In the morning after Fata was left for his conference, Pea & I wandered out of the hotel towards the old church looking for a french cafe Fata said he saw, for breakfast. We got all the way to the grouchy-lady sandwich shop, but still no french cafe, so we just walked down this street and stopped at a little cafe for an omelette and bread breakfast.
In the menu, I saw 'Dance On Ice', I asked the lady taking our order what it was, she said something I didn't understand, but for 15,000 dong, I figured let's give it a go. :P
A tall goblet filled with white cream, a dash of brown liquid & crushed ice. I took a sip and the taste was not pleasant, it was like something had gone bad in the glass! hahaha... tasted the brown liquid and it tasted like strong coffee. Oh well, I order an iced chocolate. The omelettes were ok, they came with 2 fresh rolls each.
After finishing all the food, and the ice had melted more in the glass of 'dance on ice' I attempted it again. When the same lady came back to clear our plates, she asked if I like it, I gave her a decided 'no'. Then she said that there was coconut, coffee and xxx in it. The xxx we didn't get... Anyhow, when we paid the check, we were enlightened!
The xxx was yoghurt!!! 'Dance on Ice' = yoghurt + coconut + dash of espresso + crushed ice!
The next hour or so was spent wandering around whichever street looked appealing to us :) That was when we chanced on 'Boo', a local street wear brand. Very cute t-shirts... Pea got 2 and I got 1 as a present for Tua Tao.
It was getting hot, and again the honking was getting to us again, so we strolled back to the hotel to wait for Fata to finish up with his conference.
When Fata found out that we couldn't find the french cafe earlier, he suggested that we find it and have have lunch there. Off we went again towards to old church... 3rd time today...
Oh well, had to look down a couple of street but we found it! It's called Paris Cafe, and there's another one called Moca Cafe just across the street from it. We shared an onion soup, a spaghetti puttanesca and a beef bourgignon. I had a chocolate-orange frappuccino, Fata had a lemon freeze & coke, and poor pale Pea had an earl grey tea.
There we chatted with the table of 4 next to us, there was a Singaporean, one from China, one from Hong Kong & I think the 4th one from Malaysia? It was like Asia at one table :) They recommended the best beef pho in Hanoi, some little stall that has only 2 tables and only one dish = beef pho! We recommended to them that place where we had our foot massage yesterday.
We vacated when the parisian cafe lost it's parisian flavor when a loud tour group entered. Walked down the street to get more name cards from the massage place, and we stopped at a shop (where Fata had gone a few times before, also just opposite the grouchy-lady sandwich shop. We bought more stuff for family before walking back to our hotel.
But a little alcove caught my eye, there was a bright red spiral staircase at the end of the short corridor. In we went, up the stairs.
A quaint store of propaganda inspired t-shirts, mugs, dolls, magnets, stickers... very cute :) I got a t-shirt, stickers, a boat magnet (for my granny), & a silver pendant/ring. The first shopping for myself :)
I wanted to go somewhere nice for dinner as Fata's birthday was the next day, and Pea birthday's 9th Dec, wanted to buy them a nice meal. We all took a cab to Metropole Hotel (5-star and VERY fancy, with lots of huge brand name stores lining the hotel), and walked around the available restaurants.
Saw the very fancy La Beaudieu (spelling?) at the Metropole Hotel, but with main courses costing about 600,000 dong, we figured we give this one a miss. Walked to the Opera Club and the Press Club across the street, and ended up at Nineteen 11 on the side of the Opera House.
There were 2 menus, one for the al fresco dining with pasta & pizzas, one for the restaurant buried in one side of the Opera House. Pea has the pumpkin soup with foie gras dumpling & orange duck. Fata had the prawns with Sapa mushrooms and lamb. I had the prawn bisque with sea bass. It was on the whole a very yummy meal.
But the service though good, the staff kept brushing into my bag which was hung from the corner of my chair, even with my arm over my bag, the waiter still brushed past... Plus, there were 3 bones in my sea bass :( I would've never expected any bones in a sea bass served in a fine dining restaurant :(
Anyhow, Fata & Pea both had a good meal, that was the more important thing.
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