Dinner Adventure

We walked down the hill from our hotel into town for dinner. After passing many places and finding no particular reason to select one over another, we wandered into one. 

We ordered beer  and “Blackened Chicken Hot Pot”, as everyone in the restaurant seemed to have ordered  one or another type of “Hot Pot”.  Turns out they bring plates of raw ingredients including the blackened chicken, tofu, cabbage, some sort of leafy green vegetable we did not recognize, sliced tomatoes, choco and rice noodles. Almost all people in the restaurant appeared to be Vietnamese and knew what to do, but the employees could tell we did not, so two of them returned repeatedly to our table to instruct us (in Vietnamese and hand signals) how to cook our meal at our table. 

The whole experience turned out to be hilarious or off-putting, depending on your perspective. After seeing many bizarre offerings on the menu (such as horse lung, horse intestines, and horse penis alcohol – really!) we felt we had made a tame selection, but the blackened chicken turned out to be interesting – it looked like ordinary chicken except it was, in fact, black, and we have no idea why!? 

In the end we decided it was a worthwhile adventure, but we might try the pizza place tomorrow night.