It wasn't a while after we reached the hotel. It's a puzzle as in how a 5 star hotel will look like in this dilapidated country. Well, it wasn't looking posh on the outside so let us try to look in. Upon walking in, I have a contradicting feeling. The lounge here has a big wall length window to look out at the streets, so that guests could sit inside the lounge and look at the streets. Jazzy music filled the hotel lounge. It's like a thin glass distance between the rich and the poor. You feel posh inside and poor outside. It's like an entrance scene in a play.

The whole feeling of touching down here was heavy. We know that the country people are poor. But how poor? We are considered middle-class in our country, what about these people? Here, we looked like a grade higher. Well, we haven't look at the country closer yet, it's still too early to say. Check in first. I need a comfy bed to jump on.

Into the room we go... everything seems complete.. just that the decor is not new. Decor is still a standard behind. But the five star service is there, good enough. Nothing beats a good service. Upon seeing the room, we saw something in which Saigon greeted us the moment we are here:

Time for a good warm bath to soothe our feet.

Today's agenda is to visit "Com Nieu" for its famous flying claypot rice and the footwear street. Com Nieu was advertised in Anthony Bourdain's show. We were curious regarding the flying claypot mystery. Of course, we wanted to try the authentic Vietnamese cuisine which they offered too. So there we moved into the restaurant. It's a restaurant that's not too posh. It retained a little of the street flavour. Ordering food is a challenge here. Obviously they didn't know english well, language is a slight barrier when we don't know the food here. We were ordering blindly, haha. We did our best. Of cause the claypot rice was one of them.

Firstly we got our drinks and one of the drinks ordered was their authentic vietnamese coffee. We had heard much about it but not exactly sure how good it could be. I heard that we got to wait for 30 minutes before drinking. So we had 1 ordered.

30 minutes later.. we drank.. smells really strong and great. It's like an espresso. A cup of coffee shot.

Not long after a few waiter came out. 1 stood on the other end near the cashier. The rest stood at the other end near the kitchen. They took out several claypots, broke 1 after another and sent the rice flying over to the other side where the water catches the rice with the plate. Phew.. and then 1 more flew.. and then another! It's like a food acrobatic show. A show of display before you eat. One of the rice came to us, sauces are poured over the rice, sprinkled with some sesame seeds and spices before serving. The top part of the rice had became crispy after cooking.

Here it is:

Couldn't resist anymore, we took our bite. The top crispy part is like hardened rice.. not too good to tell the truth.. However, the other part of the rice soaked with the sauces tasted heavenly. After 1 bite, you feel like taking more. Yummy! The other galore of dishes came. I think we had more than a 10 course dinner.. and more than a 20 course dinner! All the small dishes that came tasted lovely. We tried their fried spring roll, which was one of their famous dish. It was good. The other dish was its salty stew pork. It's salty and is supposed to go with rice. The pork was soft and blends into the sauce with lots of flavour.

It was a fantastic dinner.