April 15, 2019

Bay Mau Eco Cooking Class

Bay Mau Eco Cooking Class // Hoi An, Vietnam

Typically, when we travel we tend to stay away from touristy “excursions” opting to experience things for ourselves and try to get a more natural feel for where we’re at. So when a friend suggested we take a cooking class we thought we’d keep it in mind but didn’t really intend to do it. When we arrived in Hoi An our wonderful hotel, Villa Orchid Garden Riverside, had a plethora of recommendations for us, the top one being the Bay Mau Eco Cooking Class. But it’s so much more than just a cooking class! Not only do you get to learn, step by step, how to make 4 incredible dishes but you also start the day by going through the central market to buy all the ingredients that you’re going to be using. Our guide, Hai, was truly amazing and took the time at every stall to explain exactly what we were buying, it’s importance in Vietnamese cooking, and all the different ways it could be used.

From there we embarked on a boat ride down the Thu Bon River for about 20 minutes before transferring to bamboo baskets that would guide us the rest of the way to the villas where we would be doing our cooking. Upon arrival, we were greeted with endless passionfruit juice and given the opportunity to see how the rice milk is made and even make some rice paper for the spring rolls ourselves. You’ll see below how intensely excited I was about that! After making what I think I can say was perfect rice paper we moved onto the actual cooking.

We set out to make 4 signature Vietnamese dishes that encompassed all 3 regions of Vietnam. First up, after starting off the beef stock so it could simmer, was Goi Cuon (fresh rice paper salad rolls), followed by my personal favorite, Banh Xeo, a crispy Vietnamese crepe filled with pork, shrimp, bean sprouts, and green onions. It was like a Vietnamese pancake taco and I could have eaten 100 of them. Then we moved on to Mi Xao Hai San, fried noodles! Not only was this delicious but Hai shared her personal touch of shaping the carrots as flowers and the shrimp as hearts because as she said, she likes to cook with love. Then we went back to our simmering stock and finished up our Pho Bo prepared Hanoi style (without sugar). Throughout the class, there was a demonstration of how to create every dish before we were sent to our individual cooking stations to make our attempts at replicating what we had just seen. And I must say, I think we did pretty good! After devouring everything that we prepared (and drinking approximately 20 glasses of passionfruit juice) we were so full we could barely move. The remainder of that day was spent laying around the hotel with wonderfully full bellies.