And the Food Award Goes to...

By all rights I should have gained ten pounds on this trip. If you've never thought of Vietnam as a dining destination, think again. The cuisine is complex and sophisticated; richly-spiced, but not spicy-hot. It reflects French and Chinese influences, but is distinctively different from either.

In celebration of our most memorable meals, here are my award-winning favorites. I'm ready for an encore any time. The envelope, please...

Best presentation: Prawns poached in young coconut milk, served in a hollowed, husk-encased coconut with a couple of decorative green onion 'straws'.

Best sound effects: the staccato *pop*pop*pop* of moist towelette packages before every restaurant meal. Do like the locals do: squeeze the packet in one hand, smack it with the palm of the other. POP!

Best soup: Pho, of course. Beef. Huge bowls of it, accompanied by fresh basil, cilantro, bean sprouts, and chopped red chili peppers.

Best meal: The feast prepared by Mr. Duc’s wife, Gai, in their tiny Hue home (see “Hue a la Duc” for details). Next time, I want cooking lessons.

Best special effects: A whole fish, battered and deep fried, festooned with some of the scales, served in the upright and swimming position. The waiter used his chopsticks to artfully remove a chunk of the delicate white meat, which was served in a thin rice wrapper with fresh vegetables.

Best supporting garnish: hard-cooked quail eggs, cut in half and arranged in concentric circles with cashews on a meat dish.

Best foreign actor: Baguette – it’s what’s for breakfast. Pack the peanut butter and pass the Laughing Cow cheese.

Best spring roll: The classic Hoi An roll, wrapped in shredded threads of dough and deep fried. It’s the crispiest!

Best performance by a single ingredient: Snake – inside and outside, tip to tail, start to finish. It's a living reptile AND a dinner! It’s an entrée AND a beverage! It’s also skin fritters, and soup, and spring rolls, and stir fry... oh, and let’s wash it down with one of those snake blood shooters. Supper of champions!

Best beverage: The ever-popular café sua nam – drip filter coffee served with copious amounts of sweetened, condensed milk. The runner up in this category is the also-popular Huda brand Very Light Lager Beer. Huda best? You da best!

Best ice cream: Anything but durian fruit. Honest – I thought it was supposed to taste better than it smelled. WHY would people eat something that has the intense odor (and I'm being charitable here) of old laundry? "Gosh, this is foul... let's eat it! No, wait -- let's turn it into ice cream!"

Most exotic fruit: This is a tough category - so many contenders! But the award goes to the dragon fruit. Hot pink on the outside, it has a starkly-white flesh that is peppered with tiny black seeds. It's somewhat flavorless, but when you're that beautiful, who cares?

Best dessert: What? You mean there was dessert?