Somebody Feed Phil (2018–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Saigon - full transcript
A tasty trip to Saigon kicks off with pho and banh mi. Phil gets up at dawn to harvest lotus stems and learns how real Vietnamese coffee is made.
This is not what I usually do!
Oy.
♪ A happy, hungry man ♪
♪ Is traveling
All across the sea and the land ♪
♪ He's trying to understand ♪
♪ The art of pasta, pork
Chicken, and lamb ♪
♪ He will drive to you ♪
♪ He will fly to you ♪
♪ He will sing for you ♪
♪ And he'll dance for you ♪
♪ He will laugh with you ♪
♪ And he'll cry for you ♪
♪ There's just one thing
He asks in return ♪
♪ Somebody feed, somebody feed ♪
♪ Can somebody ♪
♪ Somebody feed Phil? ♪
♪ Somebody feed him now ♪
Apocalypse Now.
Deer Hunter.
Platoon.
Coming Home.
Full Metal Jacket.
Casualties of War.
This is my frame of reference.
When somebody says,
"We're going to Vietnam..."
I don't... Do you get excited,
or do you get a little nervous?
Um... Why wouldn't I?
But every single person that I know...
that's been to Vietnam
in the last 20 years,
tells me it's their favorite place
they've ever been.
So how do you reconcile that?
You land in what used to be called Saigon.
It's now called Ho Chi Minh City.
The two names co-exist,
and the two ways of life kind of co-exist.
There's the street life that hasn't
changed in maybe a hundred years,
with remnants of French culture
after their decades of colonial rule.
And then there's a city
that's as modern as any,
that's almost futuristic.
And the first thing you notice
if you're walking down the street...
is that not only are people
making eye contact with you,
but they're smiling at you.
That's the first thing you notice.
And then you eat something.
Now, you can't go to Vietnam and
not try their two most famous exports,
pho and bánh mì.
I have a friend in L.A. named Vanessa,
and she found out
I was going to Ho Chi Minh.
And she said, "Oh, you gotta call
my friend Calvin Godfrey."
He's a writer who lives in the city
and used to give food tours.
This past year he won a James Beard award
for distinguished writing.
And he wants to take me to what
he thinks is the best pho in Saigon,
if not Vietnam,
at a place called Pho Bo Phu Gia.
It's cooked curbside in a really hot wok
using a method that excites me
more than a little.
There it is being made.
Right on the... Whoa!
Come on!
So he's wokking beef in...
- Beef fat.
- ...beef fat and garlic.
Yeah.
I was gonna call my kids that.
This is my favorite.
Of all the pho in the land?
I would say maybe,
yeah, in the whole country.
This is like talking about pizza
in America, right?
- It's like a huge... everybody...
- National dish.
Yes. Usually there's, like,
red beef added to your broth.
- It cooks in the broth.
- Yeah.
But here, they stir-fry it in beef fat.
So, the meat flavor,
it's delicious.
So the only thing
that's on the table here for you to add
is lime, chili, and pickled garlic.
- I want you to put in my bowl...
- Yeah.
- ...what you think I should have.
- Okay.
I think this is what you should have,
big time.
And then the other thing
that's great here is pepper.
The black pepper here is really spicy
and fragrant and delicious.
You can see in the broth here
there's nothing clear about that, right?
It's all delicious goodness.
- Oh, yeah.
- Is that good?
Oh...
- Oh, yeah.
- Yeah.
When you cook with beef fat and garlic,
guess what, it tastes amazing!
- That's great!
- Yeah, it's really good.
Really good! And by the way,
we're at breakfast.
Yes, this is technically breakfast.
I think this is probably developed
as a breakfast because...
- Fuel.
- Well, it takes all night to cook, right?
So imagine you're cooking a bowl of broth
in tropical heat in the middle of the day.
- It's a bummer, right?
- Makes total sense.
So if you cook all through the night,
have it ready first thing in the morning,
and then everybody gets this big,
fortifying breakfast.
This is carbs and protein.
Everything you need, I think.
Right.
It's easily the best pho I ever had...
because of exactly what you're saying.
- That's a soupy soup!
- Yeah.
It's not some clear, you know, dishwater.
That's soup.
Yeah, serious business.
I like soup.
Yeah.
I'm a big fan of soup myself.
The older I get...
Yeah. Yeah.
...the more I like soup.
But soup's not just for old people.
That's my campaign.
"Soup. Not just for old people anymore."
I would say you've got 90 million people
already on board here in Vietnam.
- The people are beautiful.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- And very friendly.
- Yeah.
Super sweet.
Everyone's got these gorgeous smiles.
That's true, man. I mean, they say
Thailand's the land of smiles,
but I don't think it has anything
on Vietnam.
What Vietnam is, is brand new, you know.
It's been open to Westerners
and the world, essentially,
gradually, for like 20 years,
so it feels like a brand-new place
where anything's kind of possible.
And one of the possibilities
I hadn't thought of was two breakfasts!
What Louis C.K. calls "Bang Bang."
Calvin takes me to his favorite
bánh mì place in all of Saigon,
which happens to be
just across the street.
I've had bánh mì in the United States.
They're all over the place now.
But I'm talking about,
it looks like a little hot dog cart.
It's smaller than a hot dog cart.
This lady's been doing this
her whole life.
And now her daughter works with her too.
Want a whole one,
or you want to split one?
- Split is good.
- Okay.
- But get exactly the way you get it.
- Okay.
What's a bánh mì?
Well, this one is pâté and cold cuts
and pickled cucumber and mayo and cilantro
on that incredible bread.
So, yeah, you want to see what's going on
over here? We've got dried pork.
It's called pork floss.
- It's like beef jerky, but it's flossy.
- And they call it floss.
Floss, yeah...
Gonna replace my regular floss
with pork floss.
- Yeah. Why not?
- My dentist will be thrilled with me.
- I think she's making two.
- Oh, that's okay. We'll live.
Aw. Cm n.
Wow.
This is exceptional.
The bread is so fresh and delicious.
The meat is delicious.
- Even the cilantro tastes better here.
- Yeah. Yeah, it's fresh.
Yeah.
I may finish this whole thing.
Go for it.
You wanted to share.
Calvin! You gave me two
of the best of that thing I ever had
- in five minutes!
- Yeah.
Stick with Calvin, everybody.
God, I love street food.
But perhaps you'd like something
with a kitchen.
So here's the best one I found in Saigon.
I meet a great chef, Nikky Tran.
She was born here.
She went to Houston,
came back, and now she does
like a mash-up of cuisine.
Her style is Vietnamese meets Cajun,
or what she calls "Vayjun,"
which sounds a little naughty.
- You're from here originally, but Houston.
- Yes.
How much Houston?
Seven years in Houston.
- The weather's the same, isn't it?
- Yes.
I think Houston is hotter than here.
By the way, how's this kitchen so cool?
You have air conditioning?
- No.
- Why am I so cool?
- Because we're by the river?
- By the river, yes.
Nikky's restaurant is called Cao Ba Quan.
It's on a tree-lined canal.
If you look just here,
you could say you're in Europe.
Ooh, yeah,
I think of Paris with the river.
We've already had a few coffees
while we're here.
And I love coffee.
Are you a coffee person?
No, I'm more like a beer person.
Why don't we have a couple
while we cook?
Sure.
Mazel tov!
- What are you making?
- I'm making a Five Color Beef Salad.
- Yeah?
- That's one of my signature dish here.
And I cook with a very different angle,
- because I wasn't trained to be a chef...
- Yeah.
...and also, I didn't learn
how to cook traditional food.
- Yeah.
- But I know the ingredients,
so I just put it my way.
Tell me if this is true.
You came to your restaurant opening night
and the chef did not come.
No, he never showed up.
I was thrown into the kitchen by accident.
But I think it turned out very well.
- It turned out well.
- Sometimes, right?
Sometimes the worst thing to ever happen
to us turns out to be the best thing.
- Yes. Yes. yes.
- Right?
- You had to learn because you had to.
- Yes.
It's like if you suddenly left
and I had to make the dish.
How about we do that?
I wouldn't be as nice
as you were probably to that guy.
- He's working for me now, though!
- Is that true?
- Yes.
- You forgave.
I forgave because he brought
the best thing to my life, you know?
- Is he here today?
- Yeah, he's here today.
Come on,
I'll punch him and then I'll hug him.
- Think I'll hug him and then punch him.
- Hug him and then punch him.
That's better,
because then, you trick him.
- So we have the beef here.
- Yeah.
This is the kumquat.
- We have orange kumquats in California.
- No, no, this, they're very different.
In California, the inside is sour
and the outside is sweet.
- And what's this one?
- This one is sour all the way.
Yes, it is.
- So, this mint, kumquat...
- Yeah. Yeah.
...Thai eggplant,
- lemongrass, and pineapple.
- Great.
- Now, the cooking.
- Yes.
Then we have garlic.
Love garlic!
- Sesame.
- Sesame.
This my salad dressing.
Wow.
You try it first,
in case you get a stomachache
or something, and then I won't eat it.
Ugh...
Wow, delicious!
Oh, my God!
So this thing
that would be sour on its own...
- Yes.
- ...is amazing with everything.
The sweet pineapple.
Eat the lemongrass with beef,
it tastes different.
You eat this with beef, and then once
you combine everything, you eat it,
it's like six salads in one.
Except I can't get six things
in the chopsticks at once,
so here's what I'll do.
I'll take as much as I can take in one,
- but I won't chew it...
- Okay.
...until I have another one in there.
Mmm. Mmm.
Mmm.
Now all together.
Absolutely delicious.
You should just call this Happy Salad.
Oh, my God.
It's such a good name.
- I think I should change the name.
- I won't charge you very much.
All right, you like seafood?
Nikky shows me her Vajun take
on a down-home crawfish boil.
I use the river prawn.
- Look at these beautiful legs!
- Yes.
These are blue legs.
Look at the color!
The meat is sweet and the texture
is a little bit like crawfish.
I still love crawfish,
but these taste better.
Butter.
Lot of butter in Vietnamese cooking?
- No.
- But in your cooking.
In my cooking.
- Garlic.
- Whole thing?
- Now we're talking.
- Garlic.
This is shrimp, crab,
and shrimp crawfish seasoning.
- So a little spicy, right?
- Yeah.
- So I'm gonna put this in.
- Oh.
Wow! Generous. Wow!
- The whole thing!
- Yeah, the whole thing.
Come on.
They look beautiful
when they're still alive.
- Yeah.
- Oh, my God.
- Too bad we have to eat them.
- We have to.
They had the bad luck to be delicious.
Wow.
The most important part...
- The sauce.
- ...is the sauce.
Here you go.
This my, uh, hot sauce. Homemade too.
Is there jalapeño in there?
- Yes. Jalapeño.
- Texas!
Texas.
So, I'm guessing...
that this bread
- is gonna be really good in that sauce.
- Yes. Yes, yes. You can try a little bit.
What the French left us here in Vietnam
are their baguettes.
This incredible bread.
They're a little crisp on the outside
and really soft on the inside.
This is perfect zabbaling material.
That's awesome.
First of all, I wasn't expecting it
to be that spicy,
but also the garlicky,
and then the shrimp in there.
Oh, my God, that's good.
You have to get your hands messy.
That's the way to eat it.
- Should I get in there?
- Yeah.
- Wow, it's hot.
- It's so funny
because this is
so American comfort food for me...
- Mm-hmm.
- ...and yet, spicy, like I'm here.
Wow.
You're making me happy.
That's funny.
I'm making you happy.
So should we call this
the Happy Shrimp too or...?
I have, like, curse words for this.
I'm gonna be here a while,
so, goodnight, everybody.
I was told,
"You're gonna get up at 4:00... a.m.
You're gonna go to a pond,
on an island...
in the river.
You're gonna go pick lotus stems
and roots and snails.
And you're gonna be in mud
up to your knees."
I said, when I heard this,
"You lost me at 4:00 a.m."
Nikky has a friend on the island
named Quy.
His neighbors help him in the pond
pulling out the stems and the roots
of the lotus flower,
because they cook with them.
What I don't know is that the pond
has a... floor of mud.
Not just mud,
"Oh, we're walking in the mud."
It's as if there's a monster under the mud
who's pulling your legs
and doesn't want you to walk.
It took every ounce of strength
to step once.
By four steps,
I needed to go to the hospital.
Hello, everybody!
- Hello.
- What a nice morning.
Good morning.
I never did anything like this in my life.
Ah.
So this is your first time?
Yes, I can say that this is my first time.
Uh-oh.
Help.
It's like walking in quicksand.
- Yeah.
- You got used to it. You can walk easily.
- Yeah, because we do this every day.
- You do this every day?
- Would you like to try to pick the stem?
- Yeah.
- I'll do anything.
- I'll show you how to do it.
There, that's one.
- You want me to grab that one?
- Yeah.
- I'll be there in an hour.
- Yeah. Yeah.
By the way,
here's something I just thought of.
- Are there snakes in here?
- Yes, sure.
But it's not the dangerous one.
- No?
- Yeah.
Okay. How will I know the difference
between what I'm pulling on and a snake?
So I learned this,
that the lotus is the symbol of Vietnam.
And it has great meaning for them
because this is something that grows
out of the mud and the dirt.
And with all the impurities around it,
it grows tall and grows beautiful.
And they use every part of it,
and it's a testament to their resilience
and their ingenuity and their practicality
and their beauty,
that this is the symbol.
- Here I go.
- Yes.
All right.
- All the way down?
- Yeah.
No! Not that one.
- This one.
- What did I pull?
Yes. Yeah, that's one.
- Thank you.
- You're welcome.
Should I tell you my rates now?
- Ah, so many snails.
- What is it?
- Oh, you're getting snails.
- Yes.
- Do we eat those too?
- Yeah.
- Great, escargot.
- Yeah.
I'm sure you enjoyed that reminder
of French colonialism.
- Are you trying to catching the snake?
- Oh, boy.
Yeah, that's not funny.
Not so good.
- Ah.
- Wow!
A very long one.
Yeah! Mine was very short.
I understand what you're saying.
- Oh, look at that.
- Here you are.
Ah.
The girl gets the flower.
It's more easy for you
to get the snails like this.
- They're right under the lily pads?
- Yeah. Yeah.
- I got it!
- Yeah!
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on.
- You are a farmer now.
- I am a farmer now.
Next to the lotus pond
is Quy's restaurant.
This is it.
What's special about this place is
you catch your own lunch.
- Use the shrimp for bait. Yeah.
- Shrimp is bait.
By the way, I'd be happy eating shrimp,
but that's okay.
This is how I know
that my lunch is gonna be fresh.
Good luck, Phil! Good luck!
- Big guy.
- No!
It's a coconut.
- A coconut.
- A lot of coconuts.
That's good.
I wanted to catch and release.
And sometimes miracles happen.
Yeah!
- Come on!
- Very good one!
- Awesome! Big one!
- Yeah.
- This one big.
- Catfish!
That's very fresh.
- I'm a pro now.
- Yeah, now you know how to do it.
Ooh! Yeah!
I'm a great fisherman, it looks like.
- Lucky day for you.
- Lucky day for me.
This reminds me of childhood.
Not my childhood,
someone else's childhood.
- Nice.
- Yes.
I'm like Huck Feldman.
Teach a man to fish,
you then gotta teach him how to cook.
This is Quy's wife, Hanh.
I'm going to try to stay out of her way.
- Now we cook what we have.
- Yeah.
- These are the stems from the pond.
- Yeah.
- And the...
- The snails and the catfish. My catfish.
- Yeah.
- I'm very proud.
You want to try?
Mmm. Very nice.
How about that? It's good.
I was expecting something inedible.
It was delicious.
That's a very nice, sweet, subtle flavor.
But then,
Hanh put it in with the garlic,
and as soon as you add garlic,
you know, I'd eat my pants.
While Quy and Hanh do the cooking,
I meet the real brains of the operation,
their daughters, Amy and Tina.
Dance party!
Do the twist!
High-five!
- High-five.
- High-five.
Amy, Tina, thank you for having me.
I feel very honored to be with you.
- Yeah. You're welcome.
- Thank you, Quy.
You're so welcome, Mr. Phil.
- Now, enjoy our lunch.
- Okay.
What's your favorite thing?
What do you like the most?
- The fish.
- You like the fish?
How do you say "fish" in Vietnamese?
- Cá?
- Cá.
- Cá.
- Cá trê.
- Cá trê.
- Cá trê?
Yeah, catfish.
- Cá trê?
- Cá trê.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
- It's good.
- Yeah.
- And this is... How do you say?
- c.
-c.
- c?
Yes.
Cá trê. c.
Yeah, very good!
- I'm gonna try your c.
- Yeah.
Can I help you?
- For you.
- Oh, thank you.
I had a little girl like you.
Then she got very big.
- How old is she now?
- She's 19.
Nineteen years old. Ah.
I like your age. It's very nice,
because you're still very sweet.
Amy and Tina,
they're heartbreakers, the two of them.
- Eeh!
- Ah!
The way they laughed
and were so open
and accepting of some new guy,
some new old guy.
- Yes.
- A foreigner.
Sweet as can be.
- You can sing?
- I can sing?
I can sing a little.
You want to teach me a song?
Like a song you sing in school?
- "Jingle Bells."
- "Jingle Bells"?
Yes.
♪ Jingle bells
Jingle bells ♪
- ♪ Jingle all the way ♪
- Well, come on!
♪ How much fun it is to ride ♪
♪ In a one-horse open sleigh ♪
It doesn't get better than that.
And public domain.
Good singer! Sing some more!
Eh!
- That's song's no good?
- Yeah, not good.
- No?
- No.
- Are those naughty words?
- Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah! Rebel!
- She wants to sing a song for you.
- Sing.
Traditional Vietnamese song.
Thank you.
How do you say "beautiful"?
"Beautiful," uh...
That was really one of the memorable
experiences that I've had...
is being with these people.
You know, you sit down and you eat
with people that you've just met,
and by the time you're done eating,
you're a little bit closer.
That's the idea, right?
You know what I think?
- This is my favorite restaurant.
- Mmm!
I'm with your beautiful family...
Yeah.
...in this lovely private room...
- and look where we are.
- We drink!
Cheers!
Where they are drinking beer...
You gotta understand how young
the people in this country are.
Sixty percent are under age 35.
And then, there were those
who were born here,
left for a few years and came back,
and others who just wanted to come here
for a fresh start.
Here are two such guys:
freelance food journalist Simon Stanley,
and photographer Vinh Dao.
They've collaborated together on food
feature stories and they eat for a living.
I think we're gonna get along very well.
We meet at Vinh's favorite place
on Vo Van Tan Road, Vy Da Quan.
- Cheers!
- How do you say it?
- Mt...
- Hai, ba, vô!
- Yeah.
- Hai, ba, vô?
- Mt...
- Mt...
- hai...
- hai...
- ba...
- ba...
- vô!
- vô!
Yeah, but honestly,
the "vô" part is all that matters.
You've got to be loud. So, you go...
Mt, hai, ba, vô!
Ooh!
Whoa!
There we go. Pork ribs.
Gotta love them.
- This is, uh... cá ba.
- Yeah?
Cá ba... Cá ba is actually
a unicorn leather jacket fish,
is the actual term of it.
Just go to town.
- Going in.
- Dig in!
- So, now...
- Yeah, what's up?
- We've hardly said hello.
- Yes.
You're from here,
you moved to Orange County.
Yep. I lived there for close to 30 years.
I was born in 1972.
We left in 1975, the day Saigon fell.
I don't want to bring the room down,
but was it hard to get out?
You know, it was a spur of the moment
kind of thing for my mom.
I think she waited until the last minute.
So, I'm Viet Kieu.
Have you heard that term before?
- Yeah. People born here. Left.
- Born here, then lived...
Left and essentially came back.
Viet Kieu, the translation
is "overseas Vietnamese."
- Cheers!
- Cheers!
- Vô!
- Cheers and vô.
This place has
a special place in my heart
because the ribs are easily
the best in town.
- Mmm!
- And this is why we brought you here.
Wish I could cook fish that well.
Beautifully grilled, right?
Yeah. It's always good to have friends
who love food, so...
- Vô.
- Vô.
- Vô.
- All right, your story!
I'm from outside of London.
And my wife was a teacher.
We just decided to go traveling
for a year. We gave up our jobs.
Traveled around the world.
We did ten countries in 12 months.
- Yeah.
- Vietnam was the third country.
And then, for the rest of the trip,
we always would find the Vietnamese
restaurant in the city we were in.
- You fell in love with this.
- The food, the atmosphere, the people.
I find the way in...
- is through the food.
- Yeah.
You can walk around, you look
at everything. "Nice. Interesting."
Then this happens to you.
"Maybe we should live here."
While we were eating,
there was a little street performance.
There's a...
Oh, we've got a bit of a...
- fire-eater.
- This thing called magic or karaoke.
And they will just move around
to each restaurant performing.
- And now he's got a...
- Now he's got a snake.
- What's that?
- This might put you off.
- What is that?
- It's a snake.
That's a live snake?
He should really try the ribs.
Everybody likes what they like.
Know what I like?
The idea of another Bang Bang.
We go down the road to try Simon's
favorite Vietnamese dish of all time.
I did a lot of research,
but I'd never heard of this one.
How did you know to come here?
Someone just said,
if you want bò lá lt...
- Yeah.
- ...come here.
And that's generally
how you find out about places.
And I came here and I just...
I keep coming back.
I've been to a lot of places since then,
but this is the one for me.
This is bò lá lt, which is beef,
lá lt meaning wrapped in betel leaf.
- Betel leaf?
- Which is apparently an aphrodisiac.
- Really?
- And slightly addictive,
which might be why I keep coming back.
So you get this really nice
aromatic, slightly sweet perfume
going through the meat.
It smells amazing.
I don't think there's much
inside the meat, just lemongrass,
- maybe a bit of garlic, but...
- Yeah.
...it's delicious.
This is Mrs. Lien,
and her daughter works with her too.
- Three.
- How long has she been here?
She started the restaurant
since I was very little,
like maybe eight years old.
Wow.
So it's been 20 years.
Which is a long time in Saigon,
the way that things move so quickly.
Trends change,
but really, it's these staples
that kind of bind that kind
of Vietnamese street food experience.
- Right.
- Yeah.
- Oh.
- Don't forget the sauce.
Cm n.
So she wouldn't tell me
exactly what's in the sauce,
but it's fish sauce
and maybe some kind of pineapple juice.
It's so good.
This is fantastic.
Thank you.
- It's Vietnam in a mouthful, I think.
- Insane.
If I lived here,
I'd eat a lot of bò lá lt.
Tao Dan Park in Ho Chi Minh
is their Central Park.
It's a remnant of the French Colonial era.
It's 25 acres of lush trees
and shaded walkways.
You know I love to check out a park
everywhere I go,
and this park
has a few really special things.
What can I get for you?
Coffee, no milk, no sugar.
- Hot? Hot coffee?
- Hot.
Coffee is a major thing here.
These are the second largest producers
of coffee in the world,
after Brazil.
If you get the real Vietnamese coffee,
you get a cup with a metal thing
on top of it called a phin.
The grounds are in there,
they pour the hot water in that.
It drips slowly, slowly, slowly
into this glass.
It takes a while.
So while the coffee drips, this drip
is going to wander around for a bit.
There's many beautiful areas of this park.
The most interesting is the bird section.
Guys come with their caged birds,
and they hang them up,
and it's loud
because all the birds are singing.
All the birds are singing.
These are birds I never saw before.
- Is this your bird?
- No, it's his.
- Does he come every day to the park?
- Yeah, they come every morning.
Just because he likes to be with the birds
and have his bird be with the other birds?
Yes. They let the birds sing,
and they learn from each other.
- They learn each other's songs?
- Each other's songs, yeah.
Wow.
It turns out that this is bird school.
They bring their birds
to learn new songs from the other birds,
so that when they take their bird home,
their bird now has some new material.
Coffee's ready!
This plastic cup is very hot.
There's a glass inside.
Oh, I see.
So, they make this hot water
so that this stays hot
while the coffee is dripping through.
That's genius.
Wow.
- Yeah. This one...
- But it tastes so good.
It makes your...
your heart beat faster.
Yes. Yes. It does.
Tell me your name. I didn't get your name.
- My name's Ronny.
- Ronny! Phil.
- Hi. Nice to meet you, Phil.
- Nice to meet you, Ronny.
The coffee's so delicious,
I order another,
but this time,
I take it the more traditional way.
The French, when they were here,
brought in condensed milk.
So, Vietnamese coffee
has the condensed milk in it,
and they add sugar to that even,
and that becomes...
It's just a coffee milkshake.
So I got that, I looked to my left,
and there's a lady.
She's making an egg sandwich
on the French baguette.
She's frying up eggs,
and she's got chilies.
She's putting on...
two kinds of sauces on...
Yes, please!
Wow.
That's really good.
Good!
Do you speak English?
Anybody? Where's Ha?
Our local producer Ha
comes in to help me.
This is my favorite thing to do.
Find a new place,
see what everybody's eating.
Mixing with the locals.
But thank God you're here
because I could never talk to them.
Do they come here every day?
Every day.
Do the men want to sit separate
from the women?
The men... I see the men.
They have front row seats to the birds.
- Bird raising is kind of a man interest.
- Really?
Like a man's hobby,
but not many women are doing it.
That's very interesting.
Generally, like older men too.
You can see like not many young men
- are raising birds.
- Right.
She would like you to try these crackers.
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
Thank you.
I think it's salt... salty crackers.
That was very nice of her.
I've got snacks. I've got coffee.
I've got birds.
Very nice ladies.
This is a... It's a good life.
They're all from Saigon?
They said that you look
a bit like Mr. Bean.
Oh, that's very flattering.
She said that you look
very young and very handsome.
About four hours southwest
of Ho Chi Minh City
is the Mekong Delta.
Now, a few years ago, two Frenchmen
met by luck here on a jungle tour
and fell in love with one of Vietnam's
greatest resources: the cacao bean.
These expats opened up Maison Marou
with what The New York Times called
"the best chocolate you've never tasted."
I hate that word "never."
- I'm Vincent.
- Hi, Vincent.
- Hi.
- Hi, I'm Sam.
Hi, Sam. Vincent and Sam.
I'm visiting different temples
in the places I go,
and this is gonna be my favorite
because it's a temple of chocolate.
- Of chocolate. Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Very cool.
- Tell me your story.
- We met on a weekend survival excursion.
- Yes.
- We are two of the survivors.
- Two survivors. Yeah.
No one else made it.
And then we found out
there was cacao growing in Vietnam.
No one was doing
anything interesting with it.
Typically, cacao is grown in the tropics,
and it's exported to a country,
and that's where it's produced.
And the people don't get
to enjoy their own product.
So we asked ourselves
why isn't anyone doing this here,
and there was no real reason.
It just had to be done.
The only thing we needed at that point
is to find out how to make chocolate.
- Oh, that's all.
- Right. So we...
Yeah, that's all.
Their hot chocolate
is supposed to be legendary.
I see they use the James Bond method:
shaken, not stirred.
Now, you're both from France.
- Yes.
- Yeah.
I'm a huge French hot chocolate fan.
- My favorite is Angelina in Paris.
- Angelina.
- You know it?
- Yes, we know it.
I see the smiles. Yes.
But now I'm excited to try this.
Yes.
Oh, yes.
Oh, boy.
There's like a floral note in there,
as well as the deep punch of chocolate.
There's a little, um,
tartness or fruitiness.
That's what we find
in the Vietnamese cacao.
It was spectacular.
I'm gonna say
it's every bit as good
as what I've had in France.
What's amazing about this place
is that every single thing you're eating
is made right here in the store.
They're roasting the cacao beans
right next to me.
They show me the roaster, how they do it.
I was thinking this would be some
cushy tour, then they put me to work.
- In the hopper!
- In the hopper.
This is how I get rid of the bodies.
I get to taste real cacao,
just having been roasted,
fresh right out of the thing, hot!
- It's the original hot chocolate.
- Yeah.
And there's a glass room
where they're crushing the cacao beans.
- This is where the grind happens.
- Yeah.
- Shall we pour some scoops?
- Sure.
I am Willy Wonka.
So the concept here is "bean to bar"
because we make our chocolate
straight from the beans.
In there, the chocolate has been grinding
for over 24 hours,
so you can see it's become completely...
- That is pure liquid chocolate.
- Yeah.
- Nothing else?
- Nothing added. Nothing.
Is it wrong that I'm a little, uh,
turned on by this?
I think I want to watch this
in slow motion with sexy music playing.
Oh, baby.
Oh, baby, baby.
And there's another room
where they're making chocolate.
I've walked into the chocolate factory
where you can eat everything they make
in the little factory.
This is my favorite way to spend the day.
It seems like every man, woman,
and child has a motorbike.
And it seems like
there's no rules whatsoever.
They go up on the sidewalk.
People cross a street,
and nobody's stopping.
And the traffic is crazy.
But I see old people on them.
I see families of four on them.
I see babies on them.
You know, the women are riding
sidesaddle, looking at their iPad.
You look at this
as an American and you go,
"This is the most unsafe thing
I've ever seen in my life."
This is everything
my parents told me not to do.
However, this is something
you don't know until you do it,
how cool it is.
You're in this sea of humanity,
and we're all doing the same thing.
We're all on the scooter.
And your neighbor
is not in a sealed-off car,
but out in the open.
You can high-five somebody,
you can wave to somebody.
Hello.
Wow.
This is a great way to see the place.
It really is.
Nikky wanted to take me
to her favorite breakfast place,
and her favorite breakfast
is something called "broken rice."
What makes it broken?
Because on the process
of producing the rice,
they broke it apart.
And years and years ago, you know,
we only got broken rice. The bad quality.
So people would make a dish out of it,
and it's very Saigonese.
Everyone in Saigon loves this dish.
It goes very well with the pork chop
and the shredded pork skin.
All right, I'm in.
But can I get a coffee too?
Of course.
They make the best coffee over here.
- This is your favorite place?
- Yes, that's my favorite place.
- How do you say that?
- Hoang Minh.
- Hoang Minh.
- Yeah.
- Hoang Minh.
- How's my pronunciation so far?
Good? And then...
- Yeah.
- Thank you.
- Like we say, "Come on."
- Yeah, it's just like "come on."
- Just like "come on."
- Just like "come on."
- Come on, Vietnam!
- Yeah, come on, Vietnam!
- That should be the slogan.
- Yeah. Wow!
- Right? I should make that.
- Yes! Yes!
"Come on, Vietnam!"
Ah. Cm n.
- That's a little bit strong, so...
- We'll see about that.
Ah!
Get all fired up.
Now I go...
I don't need a motorbike!
How's my pork doing, mister?
Almost. Almost. Almost.
- So pork skin, pork...
- Pork skin.
- ...belly...
- Yes.
- ...pork cake...
- Pork cake.
...and pork chop.
- Yes.
- And this is called "the kosher special."
And everything is better
with an egg on top.
This piece looks good.
What if I do this?
- Yeah, even better.
- Yeah, baby!
Yeah!
Mmm. Wow.
That's just great barbecued pork.
Yes, on the rice.
- Well, where's the rice? Underneath.
- Yeah, underneath.
I love that. That's amazing.
It looks like rice,
but it tastes different.
- It's almost nuttier.
- Yeah.
Do you like it?
Yeah!
That was great.
Oh, nice tattoo. Who's that?
- That's my wife.
- Beautiful!
If that's what she looks like
on the tattoo,
imagine how she looks in person.
She's right here.
She's right here? Let me see
if the tattoo matches the person.
- Yeah, it's very good.
- Oh, thank you.
All right, I'd love to stay more with you,
but we were born to ride.
So, cue music.
Let's rock!
Yah!
Ah!
Oy.
- Hello.
- Oh, hello!
Hello, Vietnam!
Yes, exactly!
You took the movie Good Morning, Vietnam
and changed it now to Hello, Vietnam.
So it's even better now.
Hey, you want to see my fruit of the day?
- Ready?
- Yes.
- Ooh, what is that?
- A rambutan.
Can you eat that stuff
with the pricks on it there?
No, I try to avoid them whenever possible.
Uh...
- Oh, okay.
- But you cut...
You're gonna cut yourself.
No, this is a butter knife.
It's a butter knife.
You peel that.
- Yes.
- Look inside.
- It's like that...
- It's like a...
Like a lychee, right? And then...
It looks like a lychee nut. Yeah.
Oh, I see...
And it's soft?
He can't talk now.
Sweet and juicy and fantastic.
Oh, you know what's great?
They'll take a coconut,
and they'll put it
in the refrigerator for a while,
and the water in the coconut
is like this delicious ice-cold drink.
It's so refreshing.
When I buy a coconut,
I always drink the inside
before I even crack it open.
Are you buying a lot of coconuts?
- No. Not many. Because...
- He hasn't bought any.
When I was in the Philippines,
I used to eat a lot of coconuts.
- Yeah?
- You had to watch it,
they could fall onto your head
from carrying... falling down on you.
- I have a feeling they did.
- You have to be careful.
So we go out to an island in Saigon,
and on this island are these ponds.
The moment you step into this pond,
you sink up to your knee in mud.
So I'm hanging on to your other son,
Mr. Producer, to help me,
and Richard loses his balance.
Now, I can barely stand. He's fallen over.
I can't pull him up.
And I'm pulling on Richard,
pulling, pulling, and Richard says...
Go without me!
It's like a sitcom.
So, I left him there.
So you don't see him anymore.
Anything else I need to tell
these Jewish people?
There was a woman
that said she was here from the Orient.
And she's Jewish,
and they called her an Orienta.
Oh, Max.
We'll see how many letters we get
from both Asian people and Jewish people
that you managed to offend in one word.
All right. Sleep well.
- You sleep well.
- No, it's morning there.
- Oh, it's morning already?
- He just woke up.
It's already the next morning.
Goodbye, thank you, take care.
Today, we're leaving Saigon
and heading a couple hours south
to a town called Vũng Tàu.
I chose to take the scenic route.
So we went down
through the Saigon River.
And now we're crossing Cam Ranh Bay.
If this door opens, goodbye!
I don't know anything about this place.
I'm exactly like Rick Steves,
without the knowledge or the sex appeal.
Beautiful, look at that.
I'm just in time to catch
the sunset, but I want a better view.
Wee! Here we go!
Look at the sunset.
I have to say, the last time I was in
as romantic and beautiful a situation,
it was at the top of a Ferris wheel
in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris...
with a cameraman named Marshall.
We're back. We're back.
My brother's in-laws
have taught English...
uh, when they vacationed here in Vietnam.
And so, they've arranged for me
to teach a fourth grade class
a little English.
I'm scared to death.
Hello, teacher.
Hello. You said hello.
You're already better at English
than I am at Vietnamese,
but I know how to say thank you.
It's cm n, right?
Yes.
You know in English
what "come on" means?
When you want someone to come with you,
you say, "Come on."
And sometimes when I eat something
that's very delicious, I say, "Come on!"
Like, that's so good.
But I like knowing that in Vietnamese
it means "thank you."
So I say cm n to you
for letting me come and see you today.
Can I learn your names?
- Yes.
- Will you tell me your name?
My name is Kevin.
Kevin. I'm Phil.
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you, too.
- What's your name?
- My name is Joy.
- And what makes you happy?
- Ice cream.
Makes me happy, too.
- My name is Kitty.
- And what's your favorite thing?
- I like play basketball.
- Yeah?
- Are you a good basketball player?
- No.
What's your name?
- My name Max.
- Max?!
My father's name is Max.
Are you my father?
No!
I spoke to your teacher,
your regular teacher,
and he told me that you were working on...
food and parties.
- Is that right?
- Yes.
These just happen to be
two of my favorite things.
I have an idea.
- You want to do a race?
- Yes.
- You know food words in English?
- Yes.
You're gonna come up to the board.
We're gonna have two minutes,
and whichever team can write
the most English food words wins.
- Are you ready?
- Yes!
One, two, three, go!
Meat... ball!
Excellent!
Mini pizza! Not regular pizza!
Apple! Apple pizza!
I never heard of that,
but it sounds delicious!
Hamburger! Very American!
Spaghetti! Italiano!
Cheeseball! That's me.
Forty-five seconds left!
Hot dog!
Come on, we're running out of time!
Ice cream. Excellent.
Time's up. Time's up.
Wow.
All right, we count them up. This side...
One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight, nine.
One, two, three, four, five, six,
- seven, eight, nine, ten!
- Ten!
Can I have everybody sitting right here?
Come forward. Yeah, come together.
- Will you sing with me?
- Yes.
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
- ♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
- ♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
- ♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
- ♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
Play the music!
Let me see your moves!
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! You got it!
You know what we need? We need treats!
I wish we had a lot of ice cream!
I wish we had a lot of ice cream!
Oh!
- This is so good.
- How do you say "yummy" in Vietnamese?
Ngon!
Ngon!
I love ice cream.
You know what I love more than ice cream?
Meeting you.
Meeting you.
Meeting you even. Even you!
Thank you, Joy.
Today's word is "bribery."
You start to see what the personal
benefits could be of reaching out,
of connecting with people
you never thought you'd meet,
let alone fall in love with.
Lin-Manuel Miranda said,
"Love is love is love is love is love."
I think we can also say, "Kids are kids
are kids are kids are kids."
My new expat friends
who now live in Saigon
tell me most people they know here
don't talk about the war much.
Not just for practical, pragmatic reasons,
but because it's in their nature
to move forward, to persevere.
It seems to be the national character.
No place should ever be defined by war.
Vietnam is a country
with a rich cultural history.
And beauty.
And food.
And future.
It's defined by these people.
♪ Somebody, please, somebody, please ♪
♪ Somebody, please, somebody, please ♪
♪ Somebody, please, somebody, please ♪
♪ Somebody ♪
♪ Somebody, please, somebody, please ♪
♪ Somebody ♪
♪ Somebody, please, somebody, please ♪
♪ Somebody ♪
♪ Somebody, please, somebody, please ♪
♪ Somebody ♪
♪ Somebody feed, somebody feed ♪
♪ Somebody ♪
♪ Somebody feed, somebody feed ♪
♪ Can somebody ♪
♪ Somebody feed Phil? ♪
♪ Oh, please, somebody ♪
♪ Somebody feed Phil ♪
♪ Somebody feed him now ♪
Oy.
♪ A happy, hungry man ♪
♪ Is traveling
All across the sea and the land ♪
♪ He's trying to understand ♪
♪ The art of pasta, pork
Chicken, and lamb ♪
♪ He will drive to you ♪
♪ He will fly to you ♪
♪ He will sing for you ♪
♪ And he'll dance for you ♪
♪ He will laugh with you ♪
♪ And he'll cry for you ♪
♪ There's just one thing
He asks in return ♪
♪ Somebody feed, somebody feed ♪
♪ Can somebody ♪
♪ Somebody feed Phil? ♪
♪ Somebody feed him now ♪
Apocalypse Now.
Deer Hunter.
Platoon.
Coming Home.
Full Metal Jacket.
Casualties of War.
This is my frame of reference.
When somebody says,
"We're going to Vietnam..."
I don't... Do you get excited,
or do you get a little nervous?
Um... Why wouldn't I?
But every single person that I know...
that's been to Vietnam
in the last 20 years,
tells me it's their favorite place
they've ever been.
So how do you reconcile that?
You land in what used to be called Saigon.
It's now called Ho Chi Minh City.
The two names co-exist,
and the two ways of life kind of co-exist.
There's the street life that hasn't
changed in maybe a hundred years,
with remnants of French culture
after their decades of colonial rule.
And then there's a city
that's as modern as any,
that's almost futuristic.
And the first thing you notice
if you're walking down the street...
is that not only are people
making eye contact with you,
but they're smiling at you.
That's the first thing you notice.
And then you eat something.
Now, you can't go to Vietnam and
not try their two most famous exports,
pho and bánh mì.
I have a friend in L.A. named Vanessa,
and she found out
I was going to Ho Chi Minh.
And she said, "Oh, you gotta call
my friend Calvin Godfrey."
He's a writer who lives in the city
and used to give food tours.
This past year he won a James Beard award
for distinguished writing.
And he wants to take me to what
he thinks is the best pho in Saigon,
if not Vietnam,
at a place called Pho Bo Phu Gia.
It's cooked curbside in a really hot wok
using a method that excites me
more than a little.
There it is being made.
Right on the... Whoa!
Come on!
So he's wokking beef in...
- Beef fat.
- ...beef fat and garlic.
Yeah.
I was gonna call my kids that.
This is my favorite.
Of all the pho in the land?
I would say maybe,
yeah, in the whole country.
This is like talking about pizza
in America, right?
- It's like a huge... everybody...
- National dish.
Yes. Usually there's, like,
red beef added to your broth.
- It cooks in the broth.
- Yeah.
But here, they stir-fry it in beef fat.
So, the meat flavor,
it's delicious.
So the only thing
that's on the table here for you to add
is lime, chili, and pickled garlic.
- I want you to put in my bowl...
- Yeah.
- ...what you think I should have.
- Okay.
I think this is what you should have,
big time.
And then the other thing
that's great here is pepper.
The black pepper here is really spicy
and fragrant and delicious.
You can see in the broth here
there's nothing clear about that, right?
It's all delicious goodness.
- Oh, yeah.
- Is that good?
Oh...
- Oh, yeah.
- Yeah.
When you cook with beef fat and garlic,
guess what, it tastes amazing!
- That's great!
- Yeah, it's really good.
Really good! And by the way,
we're at breakfast.
Yes, this is technically breakfast.
I think this is probably developed
as a breakfast because...
- Fuel.
- Well, it takes all night to cook, right?
So imagine you're cooking a bowl of broth
in tropical heat in the middle of the day.
- It's a bummer, right?
- Makes total sense.
So if you cook all through the night,
have it ready first thing in the morning,
and then everybody gets this big,
fortifying breakfast.
This is carbs and protein.
Everything you need, I think.
Right.
It's easily the best pho I ever had...
because of exactly what you're saying.
- That's a soupy soup!
- Yeah.
It's not some clear, you know, dishwater.
That's soup.
Yeah, serious business.
I like soup.
Yeah.
I'm a big fan of soup myself.
The older I get...
Yeah. Yeah.
...the more I like soup.
But soup's not just for old people.
That's my campaign.
"Soup. Not just for old people anymore."
I would say you've got 90 million people
already on board here in Vietnam.
- The people are beautiful.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- And very friendly.
- Yeah.
Super sweet.
Everyone's got these gorgeous smiles.
That's true, man. I mean, they say
Thailand's the land of smiles,
but I don't think it has anything
on Vietnam.
What Vietnam is, is brand new, you know.
It's been open to Westerners
and the world, essentially,
gradually, for like 20 years,
so it feels like a brand-new place
where anything's kind of possible.
And one of the possibilities
I hadn't thought of was two breakfasts!
What Louis C.K. calls "Bang Bang."
Calvin takes me to his favorite
bánh mì place in all of Saigon,
which happens to be
just across the street.
I've had bánh mì in the United States.
They're all over the place now.
But I'm talking about,
it looks like a little hot dog cart.
It's smaller than a hot dog cart.
This lady's been doing this
her whole life.
And now her daughter works with her too.
Want a whole one,
or you want to split one?
- Split is good.
- Okay.
- But get exactly the way you get it.
- Okay.
What's a bánh mì?
Well, this one is pâté and cold cuts
and pickled cucumber and mayo and cilantro
on that incredible bread.
So, yeah, you want to see what's going on
over here? We've got dried pork.
It's called pork floss.
- It's like beef jerky, but it's flossy.
- And they call it floss.
Floss, yeah...
Gonna replace my regular floss
with pork floss.
- Yeah. Why not?
- My dentist will be thrilled with me.
- I think she's making two.
- Oh, that's okay. We'll live.
Aw. Cm n.
Wow.
This is exceptional.
The bread is so fresh and delicious.
The meat is delicious.
- Even the cilantro tastes better here.
- Yeah. Yeah, it's fresh.
Yeah.
I may finish this whole thing.
Go for it.
You wanted to share.
Calvin! You gave me two
of the best of that thing I ever had
- in five minutes!
- Yeah.
Stick with Calvin, everybody.
God, I love street food.
But perhaps you'd like something
with a kitchen.
So here's the best one I found in Saigon.
I meet a great chef, Nikky Tran.
She was born here.
She went to Houston,
came back, and now she does
like a mash-up of cuisine.
Her style is Vietnamese meets Cajun,
or what she calls "Vayjun,"
which sounds a little naughty.
- You're from here originally, but Houston.
- Yes.
How much Houston?
Seven years in Houston.
- The weather's the same, isn't it?
- Yes.
I think Houston is hotter than here.
By the way, how's this kitchen so cool?
You have air conditioning?
- No.
- Why am I so cool?
- Because we're by the river?
- By the river, yes.
Nikky's restaurant is called Cao Ba Quan.
It's on a tree-lined canal.
If you look just here,
you could say you're in Europe.
Ooh, yeah,
I think of Paris with the river.
We've already had a few coffees
while we're here.
And I love coffee.
Are you a coffee person?
No, I'm more like a beer person.
Why don't we have a couple
while we cook?
Sure.
Mazel tov!
- What are you making?
- I'm making a Five Color Beef Salad.
- Yeah?
- That's one of my signature dish here.
And I cook with a very different angle,
- because I wasn't trained to be a chef...
- Yeah.
...and also, I didn't learn
how to cook traditional food.
- Yeah.
- But I know the ingredients,
so I just put it my way.
Tell me if this is true.
You came to your restaurant opening night
and the chef did not come.
No, he never showed up.
I was thrown into the kitchen by accident.
But I think it turned out very well.
- It turned out well.
- Sometimes, right?
Sometimes the worst thing to ever happen
to us turns out to be the best thing.
- Yes. Yes. yes.
- Right?
- You had to learn because you had to.
- Yes.
It's like if you suddenly left
and I had to make the dish.
How about we do that?
I wouldn't be as nice
as you were probably to that guy.
- He's working for me now, though!
- Is that true?
- Yes.
- You forgave.
I forgave because he brought
the best thing to my life, you know?
- Is he here today?
- Yeah, he's here today.
Come on,
I'll punch him and then I'll hug him.
- Think I'll hug him and then punch him.
- Hug him and then punch him.
That's better,
because then, you trick him.
- So we have the beef here.
- Yeah.
This is the kumquat.
- We have orange kumquats in California.
- No, no, this, they're very different.
In California, the inside is sour
and the outside is sweet.
- And what's this one?
- This one is sour all the way.
Yes, it is.
- So, this mint, kumquat...
- Yeah. Yeah.
...Thai eggplant,
- lemongrass, and pineapple.
- Great.
- Now, the cooking.
- Yes.
Then we have garlic.
Love garlic!
- Sesame.
- Sesame.
This my salad dressing.
Wow.
You try it first,
in case you get a stomachache
or something, and then I won't eat it.
Ugh...
Wow, delicious!
Oh, my God!
So this thing
that would be sour on its own...
- Yes.
- ...is amazing with everything.
The sweet pineapple.
Eat the lemongrass with beef,
it tastes different.
You eat this with beef, and then once
you combine everything, you eat it,
it's like six salads in one.
Except I can't get six things
in the chopsticks at once,
so here's what I'll do.
I'll take as much as I can take in one,
- but I won't chew it...
- Okay.
...until I have another one in there.
Mmm. Mmm.
Mmm.
Now all together.
Absolutely delicious.
You should just call this Happy Salad.
Oh, my God.
It's such a good name.
- I think I should change the name.
- I won't charge you very much.
All right, you like seafood?
Nikky shows me her Vajun take
on a down-home crawfish boil.
I use the river prawn.
- Look at these beautiful legs!
- Yes.
These are blue legs.
Look at the color!
The meat is sweet and the texture
is a little bit like crawfish.
I still love crawfish,
but these taste better.
Butter.
Lot of butter in Vietnamese cooking?
- No.
- But in your cooking.
In my cooking.
- Garlic.
- Whole thing?
- Now we're talking.
- Garlic.
This is shrimp, crab,
and shrimp crawfish seasoning.
- So a little spicy, right?
- Yeah.
- So I'm gonna put this in.
- Oh.
Wow! Generous. Wow!
- The whole thing!
- Yeah, the whole thing.
Come on.
They look beautiful
when they're still alive.
- Yeah.
- Oh, my God.
- Too bad we have to eat them.
- We have to.
They had the bad luck to be delicious.
Wow.
The most important part...
- The sauce.
- ...is the sauce.
Here you go.
This my, uh, hot sauce. Homemade too.
Is there jalapeño in there?
- Yes. Jalapeño.
- Texas!
Texas.
So, I'm guessing...
that this bread
- is gonna be really good in that sauce.
- Yes. Yes, yes. You can try a little bit.
What the French left us here in Vietnam
are their baguettes.
This incredible bread.
They're a little crisp on the outside
and really soft on the inside.
This is perfect zabbaling material.
That's awesome.
First of all, I wasn't expecting it
to be that spicy,
but also the garlicky,
and then the shrimp in there.
Oh, my God, that's good.
You have to get your hands messy.
That's the way to eat it.
- Should I get in there?
- Yeah.
- Wow, it's hot.
- It's so funny
because this is
so American comfort food for me...
- Mm-hmm.
- ...and yet, spicy, like I'm here.
Wow.
You're making me happy.
That's funny.
I'm making you happy.
So should we call this
the Happy Shrimp too or...?
I have, like, curse words for this.
I'm gonna be here a while,
so, goodnight, everybody.
I was told,
"You're gonna get up at 4:00... a.m.
You're gonna go to a pond,
on an island...
in the river.
You're gonna go pick lotus stems
and roots and snails.
And you're gonna be in mud
up to your knees."
I said, when I heard this,
"You lost me at 4:00 a.m."
Nikky has a friend on the island
named Quy.
His neighbors help him in the pond
pulling out the stems and the roots
of the lotus flower,
because they cook with them.
What I don't know is that the pond
has a... floor of mud.
Not just mud,
"Oh, we're walking in the mud."
It's as if there's a monster under the mud
who's pulling your legs
and doesn't want you to walk.
It took every ounce of strength
to step once.
By four steps,
I needed to go to the hospital.
Hello, everybody!
- Hello.
- What a nice morning.
Good morning.
I never did anything like this in my life.
Ah.
So this is your first time?
Yes, I can say that this is my first time.
Uh-oh.
Help.
It's like walking in quicksand.
- Yeah.
- You got used to it. You can walk easily.
- Yeah, because we do this every day.
- You do this every day?
- Would you like to try to pick the stem?
- Yeah.
- I'll do anything.
- I'll show you how to do it.
There, that's one.
- You want me to grab that one?
- Yeah.
- I'll be there in an hour.
- Yeah. Yeah.
By the way,
here's something I just thought of.
- Are there snakes in here?
- Yes, sure.
But it's not the dangerous one.
- No?
- Yeah.
Okay. How will I know the difference
between what I'm pulling on and a snake?
So I learned this,
that the lotus is the symbol of Vietnam.
And it has great meaning for them
because this is something that grows
out of the mud and the dirt.
And with all the impurities around it,
it grows tall and grows beautiful.
And they use every part of it,
and it's a testament to their resilience
and their ingenuity and their practicality
and their beauty,
that this is the symbol.
- Here I go.
- Yes.
All right.
- All the way down?
- Yeah.
No! Not that one.
- This one.
- What did I pull?
Yes. Yeah, that's one.
- Thank you.
- You're welcome.
Should I tell you my rates now?
- Ah, so many snails.
- What is it?
- Oh, you're getting snails.
- Yes.
- Do we eat those too?
- Yeah.
- Great, escargot.
- Yeah.
I'm sure you enjoyed that reminder
of French colonialism.
- Are you trying to catching the snake?
- Oh, boy.
Yeah, that's not funny.
Not so good.
- Ah.
- Wow!
A very long one.
Yeah! Mine was very short.
I understand what you're saying.
- Oh, look at that.
- Here you are.
Ah.
The girl gets the flower.
It's more easy for you
to get the snails like this.
- They're right under the lily pads?
- Yeah. Yeah.
- I got it!
- Yeah!
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on.
- You are a farmer now.
- I am a farmer now.
Next to the lotus pond
is Quy's restaurant.
This is it.
What's special about this place is
you catch your own lunch.
- Use the shrimp for bait. Yeah.
- Shrimp is bait.
By the way, I'd be happy eating shrimp,
but that's okay.
This is how I know
that my lunch is gonna be fresh.
Good luck, Phil! Good luck!
- Big guy.
- No!
It's a coconut.
- A coconut.
- A lot of coconuts.
That's good.
I wanted to catch and release.
And sometimes miracles happen.
Yeah!
- Come on!
- Very good one!
- Awesome! Big one!
- Yeah.
- This one big.
- Catfish!
That's very fresh.
- I'm a pro now.
- Yeah, now you know how to do it.
Ooh! Yeah!
I'm a great fisherman, it looks like.
- Lucky day for you.
- Lucky day for me.
This reminds me of childhood.
Not my childhood,
someone else's childhood.
- Nice.
- Yes.
I'm like Huck Feldman.
Teach a man to fish,
you then gotta teach him how to cook.
This is Quy's wife, Hanh.
I'm going to try to stay out of her way.
- Now we cook what we have.
- Yeah.
- These are the stems from the pond.
- Yeah.
- And the...
- The snails and the catfish. My catfish.
- Yeah.
- I'm very proud.
You want to try?
Mmm. Very nice.
How about that? It's good.
I was expecting something inedible.
It was delicious.
That's a very nice, sweet, subtle flavor.
But then,
Hanh put it in with the garlic,
and as soon as you add garlic,
you know, I'd eat my pants.
While Quy and Hanh do the cooking,
I meet the real brains of the operation,
their daughters, Amy and Tina.
Dance party!
Do the twist!
High-five!
- High-five.
- High-five.
Amy, Tina, thank you for having me.
I feel very honored to be with you.
- Yeah. You're welcome.
- Thank you, Quy.
You're so welcome, Mr. Phil.
- Now, enjoy our lunch.
- Okay.
What's your favorite thing?
What do you like the most?
- The fish.
- You like the fish?
How do you say "fish" in Vietnamese?
- Cá?
- Cá.
- Cá.
- Cá trê.
- Cá trê.
- Cá trê?
Yeah, catfish.
- Cá trê?
- Cá trê.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
- It's good.
- Yeah.
- And this is... How do you say?
- c.
-c.
- c?
Yes.
Cá trê. c.
Yeah, very good!
- I'm gonna try your c.
- Yeah.
Can I help you?
- For you.
- Oh, thank you.
I had a little girl like you.
Then she got very big.
- How old is she now?
- She's 19.
Nineteen years old. Ah.
I like your age. It's very nice,
because you're still very sweet.
Amy and Tina,
they're heartbreakers, the two of them.
- Eeh!
- Ah!
The way they laughed
and were so open
and accepting of some new guy,
some new old guy.
- Yes.
- A foreigner.
Sweet as can be.
- You can sing?
- I can sing?
I can sing a little.
You want to teach me a song?
Like a song you sing in school?
- "Jingle Bells."
- "Jingle Bells"?
Yes.
♪ Jingle bells
Jingle bells ♪
- ♪ Jingle all the way ♪
- Well, come on!
♪ How much fun it is to ride ♪
♪ In a one-horse open sleigh ♪
It doesn't get better than that.
And public domain.
Good singer! Sing some more!
Eh!
- That's song's no good?
- Yeah, not good.
- No?
- No.
- Are those naughty words?
- Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah! Rebel!
- She wants to sing a song for you.
- Sing.
Traditional Vietnamese song.
Thank you.
How do you say "beautiful"?
"Beautiful," uh...
That was really one of the memorable
experiences that I've had...
is being with these people.
You know, you sit down and you eat
with people that you've just met,
and by the time you're done eating,
you're a little bit closer.
That's the idea, right?
You know what I think?
- This is my favorite restaurant.
- Mmm!
I'm with your beautiful family...
Yeah.
...in this lovely private room...
- and look where we are.
- We drink!
Cheers!
Where they are drinking beer...
You gotta understand how young
the people in this country are.
Sixty percent are under age 35.
And then, there were those
who were born here,
left for a few years and came back,
and others who just wanted to come here
for a fresh start.
Here are two such guys:
freelance food journalist Simon Stanley,
and photographer Vinh Dao.
They've collaborated together on food
feature stories and they eat for a living.
I think we're gonna get along very well.
We meet at Vinh's favorite place
on Vo Van Tan Road, Vy Da Quan.
- Cheers!
- How do you say it?
- Mt...
- Hai, ba, vô!
- Yeah.
- Hai, ba, vô?
- Mt...
- Mt...
- hai...
- hai...
- ba...
- ba...
- vô!
- vô!
Yeah, but honestly,
the "vô" part is all that matters.
You've got to be loud. So, you go...
Mt, hai, ba, vô!
Ooh!
Whoa!
There we go. Pork ribs.
Gotta love them.
- This is, uh... cá ba.
- Yeah?
Cá ba... Cá ba is actually
a unicorn leather jacket fish,
is the actual term of it.
Just go to town.
- Going in.
- Dig in!
- So, now...
- Yeah, what's up?
- We've hardly said hello.
- Yes.
You're from here,
you moved to Orange County.
Yep. I lived there for close to 30 years.
I was born in 1972.
We left in 1975, the day Saigon fell.
I don't want to bring the room down,
but was it hard to get out?
You know, it was a spur of the moment
kind of thing for my mom.
I think she waited until the last minute.
So, I'm Viet Kieu.
Have you heard that term before?
- Yeah. People born here. Left.
- Born here, then lived...
Left and essentially came back.
Viet Kieu, the translation
is "overseas Vietnamese."
- Cheers!
- Cheers!
- Vô!
- Cheers and vô.
This place has
a special place in my heart
because the ribs are easily
the best in town.
- Mmm!
- And this is why we brought you here.
Wish I could cook fish that well.
Beautifully grilled, right?
Yeah. It's always good to have friends
who love food, so...
- Vô.
- Vô.
- Vô.
- All right, your story!
I'm from outside of London.
And my wife was a teacher.
We just decided to go traveling
for a year. We gave up our jobs.
Traveled around the world.
We did ten countries in 12 months.
- Yeah.
- Vietnam was the third country.
And then, for the rest of the trip,
we always would find the Vietnamese
restaurant in the city we were in.
- You fell in love with this.
- The food, the atmosphere, the people.
I find the way in...
- is through the food.
- Yeah.
You can walk around, you look
at everything. "Nice. Interesting."
Then this happens to you.
"Maybe we should live here."
While we were eating,
there was a little street performance.
There's a...
Oh, we've got a bit of a...
- fire-eater.
- This thing called magic or karaoke.
And they will just move around
to each restaurant performing.
- And now he's got a...
- Now he's got a snake.
- What's that?
- This might put you off.
- What is that?
- It's a snake.
That's a live snake?
He should really try the ribs.
Everybody likes what they like.
Know what I like?
The idea of another Bang Bang.
We go down the road to try Simon's
favorite Vietnamese dish of all time.
I did a lot of research,
but I'd never heard of this one.
How did you know to come here?
Someone just said,
if you want bò lá lt...
- Yeah.
- ...come here.
And that's generally
how you find out about places.
And I came here and I just...
I keep coming back.
I've been to a lot of places since then,
but this is the one for me.
This is bò lá lt, which is beef,
lá lt meaning wrapped in betel leaf.
- Betel leaf?
- Which is apparently an aphrodisiac.
- Really?
- And slightly addictive,
which might be why I keep coming back.
So you get this really nice
aromatic, slightly sweet perfume
going through the meat.
It smells amazing.
I don't think there's much
inside the meat, just lemongrass,
- maybe a bit of garlic, but...
- Yeah.
...it's delicious.
This is Mrs. Lien,
and her daughter works with her too.
- Three.
- How long has she been here?
She started the restaurant
since I was very little,
like maybe eight years old.
Wow.
So it's been 20 years.
Which is a long time in Saigon,
the way that things move so quickly.
Trends change,
but really, it's these staples
that kind of bind that kind
of Vietnamese street food experience.
- Right.
- Yeah.
- Oh.
- Don't forget the sauce.
Cm n.
So she wouldn't tell me
exactly what's in the sauce,
but it's fish sauce
and maybe some kind of pineapple juice.
It's so good.
This is fantastic.
Thank you.
- It's Vietnam in a mouthful, I think.
- Insane.
If I lived here,
I'd eat a lot of bò lá lt.
Tao Dan Park in Ho Chi Minh
is their Central Park.
It's a remnant of the French Colonial era.
It's 25 acres of lush trees
and shaded walkways.
You know I love to check out a park
everywhere I go,
and this park
has a few really special things.
What can I get for you?
Coffee, no milk, no sugar.
- Hot? Hot coffee?
- Hot.
Coffee is a major thing here.
These are the second largest producers
of coffee in the world,
after Brazil.
If you get the real Vietnamese coffee,
you get a cup with a metal thing
on top of it called a phin.
The grounds are in there,
they pour the hot water in that.
It drips slowly, slowly, slowly
into this glass.
It takes a while.
So while the coffee drips, this drip
is going to wander around for a bit.
There's many beautiful areas of this park.
The most interesting is the bird section.
Guys come with their caged birds,
and they hang them up,
and it's loud
because all the birds are singing.
All the birds are singing.
These are birds I never saw before.
- Is this your bird?
- No, it's his.
- Does he come every day to the park?
- Yeah, they come every morning.
Just because he likes to be with the birds
and have his bird be with the other birds?
Yes. They let the birds sing,
and they learn from each other.
- They learn each other's songs?
- Each other's songs, yeah.
Wow.
It turns out that this is bird school.
They bring their birds
to learn new songs from the other birds,
so that when they take their bird home,
their bird now has some new material.
Coffee's ready!
This plastic cup is very hot.
There's a glass inside.
Oh, I see.
So, they make this hot water
so that this stays hot
while the coffee is dripping through.
That's genius.
Wow.
- Yeah. This one...
- But it tastes so good.
It makes your...
your heart beat faster.
Yes. Yes. It does.
Tell me your name. I didn't get your name.
- My name's Ronny.
- Ronny! Phil.
- Hi. Nice to meet you, Phil.
- Nice to meet you, Ronny.
The coffee's so delicious,
I order another,
but this time,
I take it the more traditional way.
The French, when they were here,
brought in condensed milk.
So, Vietnamese coffee
has the condensed milk in it,
and they add sugar to that even,
and that becomes...
It's just a coffee milkshake.
So I got that, I looked to my left,
and there's a lady.
She's making an egg sandwich
on the French baguette.
She's frying up eggs,
and she's got chilies.
She's putting on...
two kinds of sauces on...
Yes, please!
Wow.
That's really good.
Good!
Do you speak English?
Anybody? Where's Ha?
Our local producer Ha
comes in to help me.
This is my favorite thing to do.
Find a new place,
see what everybody's eating.
Mixing with the locals.
But thank God you're here
because I could never talk to them.
Do they come here every day?
Every day.
Do the men want to sit separate
from the women?
The men... I see the men.
They have front row seats to the birds.
- Bird raising is kind of a man interest.
- Really?
Like a man's hobby,
but not many women are doing it.
That's very interesting.
Generally, like older men too.
You can see like not many young men
- are raising birds.
- Right.
She would like you to try these crackers.
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
Thank you.
I think it's salt... salty crackers.
That was very nice of her.
I've got snacks. I've got coffee.
I've got birds.
Very nice ladies.
This is a... It's a good life.
They're all from Saigon?
They said that you look
a bit like Mr. Bean.
Oh, that's very flattering.
She said that you look
very young and very handsome.
About four hours southwest
of Ho Chi Minh City
is the Mekong Delta.
Now, a few years ago, two Frenchmen
met by luck here on a jungle tour
and fell in love with one of Vietnam's
greatest resources: the cacao bean.
These expats opened up Maison Marou
with what The New York Times called
"the best chocolate you've never tasted."
I hate that word "never."
- I'm Vincent.
- Hi, Vincent.
- Hi.
- Hi, I'm Sam.
Hi, Sam. Vincent and Sam.
I'm visiting different temples
in the places I go,
and this is gonna be my favorite
because it's a temple of chocolate.
- Of chocolate. Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Very cool.
- Tell me your story.
- We met on a weekend survival excursion.
- Yes.
- We are two of the survivors.
- Two survivors. Yeah.
No one else made it.
And then we found out
there was cacao growing in Vietnam.
No one was doing
anything interesting with it.
Typically, cacao is grown in the tropics,
and it's exported to a country,
and that's where it's produced.
And the people don't get
to enjoy their own product.
So we asked ourselves
why isn't anyone doing this here,
and there was no real reason.
It just had to be done.
The only thing we needed at that point
is to find out how to make chocolate.
- Oh, that's all.
- Right. So we...
Yeah, that's all.
Their hot chocolate
is supposed to be legendary.
I see they use the James Bond method:
shaken, not stirred.
Now, you're both from France.
- Yes.
- Yeah.
I'm a huge French hot chocolate fan.
- My favorite is Angelina in Paris.
- Angelina.
- You know it?
- Yes, we know it.
I see the smiles. Yes.
But now I'm excited to try this.
Yes.
Oh, yes.
Oh, boy.
There's like a floral note in there,
as well as the deep punch of chocolate.
There's a little, um,
tartness or fruitiness.
That's what we find
in the Vietnamese cacao.
It was spectacular.
I'm gonna say
it's every bit as good
as what I've had in France.
What's amazing about this place
is that every single thing you're eating
is made right here in the store.
They're roasting the cacao beans
right next to me.
They show me the roaster, how they do it.
I was thinking this would be some
cushy tour, then they put me to work.
- In the hopper!
- In the hopper.
This is how I get rid of the bodies.
I get to taste real cacao,
just having been roasted,
fresh right out of the thing, hot!
- It's the original hot chocolate.
- Yeah.
And there's a glass room
where they're crushing the cacao beans.
- This is where the grind happens.
- Yeah.
- Shall we pour some scoops?
- Sure.
I am Willy Wonka.
So the concept here is "bean to bar"
because we make our chocolate
straight from the beans.
In there, the chocolate has been grinding
for over 24 hours,
so you can see it's become completely...
- That is pure liquid chocolate.
- Yeah.
- Nothing else?
- Nothing added. Nothing.
Is it wrong that I'm a little, uh,
turned on by this?
I think I want to watch this
in slow motion with sexy music playing.
Oh, baby.
Oh, baby, baby.
And there's another room
where they're making chocolate.
I've walked into the chocolate factory
where you can eat everything they make
in the little factory.
This is my favorite way to spend the day.
It seems like every man, woman,
and child has a motorbike.
And it seems like
there's no rules whatsoever.
They go up on the sidewalk.
People cross a street,
and nobody's stopping.
And the traffic is crazy.
But I see old people on them.
I see families of four on them.
I see babies on them.
You know, the women are riding
sidesaddle, looking at their iPad.
You look at this
as an American and you go,
"This is the most unsafe thing
I've ever seen in my life."
This is everything
my parents told me not to do.
However, this is something
you don't know until you do it,
how cool it is.
You're in this sea of humanity,
and we're all doing the same thing.
We're all on the scooter.
And your neighbor
is not in a sealed-off car,
but out in the open.
You can high-five somebody,
you can wave to somebody.
Hello.
Wow.
This is a great way to see the place.
It really is.
Nikky wanted to take me
to her favorite breakfast place,
and her favorite breakfast
is something called "broken rice."
What makes it broken?
Because on the process
of producing the rice,
they broke it apart.
And years and years ago, you know,
we only got broken rice. The bad quality.
So people would make a dish out of it,
and it's very Saigonese.
Everyone in Saigon loves this dish.
It goes very well with the pork chop
and the shredded pork skin.
All right, I'm in.
But can I get a coffee too?
Of course.
They make the best coffee over here.
- This is your favorite place?
- Yes, that's my favorite place.
- How do you say that?
- Hoang Minh.
- Hoang Minh.
- Yeah.
- Hoang Minh.
- How's my pronunciation so far?
Good? And then...
- Yeah.
- Thank you.
- Like we say, "Come on."
- Yeah, it's just like "come on."
- Just like "come on."
- Just like "come on."
- Come on, Vietnam!
- Yeah, come on, Vietnam!
- That should be the slogan.
- Yeah. Wow!
- Right? I should make that.
- Yes! Yes!
"Come on, Vietnam!"
Ah. Cm n.
- That's a little bit strong, so...
- We'll see about that.
Ah!
Get all fired up.
Now I go...
I don't need a motorbike!
How's my pork doing, mister?
Almost. Almost. Almost.
- So pork skin, pork...
- Pork skin.
- ...belly...
- Yes.
- ...pork cake...
- Pork cake.
...and pork chop.
- Yes.
- And this is called "the kosher special."
And everything is better
with an egg on top.
This piece looks good.
What if I do this?
- Yeah, even better.
- Yeah, baby!
Yeah!
Mmm. Wow.
That's just great barbecued pork.
Yes, on the rice.
- Well, where's the rice? Underneath.
- Yeah, underneath.
I love that. That's amazing.
It looks like rice,
but it tastes different.
- It's almost nuttier.
- Yeah.
Do you like it?
Yeah!
That was great.
Oh, nice tattoo. Who's that?
- That's my wife.
- Beautiful!
If that's what she looks like
on the tattoo,
imagine how she looks in person.
She's right here.
She's right here? Let me see
if the tattoo matches the person.
- Yeah, it's very good.
- Oh, thank you.
All right, I'd love to stay more with you,
but we were born to ride.
So, cue music.
Let's rock!
Yah!
Ah!
Oy.
- Hello.
- Oh, hello!
Hello, Vietnam!
Yes, exactly!
You took the movie Good Morning, Vietnam
and changed it now to Hello, Vietnam.
So it's even better now.
Hey, you want to see my fruit of the day?
- Ready?
- Yes.
- Ooh, what is that?
- A rambutan.
Can you eat that stuff
with the pricks on it there?
No, I try to avoid them whenever possible.
Uh...
- Oh, okay.
- But you cut...
You're gonna cut yourself.
No, this is a butter knife.
It's a butter knife.
You peel that.
- Yes.
- Look inside.
- It's like that...
- It's like a...
Like a lychee, right? And then...
It looks like a lychee nut. Yeah.
Oh, I see...
And it's soft?
He can't talk now.
Sweet and juicy and fantastic.
Oh, you know what's great?
They'll take a coconut,
and they'll put it
in the refrigerator for a while,
and the water in the coconut
is like this delicious ice-cold drink.
It's so refreshing.
When I buy a coconut,
I always drink the inside
before I even crack it open.
Are you buying a lot of coconuts?
- No. Not many. Because...
- He hasn't bought any.
When I was in the Philippines,
I used to eat a lot of coconuts.
- Yeah?
- You had to watch it,
they could fall onto your head
from carrying... falling down on you.
- I have a feeling they did.
- You have to be careful.
So we go out to an island in Saigon,
and on this island are these ponds.
The moment you step into this pond,
you sink up to your knee in mud.
So I'm hanging on to your other son,
Mr. Producer, to help me,
and Richard loses his balance.
Now, I can barely stand. He's fallen over.
I can't pull him up.
And I'm pulling on Richard,
pulling, pulling, and Richard says...
Go without me!
It's like a sitcom.
So, I left him there.
So you don't see him anymore.
Anything else I need to tell
these Jewish people?
There was a woman
that said she was here from the Orient.
And she's Jewish,
and they called her an Orienta.
Oh, Max.
We'll see how many letters we get
from both Asian people and Jewish people
that you managed to offend in one word.
All right. Sleep well.
- You sleep well.
- No, it's morning there.
- Oh, it's morning already?
- He just woke up.
It's already the next morning.
Goodbye, thank you, take care.
Today, we're leaving Saigon
and heading a couple hours south
to a town called Vũng Tàu.
I chose to take the scenic route.
So we went down
through the Saigon River.
And now we're crossing Cam Ranh Bay.
If this door opens, goodbye!
I don't know anything about this place.
I'm exactly like Rick Steves,
without the knowledge or the sex appeal.
Beautiful, look at that.
I'm just in time to catch
the sunset, but I want a better view.
Wee! Here we go!
Look at the sunset.
I have to say, the last time I was in
as romantic and beautiful a situation,
it was at the top of a Ferris wheel
in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris...
with a cameraman named Marshall.
We're back. We're back.
My brother's in-laws
have taught English...
uh, when they vacationed here in Vietnam.
And so, they've arranged for me
to teach a fourth grade class
a little English.
I'm scared to death.
Hello, teacher.
Hello. You said hello.
You're already better at English
than I am at Vietnamese,
but I know how to say thank you.
It's cm n, right?
Yes.
You know in English
what "come on" means?
When you want someone to come with you,
you say, "Come on."
And sometimes when I eat something
that's very delicious, I say, "Come on!"
Like, that's so good.
But I like knowing that in Vietnamese
it means "thank you."
So I say cm n to you
for letting me come and see you today.
Can I learn your names?
- Yes.
- Will you tell me your name?
My name is Kevin.
Kevin. I'm Phil.
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you, too.
- What's your name?
- My name is Joy.
- And what makes you happy?
- Ice cream.
Makes me happy, too.
- My name is Kitty.
- And what's your favorite thing?
- I like play basketball.
- Yeah?
- Are you a good basketball player?
- No.
What's your name?
- My name Max.
- Max?!
My father's name is Max.
Are you my father?
No!
I spoke to your teacher,
your regular teacher,
and he told me that you were working on...
food and parties.
- Is that right?
- Yes.
These just happen to be
two of my favorite things.
I have an idea.
- You want to do a race?
- Yes.
- You know food words in English?
- Yes.
You're gonna come up to the board.
We're gonna have two minutes,
and whichever team can write
the most English food words wins.
- Are you ready?
- Yes!
One, two, three, go!
Meat... ball!
Excellent!
Mini pizza! Not regular pizza!
Apple! Apple pizza!
I never heard of that,
but it sounds delicious!
Hamburger! Very American!
Spaghetti! Italiano!
Cheeseball! That's me.
Forty-five seconds left!
Hot dog!
Come on, we're running out of time!
Ice cream. Excellent.
Time's up. Time's up.
Wow.
All right, we count them up. This side...
One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight, nine.
One, two, three, four, five, six,
- seven, eight, nine, ten!
- Ten!
Can I have everybody sitting right here?
Come forward. Yeah, come together.
- Will you sing with me?
- Yes.
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
- ♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
- ♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
- ♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
- ♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
♪ Come on, Vietnam ♪
Play the music!
Let me see your moves!
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! You got it!
You know what we need? We need treats!
I wish we had a lot of ice cream!
I wish we had a lot of ice cream!
Oh!
- This is so good.
- How do you say "yummy" in Vietnamese?
Ngon!
Ngon!
I love ice cream.
You know what I love more than ice cream?
Meeting you.
Meeting you.
Meeting you even. Even you!
Thank you, Joy.
Today's word is "bribery."
You start to see what the personal
benefits could be of reaching out,
of connecting with people
you never thought you'd meet,
let alone fall in love with.
Lin-Manuel Miranda said,
"Love is love is love is love is love."
I think we can also say, "Kids are kids
are kids are kids are kids."
My new expat friends
who now live in Saigon
tell me most people they know here
don't talk about the war much.
Not just for practical, pragmatic reasons,
but because it's in their nature
to move forward, to persevere.
It seems to be the national character.
No place should ever be defined by war.
Vietnam is a country
with a rich cultural history.
And beauty.
And food.
And future.
It's defined by these people.
♪ Somebody, please, somebody, please ♪
♪ Somebody, please, somebody, please ♪
♪ Somebody, please, somebody, please ♪
♪ Somebody ♪
♪ Somebody, please, somebody, please ♪
♪ Somebody ♪
♪ Somebody, please, somebody, please ♪
♪ Somebody ♪
♪ Somebody, please, somebody, please ♪
♪ Somebody ♪
♪ Somebody feed, somebody feed ♪
♪ Somebody ♪
♪ Somebody feed, somebody feed ♪
♪ Can somebody ♪
♪ Somebody feed Phil? ♪
♪ Oh, please, somebody ♪
♪ Somebody feed Phil ♪
♪ Somebody feed him now ♪