Hanoi Day 7

City tour round the Hanoi city before we headed home!

Sufood - Vegetarian-Italian style restaurant @ Raffles City

Vegetarian-Italian style restaurant! This is how the concept of the restaurant at Raffles City. Not those mock meat vegetarian food but well, a mixture of vegetables and mushrooms make it great! Highly recommended by a friend who is a vegan-lover, she mentioned that we should all be punctual and to dine together as it is a 8-course meal, priced at $25++. 

The first dish served was a trio appetizer which the staff explained must be eaten from left to right as the taste gets stronger and richer. The poached Japanese yuca root drizzled with a blueberry coulis was the best, in my humble opinion ("tastebud").  

The next item was the cider which was announced by the staff to drink it before each dish. I guessed is to 'rinse' the mouth before the tasting the upcoming dish to have a better taste. 

Next was the Rosemary Breadsticks, with a choice of their mustard or blueberry sauce for dipping purposes. 

The above 3 items are standard and you do not need to make any decisions. But for the next few items, it's time to crack your brain!

First for choice is the salad. I had the Summer Salad which consists of lettuce, sweet potato, carrot, pepper and seasonal fruits served Thousand Island dressing and sesame sauce. I liked the crunchiness of the vegetables and fruits.

Next up is the soup and I went for Mushroom & Pea Pottage. I guess is the pull factor was the sweet peas. Never had it in creamy texture. Besides the sweet peas, it is also stewed and blended with three types of mushrooms, namely Button, Shiitake and King Oyster. NICE!

Finally is time for main! The choice was much more and I practically had a tougher time. And finally, I set my mind on Wild Mushroom Charcoal Tagliatelle. First try for me on Charcoal tagliatelle. I was thinking what kind of taste that will be. Will it be like squid ink? It came with King Oyster mushrooms sauteed in a light olive oil and homemade dressing. Well, I guess not the best choice of the night. Did not really love the texture and the overall taste of this dish. 

Osmanthus Flower Jelly and The very Berry drink ended the dinner. Both were refreshing and the dinner ended with a nice note. Will I be back? Most likely!

Top: Trio appetizer, Summer Salad
Bottom: Mushroom & Pea Pottage, Charcoal Tagliatelle pasta with king oyster mushroom

Address: 

Raffles City shopping Centre 

252 Bridge Road #02-19 

Singapore 179103

Hanoi Day 6

After the wonderful sleep on cruise, we headed to some kayaking for a morning exercise. Very relaxing!

Back to Hanoi City and we went for a food tour. A travel is never complete without trying what the locals enjoyed. Here we went and eat!

Hanoi Day 5 - Halong Bay

Overnight train back from Sapa to Hanoi was not that smooth as the first night, but nonetheless, it was an experience for me. The boss from the travel agency came to pick us up and brought us back to his place. 

Here, we repacked our bag to bring new clothes to Halong Bay. It was really great to engage this service as we did not have to lug our luggage around the places. 

Van ride to Halong Bay was smooth. I heard a lot on Halong Bay, the new 7 wonders of Nature. I was actually looking forward to the cruise stay and of course, the amazing view.

Let's the pictures below tells the stories!

Hanoi Day 4 - Sapa

3rd day at Sapa and we took another half day trek. The view was different and maybe as we had enough rest, this trek was much better than what we had on Day 1. 

After the trek, we went to the city centre to walk.

Goodbye Sapa, you have been good to us. No rain when we visited and the weather was cooling, much to my liking. I loved the peaceful days we had there and I simply enjoyed the breakfast, lunch and dinner at Sapa Eden Hotel.

Hanoi Day 3 -Sapa

Hello SUN, how beautiful was you when you rose from the horizon. I simply love sunrise, for no reason. I was not expecting a sunrise view for this trip, at least not at Sapa. 

Sunrise View from Sapa Eden Hotel

Off to the Sunday Market. This was a wrong move, I guessed. The road was bumpy and I was a little disappointed by the Market. I think we took almost 2 -3 hours there and we only spent like less than an hour to comb the whole place. Not the best market I visited, but nonetheless, I saw the cultural side of the tribes in Sapa - Vietnam. 

Lunch was served once again, and this meal was well, oily and the Vietnamese coffee was sweet. Too sweet for a liking.

A least unexpected trip was bringing us to the border between Vietnam and China. Cross the border and welcome to China. The only such border I crossed was that between Singapore and Malaysia. And the other I came near to was the DMZ at South Korea. So this would be the third such border for me. Nice~.

The trip ended back at the hotel!

Hanoi Day 2 - Sapa

Rise and Shine and awoke to the beauty of Sapa. 

From the train station, the pick up van took us to the home we called for the next 2 nights - Sapa Eden Hotel. 

This hotel was really great and I love the food there - FRESH and well-cooked. I do highly recommended it anyone who is visiting Sapa. The view from the hotel was amazing too. 

When we reached, we were brought to our rooms and then off to the small restaurant where we had our breakfast. They had a couple of choices, ranging from eggs to pancakes. GOOD!

Sapa Eden Hotel and its view

After the hearty breakfast, it was time to shake off some calories. We went for a trekking trip with the local guide and we went presented with amazing terrains. 

As it rained the night before, the treks were muddy and slippery. So we did had a challenging time, trying to keep the balance. The guide and well, the locals who 'acted' as a trek buddies were always besides you and trying to lend you a helping hand when you needed one. So no worries on that. Just that, at the end of the trip, they brought out their handicraft and you might feel the obligations to buy something from you which you might (well) keep it at home with no use to it. 

Lunch was included in the trip and here we ate, once again. Generous portion of food served for 3 persons.

Lunch Time

Then off again to complete our trek.

Our dinner at Sapa Eden Hotel. Home-cooked food to my delights. I, especially, loved the vegetables there as they were freshly plucked from the farm everyday.

Dinner Time

Sweet corns and potato were never a 'say-no' for trips. And see how they warmed the eggs as well. This was found in the market area near to the city, within 10 minutes walk.

Hanoi Day 1

2nd trip to Vietnam and this time round, to Hanoi, Sapa and Halong Bay. 

The 2-way airport transfer, the arrangement for trains, activities in Sapa and to Halong Bay were done with an agency which I googled on line. Read that the service was great and decided to engage them to help out with the transportation arrangement. This proved to be a good move for us as we worry about the booking of the transportation. Everything was done through email and deposit paid through paypal. That's it. We just have

So off we went and reached Hanoi in late morning. After we reached, the representative from the tour agency picked us up at the airport and brought us to the resting place which we left our luggage at. This was because we were leaving for Sapa on an overnight train and thus, we did not book any hotel for the night. The agency was great that they let out a room at their place for us to leave our luggage and to rest. 

Not to waste the rest of the afternoon resting, we engaged the service of Hanoi Kids which is a student-run voluntary organization organizing English-speaking city tours for tourists. This was great. The 2 volunteers whom we met were friendly and nice. The arrangement was to meet us at the travel agent's place and then, off we went to visit the city. 

We went to the Temple of literature. This place was the first university of Vietnam where the royal exams were held in the past. Then, we went around the city and to the Hoàn Kiếm Lake. A very pleasant place to be at, peace at mind despite the hectic traffic behind. Dinner was at a roadside stall which the volunteers recommended. First taste of the famous pho in vietnam. Yumz.  

Temple of Literature

Walking around the city

The beauty of the Hoàn Kiếm Lake 

Chicken Pho

Time to board the night train to Sapa. It was a comfortable ride, at least to me. I slept through the ride!