Afternoon Tea at The Metropole Hanoi

After we made our reservations to stay at the Metropole Hotel I was really excited to discover that they have an afternoon tea, and that it included a chocolate buffet! When everyone caught sight of it being set up it didn't take any convincing that we needed to go.

The tea gets a lot of rave reviews and some people say it's a Hanoi must-do. I think the location is beautiful and the chocolate buffet is absolutely stunning, but to be honest I didn't find it as relaxing as most of the afternoon tea's that Raku and I have gone to.

I'll get my two complaints out of the way, and then you can focus on the chocolate. My biggest (and most legitimate) complaint is that each person only gets one small pot of tea that holds about 2 cups. Maybe I've gotten spoiled in Tokyo sipping endless cups of tea, but with the amount of chocolate on offer you really need more to drink! We ended up ordering a couple bottles of sparkling water for the table, but it kind of changed the whole experience. My other complaint is probably more our own faults, and it is about self-control. The chocolate buffet is so gorgeous and indulgent and wonderful, but it's way too easy to wolf down a plate of chocolates and then feel sort of sick (just ask our husbands.) Raku and I did a better job of pacing ourselves, but it just didn't feel as relaxing as the usual tiered tea tray.

You're probably reading this and thinking, "Are you kidding me? What is wrong with this person that is complaining about a chocolate buffet?!?" You're probably right. The set up, as I'm already said was so beautiful, and the quality of the food was excellent. There was an entire chocolate ice cream station with fresh fruits, sauces, toppings, and ice cream in silver pots. There were also extensive selections of truffles, cakes, macarons, and a small side table of sandwiches to help balance out all the sugar. On top of that you could special order chocolate cocktails or chocolate milkshakes.

We walked right in on a Friday afternoon and had no trouble being seated without a reservation. So, if you're thinking about going, I'd recommend it - but remember to pace yourself and don't drink your tea too quickly.

The fanciest ice cream set-up I've ever seen

Can you see why we had trouble with will power?

Of all the desserts the cakes were probably the most skip-able, but they sure are pretty

Chocolate fountain with fruit, marshmallows, cakes and donuts on skewers

The sandwich selection was minimal, but they were all excellent

Yum!

Read About The Rest of Our Trip:

Visiting Cambodia: Angkor Wat

Visiting Cambodia: Siem Reap

Visiting Hanoi: The City

Visiting Hanoi: The Food

Visiting Hanoi: The Sofitel Metropole

Read About Other Afternoon Teas:

The Kahala Resort Honolulu

The Aman Tokyo

The Palace Hotel Tokyo

The Ritz Carlton Tokyo

Tokyo Shangri-la

Peninsula Hotel Tokyo

The Mandarin Oriental (second time)

Park Hyatt Shinjuku

Four Seasons Marunouchi

Hotel Chinzanso

The Mandarin Oriental

Visiting Hanoi: The Sofitel Metropole

On our trip to Hanoi, besides the food we were most excited about was staying at The Sofitel Metropole Hotel. The Metropole is an extremely glamorous hotel with a really fascinating history, and I think we enjoyed the historical aspects just as much as we enjoyed the luxury of the place.

The hotel was opened in 1901, and every inch of it is gorgeous. I'm still sorry that John had food poisoning, but this was definitely the ideal location to recover in. Just lounging around the hotel is an experience. The four of us spent a lot of time hanging out in our rooms and at the pool playing cards, and even though not everyone was feeling great I think we all really enjoyed the time. The hotel puts so much attention into every detail and it really shows in the overall experience. Every evening for turn down service they leave individually wrapped macarons! John and I saved ours each night to have as a tiny but indulgent start to the mornings.

Besides being a gorgeous hotel, The Metropole has a really intersting history. It has housed the embassies for a number of countries over the years, Graham Green wrote The Quiet American while living in the hotel, and Joan Baez wrote the song Where Are You Now My Son about her experience of the bombings in Hanoi during the Vietnam War and recorded it from her balcony of her room at the hotel.

Once everyone was feeling better we signed up for a tour of the hotel that is led every evening. On the tour we learned a lot about Hanoi during the Vietnam War. During the war small holes were dug in the ground to create individual bomb shelters for people to hide in. A picture of these holes directly in front of the Metropole appeared on the cover of Life magazine. Since then they've been filled in and had trees planted in them. We also went into the bomb shelter that was built for guests and learned that they (usually press writers and politicians) were often herded into the shelter several times a night. Staff would lock the guests in the shelter for their safety, and then they had to use the little man hole shelters! While we were all gathered in the shelter our guide played the song Joan Baez wrote about her experience of the bombings. It was a quite haunting.

Before going on the trip I felt a little strange about the history The United States has with Vietnam, and both of our mothers commented on how the locations we mentioned in terms of vacation were locations they had heard during war reports on the news as children. In retrospect I'm really glad that we took the opportunity to learn a little bit about the history rather than just completely ignoring it.

The Metropole Hotel

Macarons for Turn Down Service!

I've never seen so many orchids all at once

Personal bomb shelters on the sidewalk in front of the hotel

Today trees grow in the spaces

The entrance into the bomb shelter is right beside the pool

Our tour guide, Mr. Duc, inside the bomb shelter

Read About The Rest of Our Trip:
Visiting Cambodia: Angkor Wat
Visiting Cambodia: Siem Reap
Visiting Hanoi: The City
Visiting Hanoi: The Food
Afternoon Tea at The Metropole

Visiting Hanoi: The Food

Before going to Hanoi I had only eating Vietnamese food once, but the food was definitely one of the biggest things John and I were looking forward to, and looking back eating is the majority of what we did on the trip.

Our very first morning in Hanoi we took a street food tour with Mark from Hanoi Street Food Tours, and it was such an incredible experience! I'll be honest, I had a lot of reservations about doing the tour. The tour cost $75 per person, which, in my world, is just a lot to spend for a meal no matter what and street food is just so cheap! I really struggled to see how it could be worth the money. And we were setting out at 8:00 am, who spends $75 on breakfast I wondered? Would I even be hungry at that time of day? Raku and her husband had done the tour before and tried to assure me that it really would be worth it, but I couldn't let go of my skepticism. Piece of advice: don't be as skeptical as me, if you have the chance LEAP at it! This tour made the trip for me, and when you think about the price of hotels and flights, $75 is not so much to pay to ensure an incredible experience with delicious memories.

The tours last three hours, and are so much fun. What you're paying for is, without question, Mark or Tu's personal expertise. They know where the most delicious food is, they know how to give you a broad overview of Vietnamese food, and they are sure of the cleanliness. It was so much fun to sit down on little plastic stools on the side of the street or is busy alleys and dig into all sorts of dishes. If we had been on our own I wouldn't have had the slightest idea where to start, I would have probably been to scared to eat in any of these places, and I certainly wouldn't have known what to order. Instead, I never felt a moment's hesitation, I'm happy to report that none of us had any upset stomaches afterwards, and my only regret is that John wasn't able to come because he was stuck in the hotel with food poisoning. The tour gives you a chance to try tons of dishes, you're never expected to finish anything because you're basically grazing for three hours straight. This is great because if you end up not liking a particular dish, it's absolutely a non-issue, though often I had the opposite problem and had to make myself stop eating to save room for additional stops. If you're looking for more information, this article from the New York Times is where Raku first learned about the tours.

Besides the food, we were really excited for Vietnamese coffee. Vietnamese coffee is usually served with a thick layer of sweetened condensed milk in the bottom of the cup, whether it's hot or iced. I think this is because for so long it was hard to keep fresh milk on hand, but cans of condensed milk can just sit out at room temperature until they've been opened. And more importantly, it's delicious! We also tried a couple of more unique vietnamese coffees. One was sort of like afogato - coffee served on top of frozen yogurt, so delicious and very refreshing in the heat. We had this at Cong Caphe which is a chain of coffee shops that are communist themed, but I think a number of places serve it. We also had egg coffees at Giang Cafe. When I first heard the name I didn't know what to expect, but this is not a scrambled egg on top of your coffee, it's a thick zabaglione style custard cream served on top of coffee. Yum!

Bun Ca - noodle soup with fried fish and dill - my favorite dish of the tour!

Pho - the slices of beef were so big and SO tender

There's always a bowl of mixed herbs on the table to eat with your food

Pho Tiu 

Pork and noodles stall

Coconut frozen yogurt coffee at Cong Caphe

Egg coffee at Giang Cafe

Giang Cafe - so beautiful!

Read About The Rest of Our Trip:

Visiting Cambodia: Angkor Wat

Visiting Cambodia: Siem Reap

Visiting Hanoi: The City

Visiting Hanoi: The Sofitel Metropole

Afternoon Tea at The Metropole

Places We Enjoyed:

Cong Caphe

Giang Cafe

Hanoi Street Food Tours

Pho Tu Lun

23 Hai Bà Trưng, Hàng Bài, Hoàn Kiếm, Hà Nội, Vietnam

Visiting Hanoi: The City

After our time in Cambodia we headed to Hanoi for three days. Our friends had been once previously, but this was the first time visiting Vietnam for both me and John. I mentioned in a previous post that I had a lot of concerns when planning our trip, and to be honest, most of them were about Hanoi. I'd read that taxi drivers would be likely to rip us off, that crossing the street would be a harrowing experience, and that street vendors would approach us constantly. I didn't find any of that to be the case. It was a beautiful friendly city, and I would definitely go back.

Hanoi in June is really hot. Probably even hotter than Angkor Wat, though we weren't entirely sure if that was because of the actual weather or because cities absorb heat so much more than rural areas. Our friends had been before in November and remembered being comfortable in jeans, which is completely out of the question in June, but Raku said she felt like the city had been missing something before, and that somehow it just felt right for it to be so hot and tropical.

I'm not sure if it was because of the time of year, or just a fluke, but there weren't too many scooters either. If you read anything about Hanoi you will learn how the streets are flooded with scooters and that traffic never stops. In order to cross the street you just walk very slowly and steadily across the street and traffic will avoid you. It's supposed to be a terrifying experience. But lucky for us the traffic was much thinner than we had expected. Crossing the street wasn't exactly relaxing, and we still needed to be vigilant, but it was nothing like what I had feared.

Unfortunately, the one thing I worried about that did happen was food poisoning. It didn't happen to me, but our first night in Hanoi John woke up very sick. The culprit: airline food. How annoying! It's scary to be sick in another country, so what do you do when you have food poisoning in Vietnam? I thought he might need to see a doctor, but our hotel concierge told us that it would actually be much easier to just go straight to a pharmacy and buy an antibiotic. This was surprising to me, but seems to be standard. We went to a Hapharco, which is a common pharmacy in the Old Quarter, and were able to speak with the pharmacist in English. After hearing what was wrong she sold us three days worth of antibiotics for about $3 and sent us on our way. I hate to say this, but neither of us can remember its name. Before taking it, John googled the medicine because neither of us had ever heard of it before, but it's a French drug that seems to be very common in Southeast Asia for food poisoning. Of course, if you're traveling it's a good idea to bring some over the counter stomach medicine for mild cases, but because John ran a fever for more than a day I was very grateful that we could deal with the problem so easily. 

In spite of the food poisoning we managed to eat some really fantastic food and drink some great coffee, which deserve their own post. We took the rest of our time pretty easy, which I think is necessary in a city that is so chaotic and bustling. But with so much beautiful scenery it was always interesting to stop and sit at a cafe.

I wonder how old this truck is?

Look at all those chicken parts!

West Lake

The One Pillar Pagoda

The architecture is so French

St. Joseph's Cathedral

Everything in Hanoi was bursting with colors

Sunset from the Sofitel Plaza Hotel

Hoan Kiem Lake

Read About The Rest of Our Trip:

Visiting Cambodia: Siem Reap

Visiting Cambodia: Angkor Wat

Visiting Hanoi: The Food

Visiting Hanoi: The Sofitel Metropole

Afternoon Tea at The Metropole

Home from Cambodia and Vietnam

A couple of weeks ago I told you I was going on a trip to Angkor Wat and Hanoi, and then I never wrote anything else. I'm sorry I've been quiet for so long, the trip was totally wonderful and exhausting and overwhelming, and then almost as soon as we got back I came down with a cold and spent nearly a whole week lying around not doing anything.

Luckily I'm feeling a lot better now - just in time for John's sister Ellie to arrive. She'll be here for a full two weeks, and we'll be doing all sorts of great things, some of them old favorites for me and John, but some new things too, so hopefully I'll have some good experiences to share here. But before I get totally caught up in her visit I want to be sure and post all about our trip. Each segment deserves its own post, but for now I'll just share a few highlights.

This was my first time in Southeast Asia and I wasn't really sure what to expect. Living in Tokyo which is so clean and structured and formal I sort of expected Vietnam and Cambodia to be like the wild west, which was both exciting and intimidating. I shouldn't have worried though because everyone was so kind, the food was delicious, and while it was really different from Japan I never felt unsafe. 

In Cambodia our goal was to see the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat which were absolutely breathtaking, and in Vietnam we mainly wanted to eat a lot of delicious Vietnamese food and relax. We succeeded with both, despite an unfortunate bout of food poisoning, and I am so glad we finally made this trip a reality!

I'll leave you with a few photos and very soon I'll write more about the trip.

Banteay Srei Temple

Strangler Fig Trees grow over everything 

We stayed at a Moroccan Themed Hotel in Cambodia

Lots of women carry around baskets of things for sale in Hanoi 

There are scooters everywhere in Hanoi

It was surprising to see all the meat lying out to be butchered at the food stalls