I'm more interested in grilled seafood here than Ilene is, so Hai Lua isn't her favorite place, and when we met a local here for dinner, she wasn't terribly impressed, so I suppose there are better places for more refined palates than mine. But I like it a lot and get a kick out of it because of the people watching at night. Try and sit up wind, though. It can get smokey near that grill.Hai Lua is one of about 7 full-service restaurants that each night are constructed on the streets on either side of Ben Thanh market. About five p.m., each day, the streets get cleared of traffic, and trucks pull up and unload an army's worth of tents, tables, chairs and portable kitchens. This one is on the east side, about three back from Le Loi Avenue.
We've also gone quite a few times to the one "next door" called Sao Dong, which is a favorite cheap hang-out among the twentysomething urbanites we've met in English Club. The rice soup and Thai seafood soup there are good, the lemonade and other juices are cheap, and we usually get out of there for about $2.50 each for a big dinner.
Hai Lua is more expensive--about $5 to start with a whole grilled fish, like the red snapper pictured first. It took me a few trips to figure out that you are supposed to order these family style with other dishes in support rather than ordering a single fish for yourself. One time I went there by myself when Ilene was busy and when a giant rainstorm broke out, all the customers got squeezed in under the tent, and I was seated with two young women who were too shy to speak English with me. They kept staring and giggling at the whole fish and enormous plate of steamed morning glory stems in front of me. Complex carbs and low-fat protein--I figured I was doing pretty good, except that it would have fed five people, and the absence of rice was pretty unusual in a Vietnamese meal. Finally a man next to me--an immigrant to California back home to HCMC for a visit--translated for us. He said they were wondering how I had learned to order Vietnamese food . . . a polite way, I think, of saying what they hell did I think I was doing.
While we waited out the storm, I got to talking with my translator. It turns out he owns all the Dominos Pizza shops up and down University Avenue in Berkeley. He says he was a Colonel and helicopter pilot in the South Vietnamese air force and moved to the United States in 1975.
I still haven't figured out how you're supposed to deal with the bones when you order fish like this. I know that sometimes you're on you own, and sometimes the wait staff takes care of it, even for locals. The picture at the bottom shows the fish we got the other night when it first arrived and after the waitress dug two spoons into its back and expertly removed the spine and all the bones in one tug.
-Robert
