Chicken, prawn or ... steak?

We have eaten some great meals recently and thought that we would share some of them with you. As we have said before, we live just around the corner from a bustling farmers' market. This means that we have had access to awesome, fresh and delicious fruit and veg. The prawns are also amazing!

A few nights ago we decided to make a prawn salad, because we were getting a little bored of baguette and noodle based meals. Plus its super hot and sticky here, so a salad is a nice, light meal. The salad consisted purely of produce acquired from the market (with the exception of the make-do salad dressing) and tasted incredible. In it, we put lettuce, cucumber, carrot, sprouts, paw-paw, green and red peppers, avo, pan-roasted peanuts and prawns. The sauce was a mixture of mayo, chilli sauce, salt and pepper.

Before the sauce - yummy.

With the sauce - delicious!

There is a pub and grill close to Mel's work, called The Tavern. We have been there once before for lunch and were certainly not disappointed. They run a different lunch special everyday, so on Monday we decided to see what hey had on offer. We made the short trip (with our awesome, shnazzy new helmets) and were quite excited to treat ourselves to a lunch date. The special exceeded our expectations - Yogurt chicken breasts grilled with red pepper and pineapple salsa, served with a fresh salad and french fries (which, by the way, we have been CRAVING like something illegal!). The meal was very tasty, but was oddly a little dry. We felt that a dollop of yogurt over the chicken and salsa would've finished it off beautifully.

While tucking into or lunch time treat, Mel discovered the biggest chip we have seen on her plate. We just had to stop eating and take a photo - it was that impressive!

The biggest chip EVER!!

On Wednesday we were feeling lazy (it must be the heat! Or maybe the late nights?). Anyway, we convinced ourselves that we haven't explored our surrounding neighbourhood enough, and in particular the various small restaurants. So we googled places to eat in our area and found an interesting one which had received great reviews. So we drove slowly down the road trying to find the place. This is not as easy as it sounds, most of the signs look similar (especially because they are similar colours, and because we can't read what they say!) and there are millions of other people on the road who don't understand why you would be driving slowly on their road. This resulted in us being hooted at by various motorists, in a variety of vehicles, and being passed by not one, but two teenagers on bicycles! We couldn't find the place, and as you can imagine, blood pressures were on the rise. Suddenly we spotted (only just I might add) an interesting looking place that was largely tucked away behind bushes and a row of parked scooters. Ross was too slow to react and drove past it - fail! But that's OK - we have been here long enough to know that there is no need to do a big loop down the one way road, in the crazy traffic, to get to a place that you have driven past. Instead, he did what any local would have done. He mounted the pavement and drove back along it, to the restaurant.

We walked in and soon felt very much under dressed. The waiters looked extremely smart, wearing their white button up shirts and black waist-coats. Most of the patrons in the restaurant were wearing collared shirts and long pants. Then in strolls Ross wearing shorts, a superman shirt and slip slops. So that's what it feels like to turn heads...

Anyway, we were seated in their beautiful, garden style restaurant, close to a mist spraying fan, and handed a menu. The menu was of course in Vietnamese and we could not read a word. Until... we spotted a familiar word - 'Beefsteak' - written just like that, one word. Our excitement levels began to grow, especially when we saw the price - 45, 000 VND (+ R23) each. We ordered two, along with two iced coffees and waited in anticipation to see what we would receive. We were stoked with the outcome - a steak (OK, a minute steak, but what did you expect?), salad and chips. It also came with a tasty soy sauce and fresh chilli dipping sauce.

Complimentary mugs of water. 

Very smartly dressed waiters.

Weird fruit in the trees

The beautiful tree top canopy that provided shade

Amazing iced coffee

Our steak, salad, fries and soy sauce with chilli

A very happy Ross

Snow white in the garden

These two lille birdies lived a little lavishly this week, taking ourselves out for TWO lunch dates! (Mom, if you are reading this, we might need some money in the next few days! Tricking)