Wednesday, September 16, 2009

123 Run

Beefsteak

My ex-colleagues invited me to join them for dinner at 123 restaurant, which is one of the most popular homemade fast food restaurants in Hanoi. According to my friends, this restaurant located on Pho Hue Street is always busy for both lunch and dinner. In Vietnam, wherever the crowds are generally means the place is good but I did have my doubts about this place.

Fried boneless lemon chicken

When we arrived the other night, each of the three storeys at this restaurant was full. The service was pretty efficient I have to say, with each order including a small bowl of broth, some veggies and pickles. I ordered fried boneless lemon chicken but funnily enough I swallowed a small piece of bone which was a worry. People say that chicken bones can be quite dangerous when they get stuck in the throat. I had to eat several full mouthfuls of rice to finally get the small bone down. Oh my gosh, it makes me feel uncomfortable thinking about it now. My friends were laughing at me and I did feel like an idiot but I was so scared. This is a good excuse to refuse an invitation to 123 next time.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't think fastfood is good for you Mr. How is your throat now? Hope you are ok
Steve

Thomas said...

Wow, I would be scared too. Hopefully the chicken was delicious.

schiehallion said...

Hi there. Reading your last posts, I was wondering about a topic that is on top of consumers' minds in Europe and the US but to my understanding gets so far relatively low attention and coverage in Asia, also in Vietnam (maybe a misperception, but I am curious to hear about that). The topic is food safety, food ingredients and ecological and environmental sustainability of food production. To take your "fast food" example, many questions do come to my mind:
Where was the chicken coming from? How was it raised (free-range, cage etc.)? What did it eat? What quality was the food it had? Any use of chemicals, pharmaceuticals or traces of poison, dioxins, heavy metals or other harmful substances? Did it feed running around a big city sewage system near and industrial waste water inlet? What was the water quality for the plants the chicken was eating? Many many more questions come to my mind, yet I read surprisingly little in your otherwise highly valued blog. Maybe you want to take up this topic a bit more in the future. Kind regards, Marco

Anonymous said...

ooopa em cheecky tea ne. Em vô xem blog của anh rồi, nhưng em lười đọc lắm. hà hà. Đúng như dự đoán của em á. blog của anh hông có lung linh lấp lánh gì hết trơn á. Nhưng anh dân chơi thiệt đó, viết hết bằng tiếng Anh sao (trừ mấy đoạn "nhà hàng..."). Tiếp tục nha anh giai!

Anonymous said...

I went to 123 on wednesday and it was full. Food was bad but cheaper than KFC. Thanks for sharing
Nguyet

Anonymous said...

omg. u wrote a large number of topics. i cant help admiring u. :))

Unknown said...

Wow, delious...