French Colonial Food Porn

Last night, during our 11pm dinner stop, I sat around with some people from the bus and we reminisced about the foods we missed. Garth and Emma - from Brunswick of all places, by Merri Creek - wanted potato cakes; Andrew, the ambiguously accented Scottish or Irish guy, wanted fried mars bars; I had a yen for dolmades, rye bread with pickles, and wasabi peas. (Maybe I have a green fetish?)

In any case, we were commiserating about how farcically difficult it is to find proper Vietnamese food if you're a Westerner in Vietnam. At home, the prevailing foodstuffs are rice noodles, coriander, chilli and lemongrass - over here they seem to be Maggi noodles and chilli or fish sauce. You can, of course, if you're a meat-eater, be in heaven eating proper food from the street kitchens; battered pigs' faces and all sorts of dumplings, porcupine, and snake abound; but ask for an chay and blank looks of incomprehension are all you're going to get.

In fact, to get a flavour fix, I've been sneaking into street kitchens and ordering pho an chay. I pretend and the stall-holders pretend that it's not chock-full of beef stock - I get chilli, they get 10 000 dong. My plan to eat my way around Vietnam has until today been a dismal failure. Long story short, due to a combination of the heat and humidity and the lack of tasty vege food, I've fallen into the habit of eating only two meals a day, with one of these being a bread-roll with La vache qui rit cheese, or a durian icecream, which, I suppose, might technically be a snack.

So when it got to 12.30 today and I realised that 1) I hadn't slept for 48 hours (hellooo, insomnia) and 2) I hadn't eaten for 24, I was fairly indifferent to my situation. Wasn't sleepy; wasn't hungry. Until, that is, something happened to restore my faith in food.

Remember travel-mama Clare? She had suggested a patisserie in Hoi An called the Cargo Club, where supposedly I was to find some of the best pastry in Vietnam. I wandered over, getting good and lost along the way. This actually helped raise a tiny bit of an appetite. When I finally found it, it looked just like every other tourist trap, and had prices to match. I was doubtful, because the rule in this sort of situation seems to be the higher the prices, the smaller the portion, the blander the food. I am sorry, Clare - wherever you are. I'll never doubt you again.

Because my God, the food. I think I levelled out my calorie intake for the entire week I've been here - eight or nine skipped meals in one buttery hit. I ordered the "Parisian breakfast", expecting a croissant and maybe a coffee. What I got was pure french-colonial food porn.

Three or four slices of toasted sourdough came first, in a basket with a little tray of three jams; guava, grapefruit, and pomelo/tomato. With them came a little rye-bread roll, a piece of brioche, and a wholemeal roll, all toasted; then a buttery, sultana-stuffed escargot pastry and a small, flaky chocolate croissant. It was the sort of basket you'd choose one thing from and nibble on, back home, or share with a friend if feeling indulgent. Or, if you haven't eaten properly for days, the sort of meal you'd scoff down (elegantly) in one unrepentant orgy of butter. Just when I was about to order a drink a waiter arrived with an icey grapefruit and orange juice and an absolute bowl off coffee - one of those enormous mugs, filled a third of the way up with proper black espresso coffee.

As I said, sitting on the balcony overlooking the river, dunking hot pastry into strong, dark coffee, restored my faith in food - and possibly life itself. I think I know where I'll be breakfasting for the next few days.

I'm going to go for a stroll down Le Loi street now, check out the second-hand bookshops, and try to digest. It's a good thing Hoi An is full of tailors as I think I've gone up a full size in the last hour. But my God - it was worth it.

Now who says nothing good ever comes out of colonisation?