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Chapter 4. The One Who Flies Above the One Who Runs
Bún đậu mắm tôm.
Thinking about it carefully, I realized I had heard of this dish before.
Baek Seong-jin, a famous YouTuber with more than seven million subscribers whose main profession was being a culinary
researcher, had once appeared on a TV program where he went to try Vietnamese cuisine. At the time, he had introduced
this dish as an upgraded version of a dish called bún chả.
If bún chả was a beginner-level menu, then bún đậu mắm tôm was an intermediate-level menu.
Before taking a bite of the rice paper, I looked around.
People were sneaking glances at me.
Some had even put down their utensils and were openly staring.
Haha.
I felt like a monkey at a zoo.
Was this really something worthy of attracting so much attention?
Perhaps it was understandable.
If I went to a traditional market in Korea and saw a foreigner eating something like cheonggukjang, everyone's attention
would be drawn to them.
And if that foreigner ate it as though they were starving?
People would naturally applaud.
Wasn't I in a similar situation?
A foreigner was attempting to eat a dish that even Vietnamese people had mixed feelings about, so it was only natural
that everyone would be interested.
Hmm.
First, I decided to smell it.
“Sniff, sniff.”
The smell was terrible.
It had a fermented, moldy sort of odor.
It smelled like old fermented seafood.
I unconsciously frowned.
“Pfft.”
“Hehe.”
Several Vietnamese people watching me chuckled.
Apparently, they found my expression amusing.
I looked at Huy sitting across from me.
He was staring at me with fascinated eyes.
He looked extremely curious about whether I could actually eat this dish.
Still, I had a fairly strong stomach.
There weren't many foods I disliked.
I could eat most things without a problem.
This dish would be no different.
Without hesitation, I took a large bite of the rice paper.
Chew, chew.
I closed my eyes and focused all my attention on the tip of my tongue.
The first thing I noticed was the fishy taste of the fermented shrimp paste.
The fishy flavor rose up and hit the tip of my nose strongly.
Then I tasted the tender meat.
I wasn't sure whether it was pork cheek or intestines, but it was incredibly soft.
The flavor of the herbs blended with everything else, bringing out an unexpectedly delicious taste from the pungent
sauce.
It was better than I had expected.
The sauce was the real delicacy.
At first, the smell might make it difficult to eat, but once you started, its savory flavor made it surprisingly
addictive.
“Oh.”
I let out a quiet exclamation.
Huy, who had been watching me anxiously, cautiously asked,
“How is it? Is it edible?”
“Yeah. This is really delicious. Wow, the sauce is actually really good.”
“Uh, really? You mean it?”
Huy looked flustered.
He clearly hadn't expected me to enjoy bún đậu mắm tôm.
His surprise was obvious.
But there was a reason I found bún đậu mắm tôm delicious.
After graduating from high school, I had once gone on a family trip to Jeju Island.
There was one dish we always ate whenever we went there.
Grilled black pork.
At the time, the restaurant owner had brought us a special sauce that he claimed was made only in Jeju.
It was meljeot.
Meljeot was fermented anchovies preserved in salt, and the mắm tôm sauce was similar to it.
No, in some ways, it was even better than meljeot.
That was because I had mixed in plenty of lime and sugar earlier, giving it both a savory and refreshing taste.
I continued dipping the rice paper into the mắm tôm sauce.
Now I understood why YouTuber Baek Seong-jin had said that once you ate this dish, you would keep craving it.
It really was that addictive.
Of course, it was definitely a flavor people could either love or hate.
Regardless, when I ate the bún đậu mắm tôm as naturally as a Vietnamese person would, the people watching me in the
market gave me thumbs-up.
Some even applauded.
I wondered if this really deserved that much applause.
Just then, Huy, who had been eating silently, looked at me and asked,
“Mino. There's another unusual local food. Want to try it one more time? You definitely won't be able to eat this one.”
Hmm?
There was another local dish?
What kind of local food was it this time?
Judging from how confidently he was speaking, it probably wasn't anything ordinary.
Still, I didn't care.
I had come to the market specifically to try Vietnamese local food.
Whatever it was, I was confident I could handle it.
Huy nodded at my response.
“Wait here. I'll go get it.”
He got up before finishing his bún đậu mắm tôm and headed deeper into the market.
Truong shook her head as she watched him.
“He's always been ridiculously competitive.”
“He was planning to tease me, wasn't he?”
“Something like that. If someone is visiting Southeast Asia for the first time, food like this is bound to be hit or
miss.”
I had heard that even people who stayed in Southeast Asia for a long time sometimes still couldn't eat cilantro.
Truong stared at me and said,
“You really aren't mixed-race, are you?”
“Haha, I told you I'm not.”
“That's strange. Is this really your first time eating it? You didn't have it in Korea?”
“No. The only Vietnamese food I've eaten in Korea was pho and cha gio.”
Cha gio was a dish made by mixing minced pork, shrimp, vegetables, and other ingredients, wrapping them in rice paper,
and frying them. It was somewhat similar to dumplings in Korea.
Both dishes had become quite popular in Korea.
“Hmm, really? You're really suspicious. I just can't believe it no matter how I look at it.”
Truong gave me a suspicious look.
I smiled awkwardly before asking the two of them,
“So what food did Huy go to buy? Is there another unusual dish sold in this market?”
“Hmm, I have a pretty good idea what he's going to get. There probably isn't anything else.”
“Geez. He's trying so hard to make you eat something even he can't eat.”
Nam shook his head.
A dish that even Huy couldn't eat himself?
What kind of food was it?
I became curious.
I looked at Nam and asked,
“Nam, do you eat it?”
“Me? No. I absolutely hate it.”
“Truong, what about you?”
“I don't particularly like it either. In fact, fewer and fewer restaurants sell it these days. Young people don't really
seek it out.”
A local food that young people disliked.
The first thing that came to mind was some kind of health food.
Usually, traditional health foods were favored by older people while young people disliked them.
A Vietnamese health food?
What could it be?
I was thinking about it when Huy returned.
He was carrying a small plate.
On the plate were several round white eggs.
“Here. This is it. What do you think?”
My first impression was that they were simply a little larger than ordinary eggs.
Other than that, nothing particularly stood out.
Hmm, was it something like roasted eggs in Korea?
It didn't seem to be a regular egg, though, and it was slightly larger.
What kind of egg was it?
“You have to at least tell me what kind of food it is.”
“It's called Trứng vịt lộn.”
Trứng vịt lộn.
Literally translated, it meant an undeveloped duck egg before hatching.
Wait a minute.
Before hatching?
Then was there an unborn duck inside that egg?
Good grief.
This was a food I hadn't expected at all.
Trứng vịt lộn, pronounced roughly as jjŭng-bin-lot in Korean, was a steamed duck egg containing a developing embryo.
In the Philippines, it was called balut, while in Korea, this food was referred to as a fertilized egg.
I turned on my phone and searched for the food Huy had brought.
Phew.
I closed my eyes.
A warning appeared, and when I checked why, I found out that it was considered one of the more extreme foods.
Yet in Vietnam, people enjoyed it as a health food.
That was because it was rich in protein and calcium.
“Huy, how do you eat it? Can you show me?”
“Sure. It's not difficult. I'll explain it to you.”
Huy then explained how to eat it.
“You tap the top of the shell with this spoon and peel it open. Then you drink the broth first, sprinkle some salt on
it, and put the whole thing into your mouth in one bite.”
Hmm.
A duck egg just before hatching.
Could I really eat this?
I had a strong stomach, but this was pushing it.
And it was questionable whether I should upload this to YouTube.
I didn't think people would like it.
The pictures I had seen online were simply too disturbing.
The image of an unborn duckling curled up inside the egg before hatching was horrifying.
Oblivious to my hesitation, Huy handed me the fertilized egg.
“Here. Give it a try.”
As I stared at Huy, a good idea came to me.
Trying not to laugh, I spoke.
“Hmm, I don't think I quite understand how to eat it. Could you show me first?”
“But I just explained it to you.”
“Show me how you actually eat it. Then I think I'll be able to eat it too. It's just such an unfamiliar food to me.”
Huy fell into thought.
As Truong had said earlier, Huy himself didn't eat fertilized eggs.
I wondered whether he would actually eat one himself just to get me to try it.
Wouldn't he avoid eating it if he could?
Huy hesitated for a long time.
That was when Truong began egging him on with a mischievous expression.
“Huy. Mino won't eat it either unless you eat it first, right?”
“Uh, well…”
Huy clearly wanted to make me eat the fertilized egg somehow.
I could see exactly what was going through his mind.
In the end, Huy fell for Truong's persuasion.
He tapped the duck egg with a teaspoon and cracked it open, then drank the broth first.
“Then you put some salt on it like this, and put the whole thing into your mouth. After that, you chew it.”
Huy ate the fertilized egg while putting on as cheerful an expression as possible.
Anyone watching him might have thought he absolutely loved fertilized eggs.
However, his hand was trembling slightly.
His Adam's apple kept bobbing up and down.
Huy was forcing himself to eat it despite his discomfort.
He had genuinely committed himself to getting me to eat a fertilized egg.
After finishing the entire egg, Huy looked at Nam and said,
“I'll go buy one for you too. Wait here.”
By then, I had already scraped every last bit of the bún đậu mắm tôm from the plate.
I patted my stomach and stood up.
“Truong, Nam. It's on me.”
I went to the restaurant owner and asked how much the food cost.
A combo for four people was only 250,000 dong, about 12,000 Korean won.
All four of us had eaten until we were full, yet the bill was this cheap.
The prices were definitely low.
“Truong, let's head back now.”
“Yeah. Let's go.”
We headed toward the parked car.
Just then, Huy, who had followed after us, shouted,
“Hey! Mino! You said you'd eat it if I ate it!”
Huy tried to hand me another fertilized egg he had bought.
I put on the most pitiful expression I could and answered,
“Ah, Huy. I'm really grateful that you bought this for me, but I'm so sorry. I'm too full to eat anything right now. I'm
really sorry, Huy.”
Huy's face went blank.
Meanwhile, Truong and Nam burst out laughing, clutching their stomachs.