Pig Heart! Its What's for Lunch!

Pretty sure i have my days mixed up at this point. About two days before Cheri and Marie and her gang flew into Saigon my mom wanted to go to the city early so we could do some hotel hunting and of course more shopping.Our mode of transportation was a crazy 15 passenger van for the 3 of us. A little overkill but whatever.

On our way to Saigon we stopped at the first town which is about an hour east of Chau Doc. The name of the town is Long Xuyen. One of my uncles actually have a house here but he is in the states and his daughter who is taking care of the house in a little debt due to some pawning and gambling...i don't know the details. Probably better that way.

My mom was hungry and wanted to eat at the 'best noodle shop" in town. The noodle place is owned by my cousin Trinh's boyfriend! i had my hopes pretty high and asked for a bowl of white rice noodles.

As soon as i saw the bowl of soup i was greatly disappointed. There was all kinds of mystery meat in this thing. i held up a piece of meat and asked,"what kind of meat is this!?". My mom said pork. Me -"i know its pork, what kind of pork?"
Mom: "Oh, that's pigs heart"
Me: "And what about this?"
Mom:"More pigs heart."
Me: "No, this is different.."
Mom: "Um, that's pig kidney"
Me: "And this?"
Mom: "pig liver..."

Don't get me wrong i'm open to trying new things. i just need to prepare myself of it. i can't just dig into crazy pig organs on a whim. i drew the line with the funky pig joint filled with tendons and cartilage. Everything else though i ate. i didn't particularly care for it but i finished the bowl and was still hungry. i then ordered another fun bowl of pig organs but this time with yellow noodles.
When we arrived into Saigon it was about lunch time and we were hungry again. We went to our friend's Pho shop but he wasn't there. It was probably better he didn't know we were coming or else he would have had a feast prepared for us like last time.

After lunch my parents went to pay but his daughter wouldn't take our money and said if she let us pay for the meal then her father would kill her...oh well, i don't have a problem with a free meal.
After getting settled in the hotel room we walked around a bit so my dad could give me a brief history of his days in Saigon back in the 60's...lucky me.

For refreshments we got some funky milkshakes. i had the pineapple i believe. My dad probably got the avocado and my mom got durian. Durian is also known as stinky fruit. It is so sick nasty. If the smell doesn't get you the taste will.
Here we have a fancy bakery. We got some crazy "pati shoa". i spelled that totally wrong but its like a pastry with ground meat in it. i was pretty good. A little too sweet but still enjoyable. Would have been better if we got them in the morning when they were fresh out of the oven.
At this point i was tired of fish. i wanted some good ol' meat for my tummy. We decided to try out this barbecue joint. Pretty much everything on the menu comes out raw on a plate and you cook it on a grill located at the center of the table.

The menu said that these dishes served 3-4 people so my mom only wanted to get one. After looking at the pictures of these dishes i knew i could easily eat one of these platters by myself. But my mom insisted that we only get one...

Turned out i was right and we got the all meat platter after finishing the 'surf n' turf' plate.

To was everything down i had this fancy beer from france, Kronenbourg 1664. It was kind of expensive compared to the other beers but i wanted to try something different that i have not had yet.

Look at that gangsta grill action!