Restaurant down the alley

Anita and I will be going to Vietnam next month for two weeks so I have been reading the Lonely Planet guidebook on Vietnam. The guide book talks about street food and gives advice to only eat where there a lot of motos, where the main dish is served from a very large pot indicating they sell a lot of this dish every day and don't drink the tea, because the tea glasses are most likely not washed between customers.

For breakfast this morning I went the restaurant down my alley, the place was packed, I checked out that they were serving from large containers, "Yes", lots of motos "Yes", lots of people "Yes" the only qualification is they are college age. My standard restaurant makes the grade in Vietnam.

I ordered the usual rice and pork, it seemed to take forever, and I decided to have a cup of tea. I took a tea cup that was turned upside down in the red plastic drainer, poured a cup of hot tea. There was one lone piece of tea bark in the cup along with very weak tea. I sipped for a while because the flavor is something akin to an old sock. They strain the tea leaves with cloth and I can only taste the cloth.

Breakfast arrives, it was extra tasty today, and it may be that I have not had rice and pork for three or four days. As I was savoring breakfast the husband came by and cleaned dishes from the table, as he did he picked up a used tea cup, tossed the remaining contents on the ground and set the tea cup upside down in the red plastic drainer. The same cup holder I had taken my cup from.

Hummm I guess the restaurant down the alley is more similar to Vietnamese restaurants than I thought.