John wanted to have supper at this fried eel shop that was packed with many locals. Must be pretty good as business was so brisk. But I was a bit hesitant because I’ve never been a huge fan of eels – not because of the way it looks (or resembles the snake) but I just don’t fancy its taste which is a cross between fishy and gamey.
Oh well, heck. We just had to give this a shot. ?
Mien Luon Dong Thinh
87 Hang Dieu
Hoan Kiem, Hanoi
Vietnam
Tel: +84 4 3836 7943
Opening hours: 6.30am to 9.30pm daily
To order, just point to the menu board on the wall.
Mien Tron – Vermicelli Blend (45,000 VND) was basically glass noodles with crispy fried eel, herbs and vegetables. The noodles were very springy. You’d need to toss everything up in the nuoc cham dressing on the bottom which would really enhance the whole dish with a light, refreshing taste.
The fried eel tasted like fried fish skin but with a strong eel flavour (like what I had mentioned earlier – a bit fishy and gamey).
Mien Xao – Fried Vermicelli (55,000 VND) was similar to the earlier dish except that the glass noodles here were stir fried with egg. I preferred this dish as it reminded me of the Sin Chew Bee Hoon we could get at tze char stalls in Singapore. I squeezed a lot of calamansi limes over to give it a bit of a tang and it tasted so good! Kinda helped remove that fishy flavour of the eel too. Yum.
Never had fried eel before? Then you must come here to try. 🙂