issue 54 - AsiaLIFE Magazine

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Beat the Heat The day was beastly hot, not long ago. I was stumbling through the narrow alleyways of ‘the Pham’, keeping track of all the continuous changes and deciding if they were good or bad. It’s part of my job as a self-appointed arbiter of taste. I was sweating bullets and much in need of blessed relief. Now if you’ve lived long anywhere in the tropics you know that there is a great and universal constant that offers such relief. It’s more pleasant than shade and cheaper than air-con. It’s more reliable than rain and you don’t need an umbrella, though sometimes you get one with it. I’m talking about the venerable and curiously refreshing gin and tonic. I was navigating the very narrow alley where Le Pub’s back door used to offer entry and egress until they padlocked it to keep passers-by from traipsing through the kitchen. Six steps south of the forbidden portal lay the inviting Bread and Butter bar and its upscale upstairs café. I staggered in and heaved myself up a tall stool at the end of the bar. Behind said bar stood Dan Carey, owneroperator and sympathetic ear to overheated wayfarers. He looked at me through his Maryland-born rock-n-roll eyes and already knew my need. But I voiced it anyway. “G and T,” says I. “Tall.” Dan deftly filled a tall, slender glass with shimmering ice and squeezed a wedge worth of tangy lime juice over it. He poured an honest measure of honest gin, a thing we still can’t always count on in this town. He topped it off with pleasingly bitter tonic water and set the already sweating glass before me. Not only was I about to imbibe liquid comfort, but in simply contemplating this crystal clear column of restoration I was imbibing a tradition of tropical life that goes back more than 150 years. To be sure the G and T isn’t limited to the tropics. Indeed, according to the novel Restaurant at the End of the Universe, it’s all over the cosmos. But it is a child of the tropics, and it has been a mainstay of elbowbenders in Saigon for generations. Back in the early 1990s it was the only mixed drink I could find here. Everything else alcoholic was either warm beer or straight whisky. So whence came this perfect balance of taste, aroma and ability to slake a tropic thirst? We start in India. There the army of the British East India Company was battling malaria. At the time, the only remedy for the dread disease was quinine, an extract of the bark of the cinchona tree (Cinchona officinalis), native to the Andean region of South America. It is quinine that gives your tonic water its distinctive bitter flavour. However, as the Brits soon learned, in medicinal quantities the stuff is too bitter to swallow by itself. So the wise British sawbones added a goodly slug of London Dry to make the medicine go down. And this begs the question: what exactly is gin? It was invented by Dr Franciscus Sylvius of Amsterdam about 400 years ago. He meant it to be a treatment for such aches and pains as gout and lumbago. He concocted it by flavouring neutral grain spirits with botanical essences such as coriander, cassia, and anise. But the most important is juniper berry (Juniperus communis), and all gins to this day must use it as the chief essence. It’s what gives gin its distinctive, almost pinelike, aroma. In Dutch, juniper is ‘jenever’. Hence, the English ‘gin’. And of course while there are a few styles of gin, the most popular today is London Dry. The variety of lime most often used in our drink is the Citrus aurantifolia, often known as ‘bartender’s lime’. And while we can justly thank the Tommies (for some reason they “Not only was I about to imbibe liquid comfort, but in simply contemplating this crystal clear column of restoration I was imbibing a tradition of tropical life that goes back over 150 years.” don’t like the term Limey) for our basic cocktail, it is thought that the Yanks perfected it with ‘ice and slice’. Evidence for this is displayed in any proper pub in the UK. Order gin and tonic and that’s all you get: tonic and gin. But don’t worry, here in Saigon people know how to do it right. And there is one more little improvement on the tropical thirst quencher that we can thank a Yank for. Step into Dan’s bar in Bread and Butter. Belly up or take a seat. Then tell Dan you would like a trip to London. He’ll set you up with a good and proper G and T and a Huda beer back. It just keeps getting better. Cheers! 42 asialife HCMC
May Traditional, natural Vietnamese food served up in a gorgeous old mansion. By Michael Tatarski. Photos by Fred Wissink. Nestled inside a typical Vietnamese alley off the canal running between District 1 and Binh Thanh, May occupies a spacious old house that has been redecorated to evoke the French colonial era. Dark wood flooring and furniture, plus homages to decades past fill three floors including a rooftop terrace. There is also an open kitchen so customers can watch as their meal is prepared. Named after the Vietnamese word for ‘cloud’, May is run by Thai To Tho, the French- Vietnamese woman who was the brain behind Cuc Gach Quan when it first opened. The menu is made up of recipes perfected by Tho’s Vietnamese father, who travelled back to Vietnam from France to train the cooks. The food is meant to be as natural as possible, and no MSG is used in their dishes. The menu features a number of traditional Vietnamese dishes including salads, meat options and seafood. Prices are reasonable, especially considering the quality of the ingredients, with most items costing between VND 60,000 and VND 150,000. The drinks menu offers vintages from around the world plus an enticing selectoin of cocktails. We start off with the Sunday fried spring rolls (VND 60,000), a family specialty that includes rice paper fried in beer and vinegar. The rolls felt lighter and less greasy than most of their fried counterparts, and their unconventional preparation gave them a unique flavour. Next up was the Sunday salad (VND 80,000), a pile of lettuce, watercress, tomatoes, onions and stir-fried beef. The portion was big enough for two and was a refreshing dish on a hot afternoon. We also tried the zucchini flowers stir-fried with garlic (VND 60,000), which tasted like they came straight from the garden. Finally, we went for the pink duck breast with ginger nuoc mam (VND 200,000). The sizeable portion was perfectly cooked and wonderfully tender. The ginger sauce also gave the dish a unique kick. For a big fan of duck, this was the highlight of an already excellent meal. May strives to create natural, fresh, and healthy food, and you can taste this effort in the dishes. With its great prices, beautiful interior and fantastic food, May is a must-try. 3/5 Hoang Sa, Da Kao Ward, D1. 08 39 10 12 77 10am – 1am, seven days. Last table seated at 11pm. asialife HCMC 43
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