One of our many random dining excursions led us to a really cheap Vietnamese restaurant in Marrickville. Located at 304 Illawara Road, Pho Bac is nestled between a few other Vietnamese restaurants, so make sure you check the signs before entering!

The food was good and great value for money. Mains range from $7.50 – $25 and the portions were just right. I’ve been here for both lunch and dinner and they can get really busy. However, The restaurant is quite small and can get cramped during peak hour.The service isn’t too bad, the ambience at night is quite warm and they don’t have the horrible fluorescent lighting you can expect from many Asian restaurants!

Although I’d go back to Pho Bac, Thanh Binh in Cabramatta is still my favourite Vietnamese restaurant in Sydney! Here’s a little sneak peak of a few dishes we sampled. As usual, I will be adding more photos in future after a few more visits to Pho Bac!

Naturally when in Hanoi we sought out the weird and wonderful for each and every meal. When we heard of a “Snake Village” called Le Mat on the outskirts of town we quickly decided that this was worth further investigation. After a quick taxi ride over the river we arrived to find a suburban area with very little sign of action. Luckily there were plenty of local hawkers eager to take us to their “friends” house where we could enjoy a meal of snake.

The man jumped on his bike and rode off to a local house to negotiate what kind of commission he’d get for leading four stupid westerners to the snake vendor. We followed through a dingy garage to arrive at the below scene.

So how much? For the low low price of $90 US we could eat the snake. Considering that almost every meal we’d had in Vietnam had cost less than a dollar we quickly left to find another restaurant / house. The fact that the characters in the garage looked like the shadiest men in all of Vietnam certainly didn’t help.

Our “good friend” on the motorbike rode off to find us another vendor. He lead us down a few dusty alleyways to a lavish mansion with some snake cages out the back. The man was friendly and the price quickly dropped to $35 US for all four of us to have a feast of snake with alcohol included. Expensive but what the hey, we agreed and the man went about selecting the unlucky snake.

Out came two jars, two funnels, a knife and a doomed Cobra. The snake’s neck was broken, it’s heart was located and a cut was made.

At this stage we have no idea what is going on. Why are they collecting the blood? I guess we’ll find out later.

A close up of the blood being drained.

The heart is cut out and slips down to the bottom of a small glass. It is still beating rapidly for several minutes before it begins to slow to just a beat here and there.

The men make another cut further down the snake and begin to drain it’s dull green bile. It looks something like very strong green tea but smells like… snake bile I guess! At this stage we are led upstairs to the guest area and take a seat. A bottle of snake blood and another of snake bile are brought up to us by our host and the sounds & smells of cooking snake waft upwards from downstairs. Several shots are prepared, the first contains the snake’s heart along with a healthy splash of bile and some home made rice wine just to make the entire concoction that much more appetizing.

By this stage we are all feeling a little queasy and the question is raised as to who is going to have the heart. I offer to be the guinea pig for this excursion and find very little in the way objections from my friends, one of whom has already gone outside for fresh air and fails to return until the meal is over.

Looks delicious doesn’t it? Our host explains that the locals drink snake blood to help them with “sexy lady boom boom”. Look out Viagra!

Surprise, surprise, it tasted just like snake bile with rice wine with a raw heart in it. Luckily the off burning aftertaste of the rice wine saved me from more than a few seconds of suffering. We now proceed with shot after shot of rice wine with snake blood.

These were not too bad and definitely far superior to the snake bile. Our host quickly works out that we are not interested in any more bile shots and so begins to help himself, quickly becoming outrageously drunk.

Our host’s wife enters with several dishes made from the unfortunate snake. The first being snake meat which has been battered with flour and sesame seeds and deep fried. Mmmmmm tastes like chicken yet with the consistency of mashed potato. We are all surprised and impressed, the crispy pieces of snake are quickly consumed.

Snake spring rolls anyone? Very Yum. After dipping in the traditional Vietnamese vinegar sauce (often used with rice paper rolls) they were a real crowd pleaser.

Our host now obtains a large bottle of something from the cupboard. The fluid within it is cloudy and has some mysterious “things” floating around the bottom. After some interesting sign language we understand that these “things” are indeed snake testicles and the liquid itself is rice wine. We were all quite amused until our host pours as each a shot. We took a bit of convincing but eventually caved in and downed our shots. The taste was foul and we all refused to touch our second shot, again leaving our host to enjoy the spoils.

Next we are served snake skin that has been deep fried to perfection. This was delicious, something like a cross between chicken skin and the crackling on roast pork. We all agreed it was the highlight of the meal and fought over the last few pieces.

With the meal over and our shot glasses empty we move to a new room downstairs where our host has readied a home made water pipe. Despite having one of the better homes in Hanoi, his pipe is nothing more than a scaffolding tube with a tin can strapped to it. He shows us his favorite party trick which is to overload his already massive pipe with tobacco, spark up and inhale the entire lot then hold his breath for over a minute. When he breathes out all the smoke is gone. Wow. We begin to wonder if he drinks and smokes this with all of his snake guests and if so how he hasn’t died from multiple organ failure. We thank our host and leave him with his well earned US dollars, now it’s time to see if we can locate that restaurant that serves locusts…