Travel Post - Thuan Tinh Cooking Tour in Hoi An, Vietnam - Part 6

I had very much wanted to keep to my blogging schedule but the sudden death of my laptop derailed my plans.  But yes, now I am back, after a quick and rather painless mournful period as my laptop was resurrected! It lives! Hahaha...

So, what else can one do in Hoi An apart from taking in the lovely scenery and eating the local food? How about enrolling in a cooking class for a change?  TT came across this website and sent me the link to Thuan Tinh Island Cooking Tour.  Priced at USD34, the tour consisted of pick up from Hotel, trip to the morning market, coach ride and then a boat ride to the island for the cooking action to begin.  It was one of the more interesting cooking class that we came across and the plus factor was that they teach only a maximum of 10 participants and 4 dishes (most of the others only taught 3).

So, off we went to the morning market! The morning market is really amazing!  Hustle and bustle of people everywhere, our senses were working overtime...the vivid colours of the scene around us, the noise of people chattering, the smell of raw greens, spices and meat permeated the air.  You will find quite a number of Caucasians in the sea of Asians, as these are the very same Caucasians who are making a pit stop here as part of the cooking tour. Well, most of them were as we could identify them by the shopping basket given to us participants to carry the purchased ingredients.  Hahaha... Our guide took us around the stalls and picked up all the ingredients needed for us to cook with and each of us helped out to carry the items boiught.

Our guide telling us stories about crustaceans

Buying fresh noodles for our Beef Pho later on.  The noodles in the foreground is Cao Lau, One has got to try this as Cao Lau is only found in Hoi An.  I will be blogging about Cao Lau later - this noodles is made with rice flour, water and ashes from firewood (yup, you read that correctly, ASHES!) Meanwhile, read more about it HERE.

When we were done at the market, we got onto a small coach and were whisked off to a tiny jetty where we boarded a boat and then a small boat that took us to Thuan Tinh Island.

We arrived on the island shortly after.  It's a rather big open area with several work stations.  Each station is managed by a chef (our guide was the chef too!), running a class for the ten of us.  She would cook the dish first and we would gather around her as she tells us the steps involved.  We would then scurry back to our own little stove and start with our dishes.  First up was to boil the soup for the Beef Pho as that needed a good 2.5 hours at least.  This way, the soup for the Pho would be ready by the time we were done with the last dish.

We worked on the second dish almost immediately...Being kept busy throughout, we didn't really have time to take a lot of photos.  Of course, I took photos of the food I cooked and how I plated them.  These were also, of course my food for lunch that day :o)

So, the soup for the Pho was finally ready towards the end of the cooking class!

Both TT and I really enjoyed the whole Thuan Tinh Cooking Tour experience.  I would recommend this to anyone who is keen on signing up for a cooking class while in Hoi An.  It's informative, fun and most of all, reasonably priced.

To Be Continued ... (more scenes from the morning market!)