The apparently bucolic Thảo Thủy sea food restaurant is on the
northern border of Tĩnh Gia district, actually at the side of Vietnam's primary road the AH1. However, because it backs onto the river it is remarkably peaceful
On big roads throughout Vietnam people are employed to stand and wave down passing traffic to try to entice people to stop and eat. Given that it is so ubiquitous, it seems this unlikely practice must at least be thought to work!
This is a reminiscence page for the coming New Year's Day. It shows a meal we had to celebrate that day in 2011. We went to a sea food restaurant on the AH1 at the northern edge of Tĩnh Gia District. Now Hân and Duyên have their own sea food restaurant on the AH1 in Tĩnh Gia Town, the last and next pages give you some idea of their new restaurant. Sadly for the family of the Thảo Thủy, customers were few, and the establishment has long since closed. But, as nearly always in Vietnam, the food was excellent.
To the right the sign for the restaurant announces: "Restaurant Thảo Thủy Seafood fresh and alive. Rice country chicken - simple food"
The main building has a thatched separate dining room, this we took over for our meal
The dining room backed onto the river...
...down which can be seen coming a rowing boat
Unremarkable until it comes closer...
...when it can be seen that the oarsman is using his feet and legs, rather than his arms, to row
Lunch is waiting in the fish tanks...
...to be chosen by customers
The restaurant's kitchen, busy with making our meal once the fish have been selected
The table for us is set out in the dining room; a pleasantly warm day making the most of its location
An odd angled shot that makes the point such shots rarely work, however, it gets the diners and their food into frame
A course of snails and shrimps, but the children are...
...soon bored of the table and its wares
Huyên and Duyên and their children pose
Members of the family, who ran the restaurant, relax here with a traditional bamboo water pipe...
...and here with the younger members of the family
The dinner table left abandoned by the diners (leaving by Vietnamese standards a clean floor) who have moved across...
...to the tea table for tea, oranges and tooth picks
But no Vietnamese celebration is finished until the participants have ended up at least semi-legless, and sentimental, at a Karaoke emporium
Lợi gets into it
Duyên and Huyên duet it
Hân tells it, and...
...Hiẻu gets backing from wife, but maybe not baby
Trailers...
The next page has
more on the bistro/restaurant that Hân and Duyên have opened in Tĩnh Gia.
The next page
in the Present Section - 'Seamless'.
Or go to the contents of the Present Section.
The last page illustrated the making of the Hân Duyên Restaurant
Another meal together on the occasion of my 68th birthday
A traditional meal at the home of a friend
