The bakery in the 11th opens at 6:40
Étienne Lereau bakes about 640 baguettes every morning and refuses to sell sliced bread. We stood behind his oven for a week.
By Do Minh KhueParis2 min read
Da Rosalia has eight tables: four inside and four out on the quay, close enough to the water that salt dries on the rims of the glasses. There is no printed menu. At seven o’clock Rosalia Ferrante, sixty-one, walks the room once and reads out whatever the boats brought in that afternoon: bluefin tuna, cuttlefish, a few small groupers and, on a lucky day, red prawns with their antennae still on.
Ask the price and she gives you one number for the whole table. The night I sat there it was forty-two euros a head, which covered a jug of Grillo poured from a ceramic pitcher and a plate of Pachino tomatoes in olive oil that she calls the thing that opens your mouth.
Read the cover storyWhat time do you have to get up for this dish to exist?
Most of this issue starts in the dark.
In this issue
In late May, water is led down from the mountain streams into every terrace. For about ten days the whole valley becomes a staircase of mirrors.
By Lam Gia ThuyMu Cang Chai2 min read
The stockpot that wakes up at two in the morning
A pho shop with no sign in an alley off Hang Chinh street, and a woman who hasn’t slept past five in thirty years.
By Do Minh KhueHanoi3 min read
Market
Reading the Cai Rang floating market by its poles
Every boat hangs what it sells from the top of a bamboo pole. Ut Hanh has hung pumpkins from hers for twenty-two years.
By Ha Phuong NghiCan Tho2 min read
In a small workshop behind Hoi An market, cao lau noodles are still kneaded by hand, steamed twice and delivered before the tourists wake up.
By Trinh Bao AnHoi An2 min read
“A mixer is faster than me. But a mixer can’t see the egg.”
A hot egg coffee on the third-floor balcony at 3 p.m., when the sun is still on the roofs opposite.
Contents
Issue 14, 132 pages
Eat
Places, dishes and the people at the stove.
Go
Places, and the meals on the way there.
Kitchen
Technique, ingredients, the trade.
Market
Sellers, buyers and what things cost.
Letters
Letters to the editor, trimmed for length. This issue prints three about issue 13.
After your piece on Thanh Tri rice rolls in issue 13, I flew to Hanoi just to eat one plate. The shop is still there, and the owner still steams the sheets over a cloth-covered pot. One thing the article missed: the dipping sauce gets a few drops of giant water bug essence, but only if you ask.
Pham Quoc Huy, Da Lat
Issue 13 said bun bo Hue should come with crab cake. In my family, three generations, nobody has ever put crab cake in bun bo. I’m not saying you were wrong, only that Hue has more kitchens than one article can cover.
Nguyen Hong Van, Hue
EditorWe agree, and we apologise for the word should. Next issue has a piece on bun bo without crab cake.
I’ve lived in the Netherlands for ten years and get the print issue by post, usually three weeks late. The first thing I do when I open the envelope is turn to the last page, where you print a short recipe. Last month I made sour soup with dried tamarind from the Asian supermarket, and my daughter had two bowls.
Le Anh Thu, Rotterdam
One letter, every Saturday morning
One long read, three places worth the trip, and the print schedule. Unsubscribe from the link at the bottom of any letter.