Gloria Jean’s Bún Chả

When I was in Hanoi the first time, on the road from the ‘cafés and restaurants with English menus’ district back to my house, one block was a giant noisy hole-in-the-ground, surrounded by a corrugated iron fence, further surrounded by construction workers drinking rượu, hút thuốc lá-ing and yelling HELLO and various other things at funny-looking foreign passers-by. Construction workers and truck drivers are the same everywhere; I can say that since I am one. Was one. Anyway, what was that hole-in-the-ground is now a high-rise building which, having driven past about a million times without ever really looking at it, I was inspired to go into the other day. There is motorbike parking down the hill to level minus two, with pipes and things hanging about making it a good idea to keep a helmet on, particularly when you are walking.

The first four floors are a shopping mall, complete with fashion shops, electronics spilling into the walkways shouting "Hey buy me, I’m shiny," squeaky clean restaurants with lacquered bamboo arbores draped in iridescent green plastic with vague vine-like qualities, sappy-jazz music (yes that is a real genre…), and a teeny-bopper arcade with what appears to be papier-mâché rocks hanging over the door. Looking out the window over the most hygienic bún chả I have ever eaten, the rest of the block is a wasteland of mud, gravel, boulders, and people parking motorbikes. The hole-in-the-ground apparently just missed being squashed by this building, and has moved next door, complete with above-mentioned accoutrements. Across the street are the usual sidewalk cafés selling coffee and bread and noodles and anything, for about 30 cents each. On the way out I saw Gloria Jean’s Coffee shop. One of the things I like best about Vietnam is the surprisingly good coffee you can get on any street corner, but having Gloria Jean’s down the street isn’t a bad thing either!