a major Disappointment.

My first official pho didn't occur until the last meal I had in Vietnam. Sure I might of had it by accident but despite pho stands being everywhere I hadn't yet gone to one. If Vietnam had a national dish I'd suppose it would be this one. Another noodle dish, it has salty broth, rice noodles, herbs and meat, I went for chicken. I then poured half a bottle of chili sauce into it to I've it a bit of excitement.

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