(gentle music)
Welcome to my world.
Two escargot, frisee!
Two green salads.
Okay, here it is.
Lamb chop, baked brie.
Shouldn't you be
doing something?
Two smoked filet
and a pepper steak.
Come on, make the dessert.
Chocolate tart, please.
As a cook, taste and
smells are my memories.
And now I'm in
search of new ones.
So I'm leaving New York City
and hope to have a few
epiphanies around the world.
I'm willing to go to
some lengths to do that.
I am looking for extremes
of emotion and experience.
I'll try anything,
I'll risk everything.
I have nothing to lose.
Vietnam has an
intoxicating beauty
that extends far beyond
the urban setting.
Today I'm off to
explore the countryside.
My good friend Felipe
Lejune pulled in
semi-unexpectedly last night.
We're ready for adventure,
we're off on our next leg.
We're traveling south
from Ho Chi Minh City,
heading into the Mekong Delta,
the rice basket of Vietnam,
to explore river
life and its cuisine.
Felipe is a consummate gourmand,
and I say that with
the utmost respect.
Felipe loves food.
I don't think there's
anything in this world
that he wouldn't eat.
He gets me into
a lot of trouble,
but it's always a lot of fun.
The best.
We're cruising down highway one,
on our way to the
southern city of Can Tho,
about a six-hour journey.
We make a few pit stops.
Bit of a jam up on the road.
Clearly black was not a
sensible fashion selection.
The terrain is pancake
flat and deliriously green.
Martha Stewart does this though.
Can Tho.
This is the Vietnam
I've seen in movies.
The scenery, the
pace, the river life.
And the air is fresh,
for being in the middle
of the land here.
Are we going?
This morning we're slipping out
onto the mighty Mekong River
for a little breakfast.
I think a bowl of
extremely spicy pho will,
might hook me up.
When you're on a river in
Vietnam, you get a real sense
of the industriousness,
the use of space,
the engineering skills.
It's almost an entirely
waterborne existence.
They check the gas station out.
Slightly combustible,
do you think?
It's like a floating bomb, man.
And I'll bet you a
100 bucks the guy
who pilots that little buggy,
bet ya he smokes like a fiend.
There it is.
Cai Rang is the
largest floating market
in the Mekong Delta.
From fish to fruit to flowers,
it's all here being
bought and sold.
Look at this.
This is unbelievable.
I'm constantly impressed.
How do they do it?
With boats that
barely seem seaworthy.
Not only do they float,
but you can run a
business out of the thing.
There are little snack
boats floating around
with prepared foods catering
to the merchants who work here.
If you want a cup of coffee,
you call the coffee boat over.
I'm having a little floating
Starbucks over here.
I'll have a double latte
mochaccino, please.
Starbucks really is in trouble,
because look at this
coffee operation.
They've got it all right there.
Very cool!
Absolutely steaming
hot wonderful coffee
delivered right in the
middle of the river.
It's great!
Kicks the (beeps)
out of Starbucks.
Thank you, my friend.
Thank you, kind sir.
After a cup of coffee,
perhaps a traditional
Vietnamese breakfast.
A nice steaming hot bowl of pho.
Beef broth, wheat
noodles, cilantro,
bean sprouts, hot red chiles
and a squeeze of lemon.
I'm rethinking my morning
Captain Crunch ritual.
This is the best.
The flavors are
so extraordinary.
It's your true home cooking.
Baguette lady's here.
They make great baguettes
in this country.
Baguettes are one of
the better contributions
of the French
occupation of Vietnam.
Delish.
[Anthony] Despite the humidity,
the baguettes are
remarkably fresh,
with crackling crust
and tender insides.
I've eaten some of
the best baguettes
I've ever had in Vietnam.
It feels quite wonderful
to get up in the morning,
get in a boat, sail
off to a market.
It's great.
This is the life.
I could go to a market by
boat every morning like this.
Yeah.
I could float
around here all day,
but this water junket continues.
All right.
We've got a date with a
duck somewhere up the river.
No more roads from here.
It's get into a long boat,
put put up a narrow canal,
deep deep deep into the delta.
Everything is laid
out here so precisely.
Every little ladder,
every little walkway.
Very efficient, very smart.
We're to be the guests
of a gentleman farmer
called Uncle Hai,
who's gonna make us a
very traditional meal.
Jimi Hendrix in the background.
The first thing we hear
is the feedback of
an electric guitar.
Rather incongruous
considering where we are.
(wobbly guitar music)
Sounds like some
experimental jazz.
There we are in the
very simple country home
of Uncle Hai and
his extended family.
He's got a few kids in there
playing electric guitar,
noodling away on an
ancient Fender Mustang.
Looking good.
(people chattering)
So we're greeted with tea
and a plate of pear-shapes
fruits called water apples.
It's kind of sour.
Very crunchy, lot of fiber.
Yeah, I can't wait
to meet the duck.
There's our victim, sorry fella.
Oh, victims.
It's for a noble cause.
This is a traditional
recipe created by workers
in the rice paddies using
resources readily available.
You have ducks, you have clay,
and you have kindling
wood to build a fire.
And the tradition continues.
Really, as we'd say
in French cuisine,
this is very old school.
The duck is killed first,
then wrapped entirely in
clay, innards and all.
And then it's
placed on the fire.
Barbecue is so last year.
Yeah.
Very very simple food.
Not a lot of technique here.
Like a beautiful family.
There's five people
working on this.
You got the whole
family involved.
Five or six people are
working on the actual duck.
This is an event.
All the people from miles around
seem to be some part of
Uncle Hai's extended family.
Some of them incredible faces.
And incredible characters.
And as we wait for
our duck to cook,
more of them keep arriving.
This is grilling and chilling.
Can Tho is a beautiful
city in the Delta.
(rooster crows)
An agricultural community
rooted in hard work
and physical labor.
It's farm country.
(squealing)
And I think every
farmer in the delta
has come out for Uncle
Hai's duck in clay.
Here we go, we got palm fronds.
The flavors must be
absolutely extraordinary.
[Anthony] I can tell from
the look on Felipe's face,
he's thinking new restaurant.
Chez Duck and Clay.
Maybe New York,
maybe South Beach.
My mind is racing right now.
Might have to do
that in New York.
All right, this is smart.
When the clay is broken off,
the feathers come with it.
It's pretty cool.
When dinner's ready, they lay
a tarp out on the front lawn.
They all squat down and
they bring out the duck
for me to carve.
All right!
Thank you.
Oh wow, look at this.
[Anthony] Keep in
mind, there's no cutlery,
there are no napkins.
It looks like I'm
wrestling with the duck.
Before he was a chef,
he was soldier. (Laughing)
But I manage to get the
legs off, and the breast,
in fairly good table side style,
considering I've got a
plate the size of a chiclet.
First, I need another plate.
I don't know if that's
how they usually cut it.
They'll probably be talking
about this for a while.
Okay, now, we get
into the good stuff.
This is it, oh yes.
[Anthony] This duck
was definitely cooked
without draining the blood
or removing the innards.
There is no blood in
there, it's cooked through.
This is one of the best
cooked ducks I've ever seen.
Okay, bravo.
(clapping)
This looks delicious.
The clay cooking
method keeps it tender
and gives is a smoky flavor.
So good.
The flavors here
are so remarkable.
Pieces of duck meat,
the dismantled carcass
and all that remains
becomes part of an incredible
duck and banana blossom soup.
Rich in texture, strong in
taste, it's real hearty.
It's enough to feed
to whole crowd.
The smell is just extraordinary.
There we go.
Very rich, it was cooked
for quite a few hours.
Just remarkable, it's a
beautiful stew right there.
It's so good to be here.
The deadly Mekong
Delta moonshine,
which comes out in
two Cola bottles.
This is rice whiskey,
the local home brew.
Kind of like White Lightning.
Oh, that's good.
Here's looking at you, man.
Wow. (Laughing)
This stuff is dangerous.
There we go.
It bounce in your stomach
and going up to your head.
And it's even
more dangerous when
you're the lone
America guest of honor.
You're something
of an attraction.
They all wanna share a
shot with the American.
Cheers.
Some of them wanna see how
much the American can drink,
if he can drink as much as them.
The guy who gives me
the most trouble though,
is the one directly
across from me,
who looks as if
he's 98 years old.
He's blind in one
eye, he has no teeth,
and he can drink
me under the table.
This gentleman here, I like him.
Okay, one more shot.
So I must have had
13 or 14 of these,
and I'm dying at this point.
And so is Felipe.
In about two seconds.
It's an extraordinary experience
that just gets better and
better and more intoxicating
as the night goes on.
That's it, I've had enough.
I have no question in my mind
that he is the stronger man!
And as it's dark, with
a single light bulb,
you know you're
deep in the bush.
There's a singular riveting
moment during this whole meal.
A man sings a
heartbreakingly earnest song.
(singing in foreign language)
It's absolutely enchanting.
Looking over at the glazed
look on Felipe's face,
I suspect he is
similarly affected.
(laughing)
Very dazzling here.
All the senses, beauty,
the sweetness of
the air, the food.
My belly is full,
my head is swimming,
somebody take me to the river.
(people shouting)
Tomorrow Felipe's
off to New York,
and I'm heading north to the
beaches for some seafood.
But this is a night I
will not soon forget.
I've traveled from
Can Tho to Nha Trang,
a sleepy fishing community on
Vietnam's south central coast.
Life is very different up here.
The little oyster village
where I had my first oysters,
it feels a lot like this.
We're gonna see a culture
that revolves around
the sea, and seafood.
You know you're in the
tropics when you're here.
If I say it's safe
to surf this beach,
it's safe to surf this beach.
I'm at the beach, so
I'm automatically happy.
I smell salt, I feel
sand, and I see the surf.
Surf is up.
So after kicking
around in the ocean,
I'm ready for some food.
I heard about this
cool floating dock
where you pick your lunch
straight out of the water,
and fisher women are
gonna shuttle me there.
Uh, 114th Street and
Riverside, please.
I finally get to ride in
one of those round boats.
It's essentially woven strands
of bamboo covered with tar,
surprisingly seaworthy.
I like these women a lot.
They have a lot of
fun with the tourists.
(laughing)
And then one of those
bonding moments happened
when a gentleman
disembarks from my boat.
When he gets on the dock,
he stumbles badly and
almost falls into the water.
And the two ladies
with me crack up.
We don't speak
the same language,
but we all know what
we're laughing about.
There's a shared joyous moment.
Now this isn't like
that skunky aquarium
at your local fish joint.
This is fresh, fresh, fresh.
Somebody feels like squid?
It's all stuff they
hauled in that day.
You just reach in.
There are lobsters, kind of like
the clawless spiny lobster
of the Mediterranean.
Incredible looking crabs.
A variety of fish
still swimming around,
everything still alive.
I don't think I
can eat all that.
Give me one of these.
Nice big lobster.
Okay, we'll take this guy.
Lunch.
Okay, this may look
like we're sitting down
for a typical lobster meal,
but we don't do
this is the States.
Jam a knife into the
lobster's sexual organs.
That's gotta hurt.
Drain what is
referred to as blood,
which is then poured
into Hanoi vodka.
Cool, I could get
into this big time.
And of course it's
gonna make me strong,
and feel good.
The Vietnamese believe
that drinking animal blood
makes you more potent.
Tastes kind of like
sour milk and vodka.
Yeah, strong.
It makes you feel strong enough
to tuck into a
serious seafood meal.
Most of the kitchens in Nha
Trang are rudimentary at best.
But the seafood is
always first rate.
Recognize him?
We've been seeing a lot of that
cradle to the grave food here.
This is not Red Lobster.
There's no butter here.
Now we're tucking in
with a little pepper
loosened up into a paste
with some fresh lime juice.
That's good.
This is fried grouper finished
with a spicy red chile sauce.
This is how the pros do it.
The good stuff.
Oh man, that is criminally good.
Pass it down.
Almost all the tables
you see a larger group,
six, eight people
all eating together.
Locals and tourists,
whole families,
everybody's tucking in
like there's no tomorrow.
You make a mess.
You tunnel after
every good piece.
It's fun.
All the big tables look
like this afterwards.
It looks like Stalingrad
after the war.
With the shells sucked
clean, picked over bones,
stubbed out cigarettes,
discarded bottles.
Evidence of a good time.
Detritus of an invading
army left on the table.
Everybody wins,
that's what's great.
Except the lobster.
He loses.
I'm staying at the
former summer retreat
of the last Vietnamese
emperor, Bao Dai.
He may be gone, but one if
his royal dishes remains.
The much sought after
bird's nest soup.
The soup contains hardened
strands of bird mucus,
which sea swallows use
to make their nests.
It's believed to be
an elixir of youth.
Choking down a bowl of mucus
isn't something I'm
thrilled about doing,
since I still have that lobster
swimming around in my stomach.
You know, I'm bloated.
I feel like Orson Welles.
But the chef's been
working on this all day.
So I have to extend some
professional courtesy
and rise to the occasion.
All right.
What was Emperor Bao Dai
thinking eating this stuff?
Maybe if he'd eaten more at
Sizzler and less bird's nest,
he would still be in power.
Nest harvesting is a
precarious venture.
Harvesters propel
down rock faces
to reach the nest, steering
clear of the poisonous snakes.
Not to be taken lightly, the
highly prized bird's nest
which is no bigger
than a child's hand,
is rare and difficult to obtain.
The motivation for
risking life and limb
is the high return on this.
It can fetch up
to $4,000 a pound.
This is a slight incline.
But believe me, feels
like Kilimanjaro to me.
Fortunately, I won't be
choking down bird's
mucus right away.
Bird's nest soup involves
a lengthy preparation.
So here's how this
royal dish breaks down.
A swallow's nest.
Quail eggs.
Rock doves.
Medicinal herbs.
And a coconut.
First, drain the juice.
Separate the strands
of the bird's nest.
Hard cook and peel eggs.
Chop rock doves.
Season with salt,
pepper, shallots, ginger.
Soak the medicinal elements.
Wolfberry, lotus root,
and silver ear mushrooms.
Pack all the ingredients
into coconut.
Add back the juice as
a base for the broth.
Then steam for five hours.
Bird's nest soup
is highly revered
as traditional Chinese medicine.
You know, maybe this
stuff will work.
Because it cures God knows what.
My lungs will clear up.
Because it makes you strong.
No problem exercising.
And because it has therapeutic
and restorative qualities.
Give me that clear porcelain
complexion I always dreamed of.
This could usher in a whole
new period of my life.
This could be a good thing.
Thank you.
Ah, bird's nest.
Okay, so the strands of mucus
taste like overcooked
angel hair.
Actually that doesn't taste bad.
And the broth is
pretty good too.
Sort of sweet and sour.
Okay, so far so good.
It's the chunks I'm wary of.
I wanna know what that is.
Please God let it be a chickpea.
Tastes like one of those
Chinese herbs, a little bitter.
I can live with this.
I'm relieved.
So I'm getting past the mucus
aspect and all the chunks.
I'm thinking, I'm home free.
So you can imagine my surprise
while tunneling
through this stuff
to see head and beak
come popping out at me.
Oh yeah.
That's out little friend.
Yeah I recognize him, at
looks like a collarbone.
I knew they used rock
dove, but the whole thing?
It's like something
out of Evil Dead.
That's a real capper.
The broth was the best part,
and the nest wasn't
that bad after all.
But I wasn't feeling too
good after this stuff.
It did not make
me feel stronger.
I just feel utterly horrible.
Ugh.
How do you say
Bromo-Seltzer in Vietnamese?
It made me want to die.
The horror, the horror.
(groans)
Never mind my moaning.
I've been completely seduced
by the Vietnamese cuisine
and the life that surrounds it.
(upbeat music)
