A Vietnamese engagement party

I feel like I'm back in Vietnam, even though I'm in a household in Sydney's inner west. It's not just the round folding tables covered with plastic tablecloths, the bottles of soft drink waiting on each table, or the collection of plastic stools. It's the fact that there are five tables of ten set up in the living room and the tantalising smells of seafood and hot oil coming from the backyard.


Plastic flower curtain


Table set-up

In many of the village households I visited in Vietnam, cooking is predominantly done in the backyard - an easy way to stop heat, smells and grease being trapped inside the home. In Sydney, this tradition continues with family-run Vietnamese caterers, small businesses that will cook entire banquets as well as provide tables, chairs, cutlery, waitstaff and dishwashing services too.

Today I'm at a Vietnamese engagement party and it's the second time I've seen the efficiency of a Vietnamese mobile kitchen at work. Portable gas stoves, large gas bottles, giant woks and massive cookers are unpacked with speed. By the time the families are introduced and formalities are out of the way, we're being inundated with amazing platters. If only I'd packed my extra stomach!


Goi Tom Thit - Prawn and pork salad

Goi tom thit is one of my favourite things to eat in summer. A tumble of shredded carrot, cucumber, onion, mint and celery is topped with thin slices of tender boiled pork belly and peeled sweet prawns. It's a lively and refreshing salad, splashed generously with the tangy fish sauce dressing nuoc cham, and wonderfully crunchy with a scattering of fried shallots and roasted peanuts. Prawn crackers are served separately, to be used as edible plates. Delicious.




Cua Rang Voi Sot Me - Crab with tamarind sauce

Crab is always a highlight even if it does require a little bit of effort. The tamarind sauce is not as sour as we'd expected, a little more sweet and spicy in flavour.


Deep-fried pigeon

The deep-fried pigeon is a tantalising hue of burnished golden-brown. Whilst we can't crunch on as many bones as we do with deep-fried quail, the pigon has a bit more flesh on the bone, with a similar mild gamey flavour. And whilst pigeons are normally regarded as a pest, perhaps eating them with a squeeze of a lemon and a dab of salt and pepper is the best revenge of all.


Ca Hap Gung - Steamed whole fish

A whole steamed fish is essential for any celebration, a good luck dish for prosperity, abundance and good fortune. The perch is fatty and succulent, steamed and simply adorned with soy sauce and shreds of ginger and shallots.


Com Chien Duong Chau - fried rice

Fried rice is studded with a rainbow of tasty morsels - diced lup cheong preserved pork sausage, bits of fried egg, curls of baby prawns and plump shiny green peas promise colour and flavour in every mouthful.


Lau Thap Cam - Steamboat

And even though we're ready to burst, the final dish--lau thap cam or steamboat--arrives to fill in any possible crevices left in our already groaning stomachs. There are slices of fish cake, seafood balls, mushrooms stuffed with fish paste, quail eggs, vegetables, calamari, prawns and fish. The pot is set on a portable gas burner and within minutes the stock is boiling and the scored calamari has started to furl.



The Vietnamese like to end their meals with soup, particularly steamboat, and it's a fun and convivial way to engage the entire table, particularly when everyone is fighting over the quail eggs!


Xoi - sticky rice

The xoi had been sitting on our table throughout lunch, a steamed sticky rice which is favoured with coconut milk and tinted with food colouring (green today but it can also come in red or orange). The rice is thick and chewy, almost a meal in itself. I'd nibbled on mouthfuls throughout our meal, finding its dense and stodgy starchiness too good to resist.


Che - Sweet dessert soup

And so it continues.

In a flurry of activity, bowls are removed and tables cleared as styrofoam cups of che are served. Che is the generic name for any sweet dessert soup, its base made from coconut milk. All kinds of treasures can be found within - red beans, strips of coconut, soft pearls of taipoca, cubed cooked purple taro and slivers of seaweed. It's not for everyone, but I find it nourishing and not overly sweet.


The bride-to-be's bouquet by Veruca Salt

We're in need of a reprieve. By the time the speeches are over and the cake cutting is done, we manage to find a little more room for cake. And cupcakes. Maybe I had packed that extra stomach after all.


Cupcakes by Veruca Salt