Arriving At Anantara Quy Nhon Villas, Vietnam

Quy Nhơn is a coastal city in central Vietnam located in the Bình Định province, around 2 hours by plane from Hanoi, popular for its beaches and laid back atmosphere. While relatively quiet and less commercialised than other Vietnam locations Quy Nhơn is a bit of a hidden gem. Come along as we stay in Quy Nhon for 2 nights at the Anantara Quy Nhon Villas, learn how to cook some classic Vietnamese dishes and eat some of the most delicious, unforgettable food like "jumping shrimp pancakes" that Quy Nhon is known for!

The car pulls up to the Anantara Quy Nhon villas. A large gong sounds and martial artist Master Phuc greets us with a martial arts display - Binh Dinh province is also known as the cradle of martial arts in Vietnam. We are offered another one of Quy Nhon's specialties: fresh coconut water. They explain that Quy Nhon's coconuts are sweeter than other places in Vietnam and we press the lemongrass scented cool towel and sip the sweet coconut water before finishing our check in our villa.

We are staying at the Anantara Quy Nhon for 2 nights in a pool view villa. The resort is an all villa resort with several types of villas. Our Ocean View Pool Villa spans a roomy 170 sqm or 1,829 sqft. The hotel is surrounded by mountains on three sides and overlooks Quy Nhon Bay. Our butler Nghia shows us our villa.

Our enormous villa opens up on the bedroom with a very comfortable king bed. On the other side of the bed is a work desk and a mini bar. There are also two fridges: a regular fridge as well as a wine fridge. There is plenty of space for luggage and clothes in drawers and closets.

Outside there's our own private pool to relax in. The view is of Quy Nhon Bay and each villas has its own pool and expansive sun deck. The sun chairs are situated in the actual pool so you can relax and make use of the water's therapeutic value. The villa is designed so that you can go straight from the pool into the indoor shower. There is also a large tv and Wifi is free for unlimited devices and a large fruit bowl.

The bathroom is enormous with double sinks and a deep soaking tub facing the ocean and a separate two headed shower. Bath salts and good quality house amenities are provided to soak away any travel stresses. There is also an outdoor garden shower. The amenities are excellent quality including a very pleasant and effective floral mosquito repellent cream plus everything that you would expect from toothbrushes to a comb. Inside the fridge there's a range of soft and alcoholic drinks, a freezer with a selection of Haagen Haaz ice creams as well as a mini bar with chips, Oreos, Kinder surprises and trail mix.

I make a cup of tea and take a shower before we head to the hotel's main restaurant Sea.Fire.Salt for a rather lovely afternoon ritual. Every day from 3-4pm there is a complimentary afternoon tea with snacks and drinks and every evening from 4-5pm there is the resort's "Happiest Hour" where there are complimentary cocktails, mocktails and beers. This then segues into the traditional Happy Hour from 5-6pm where you get two drinks for the price of one. You can see why we were reluctant to leave.

For afternoon tea there is a range of black and green teas as well as teas like rose blossom and butterfly pea. Mr NQN orders a hot green tea while I go for an iced butterfly pea flower tea. We help ourselves to fresh cut fruit like dragon fruit, wax apple and rockmelon as well as longans in syrup. There are also tiny eclairs, biscotti and butter cookies. Savoury snacks are deep fried pork wontons with sweet and sour sauce.

We have just finished our snacks when our lovely waitress offers us a selection from the Happiest Hour menu. Mr NQN selects the gin & tonic while I enjoy the house made lemonade with almost a coconutty flavour to it.

There's enough time for a quick dip in our pool before we head back to Sea.Fire.Salt for dinner. Given Quy Nhon's location on the coast, seafood is a large feature on menus here but at Sea.Fire.Salt there are also a range of steaks, lobster, lamb and pork cooked on heated salt bricks. Whatever you do, make sure that you have at least one meal at Sea.Fire.Salt. It's actually known as one of Quy Nhon's best restaurants and the food showcases fresh local seafood with skilled finesse. Quy Nhon born Chef Huy has been working in the kitchen for 14 years. He has worked with Michelin starred chefs in Saigon as well as with chefs from Australia, Germany and the United States. Nga our waitress is sweet and friendly and gives us some very solid recommendations.

Meals start with their riff on guacamole with bacon sprinkle on top that is deliciously garlicky in flavour. I have to stop myself from spreading this and the seaweed butter onto the three types of toast reminding myself to not fill up on the bread. The amuse bouche is a fresh chilled Gazpacho soup with a single crouton.

Nga gave us some recommendations based on what is popular with guests here. The first course is a soup with creamy coconut broth, large king prawn, prawn meat and a meatball. It has a pronounced but not out of place sweetness to it and the seafood is perfectly cooked.

I start with the Crab and Avocado Lomi Lomi that is as beautiful as it is delicious. The avocado purée is silky while the finely diced locally sourced crab and cucumber is seasoned perfectly so that every bite is delicious and you get a pop from the caviar. The crispy sesame tuille adds some crunch to this.

Given the name Sea Fire Salt we ordered mains that played to their strengths although you can also order items like pastas, Vietnamese dishes and salads too. The whole grilled lobsters are served on a hot salt block that seasons the lobster. The weight of both of these is 1kg/2.2lbs and we get two locally sourced whole lobsters. The lobster meat is tender and perfect with some lemon and some mayonnaise.

But it is the Wagyu that is really exceptional. The luscious A3 wagyu beef is apple wood smoked and melts in the mouth. It is cleverly paired with compressed watermelon and slices of black truffle and truffle paste and creamy rich mashed lotus seed with a red wine reduction. Even Mr NQN who doesn't really enjoy steak that much absolutely adores this. The watermelon cleverly balances the richness of the steak and compressing it intensifies its flavour.

We have really loved the food so we were not skipping dessert no matter how jetlagged we are. The pavlova is also good although this is more meringue than a pavlova with a spongy centre. The meringue comes with chantilly cream, cubes of fresh mango, dragon fruit, watermelon, and halved grapes.

The striking looking coconut creme brulee is served in a coconut half with a thin torch layer on top and coconut and pepper. The pepper is quite light on this but the silky coconut custard is delicious and not a drop of this goes back to the kitchen.

It has started raining so we return to our villa after being dropped off by via golf cart by Nghia. The lights are dimmed and there are are pots of dessert and a candle has been lit next to the bathtub.

The next morning we wake up early to take part in the Anantara's market tour and cooking class. It's part of their Epicurean Experiences program. We meet Chef Huy in the lobby and we make our way to Cha Dam Market, around 25 minutes away. The morning is busiest time and it is replete with vendors and customers buying the food fresh for the day. The sellers around the outer of the market are selling items like freshly fried rice crackers, seaweed jelly and sticky rice in squares, logs and pyramid shapes.

There are also Che, the delicious category of Vietnamese sweet soups made with mung beans, lotus seeds and glutinous rice with coconut cream. There is an enormous range of seafood from tuna, cobia, both tiny and enormous squid and Cutlassfish or hairtail fish. These are found further into the market alongside chicken and pork. Chef Huy asks me what I'd like to cook in today's class and I mention three Vietnamese dishes that I've always wanted to cook. I tell him Banh Xeo, netted spring rolls and Bun Ram are three items I love eating but I also want to learn how to make.

He surveys the market stalls before asking vendors where to find ingredients and they point him in the direction of where to go. After stopping at different stalls we have all of the supplies we need for the three dishes. He also buys some tiny crabs for Bun Ram and some Che soups for our dessert as well as some fresh fruit.

Laden down with baskets of food we head back to the resort for breakfast reaching there before 10am. The breakfast closes at 10:30am and is a mix of a la carte and buffet today. We order some Vietnamese breakfast dishes along with matcha latte and Vietnamese Iced coffee for Mr NQN. If you're not used to drinking coffee (like me) then just be careful because Vietnamese iced coffee is strong! There is a large array of fruit compotes including dragon fruit with mint, papaya with pandan and mango with lemongrass. There are also some jams like mulberry jams and guava jams to have on toast. On the side are also pot set yogurts in flavours like natural with purple rice and matcha yogurt.

The bakery selection includes fresh baked pound cakes, donuts and pastries. There's also four types of cheese including blue, gouda and mimolette as well as a leg of jamon and some house smoked salmon and kingfish. The a la carte selection is varied and unlimited. You can choose from Western omelettes, eggs benedict, French toast, crepes waffles and pancakes or you can choose from the Vietnamese or Asian selection.

I absolutely love the banh mi that comes grilled so that the bread is nice and toasted. The banh mi here is filled with shredded char siew pork belly, pork pâté, vegetables, garden herbs and pickled vegetables. I asked for this to be spicy and it comes with the perfect amount of sliced red chilli. I add some of the salad from the buffet to this including lettuce, onion, carrot, cucumber dressed in a vinaigrette.

We also try some beo cakes that are small discs of rice flour steamed cake served with peanuts and fish sauce.

We are trying to work our way through the Vietnamese selections and Mr NQN loves the steamed rice noodle rolls of banh cuon. These are filled with shredded ear mushrooms and local pork sausage, fermented sausage, fried shallots and fish sauce.

Banh Xeo or crispy Vietnamese pancake comes from central Vietnam and today we are learning how to make it. The key is to use flour mixed with crispy flour aka tempura flour. We mix the pancake batter with some turmeric and let it sit for 10-15 minutes to allow the flour to absorb the water.

The resulting batter is a more viscous in texture. Using a non stick pan is best for beginners and make sure that the pan is hot with some smoke before adding oil. We add prawns, squid, bean sprouts, onion and chives to one side making sure that the pancake is crispy before folding it over. They serve this with a large platter of fresh vegetables and herbs including rau mam or sprouts that have a slightly bitter flavour.

Chef Huy also shows me how to make nuoc cham dipping sauce using fish sauce and water, lime juice, chilli and garlic which is then mixed with finely chopped pineapple for a spicy, tangy chilli dipping sauce.

The next dish we learn how to make is the Bun Ram, a delicacy of Phu My District in Binh Dinh province. Ram is the name of fiddler crabs and this crab noodle soup uses whole fiddler crabs, small crabs around 1-2 inches in diameter. The crab and shell is blended up into a dark paste. This is then boiled in water where it becomes a moussey foam while the water is used along with pork powder and chicken powder to create a tasty soup.

Chef Huy gets me to taste the broth and it's absolutely delicious with a sweetness to it from the crab meat. This is combined with fresh rice vermicelli noodles, herbs and the crab mousse for an intensely rich and salty dish. If you love offal flavours then you may just love bun ram.

And then we get to rolling the spring rolls. There are several different types of wrappers but here we are using the mung bean spring roll wrappers. The filling is a mixture of squid and prawn and these are fried in oil at 160C/320F. Chef Huy tells us that frying them at 180C/350F will burn the outside too quickly. These aren't quite the netted spring rolls but they are absolutely delicious especially served with the pineapple chilli dipping sauce.

And for dessert are two of the delicious che sweet soups that Chef Huy bought from the markets this morning.

At 4:45pm we catch the end of the Happiest Hour at the hotel. On today's menu is a complimentary white sangria and an apple mocktail with olives, peanuts and chips. With Nghia's gentle encouragement we head to downtown Quy Nhon to try one of the city's specials: jumping shrimp pancakes. He calls us a taxi and within 20 minutes we are sitting at an outdoor table at Gia Vy 2 restaurant.

We listen to the ring of the mobile ice cream seller while a Vietnamese crooner sings in the background. The food menu at Gia Vy 2 is short and sweet with 10 items plus drinks. Crispy, savoury pancakes are the main deal here. Jumping shrimp pancakes get their name from the shrimp that jump in the pan when they are cooking. You can get the pancake in four different toppings: shrimp or prawn, beef, squid or you can also get the more common Banh Xeo egg pancake.

Each table has a caddy with scissors chopsticks, toothpicks and bowls. While we wait they encourage us to try some of the snacks on the table like Nem Cho Huyen or fermented pork cubes that are wrapped in plastic and then banana leaves. They patiently explain to us to dip the cubes in the hoi sin and chilli sauce followed by a piece of tiny garlic clove. Each bite is a flavour explosion and the texture reminds me of raw meat cubes. And you just pay for what you eat.

Then the banh xeo or pancakes arrive. We have two shrimp, one beef and ones squid and they are all the same price. They explain that you cut each pancake in half with the scissors and then place the half on a sheet of softened rice paper and add green mango shreds, cucumber and salad. Then you wrap it up tightly crushing the deep fried pancake into a slender roll. Then dip the roll into the nuoc cham sauce and eat.

These are incredibly crunchy and crispy – if you thought that your favourite Vietnamese restaurant did a crispy banh xeo these are at another level entirely. I love how a lot of Vietnamese food is crunchy and fresh and this is also so full of flavour. Deep frying gives it that lovely crispness but they're not greasy or dripping in oil either. Nevertheless, Nghia explained that we should eat these early in the night to give our body time to digest the oil.

We take another look at the menu and also order some shrimp spring rolls, another specialty of Quy Nhon. These are peeled shrimp or prawns wrapped in rice paper and deep fried until crispy. You can either dip these into the nuoc cham or the hoi sin chilli sauce. They're good and nice if you don't like the whole prepping thing with the banh xeo but to me nothing beats the crispiness, flavour and crunch of the banh xeo.

I arrived in Quy Nhon with a list of Quy Nhon dishes to try and was delighted to see that they are all here. Another Quy Nhon specialty food is called Tré or Tré Bình Định that resemble broom sticks. To make these, they start with pork head skin marinated with chilli, ginseng, galangal or ginger all wrapped up in plastic and then bundled into straw. They unwrap one of these and place it on a plate to dip it into the hoisin and chilli sauce and then garlic. This is very tasty and would go well as a beer or drinking snack with its chewy texture and punch of flavour.

Also try another specialty of Quy Nhon that is a bit harder to find is called Banh it la gai. This sweet is made of ground green beans and boiled lá gai leaves (Boehmeria nivea or Chinese grass). This dark green dough is filled with freshly grated coconut. Traditionally these were wrapped in banana leaves and shaped like a pyramid but nowadays these are wrapped in plastic and shaped into squares but are sold in pyramid shaped green boxes that resemble banana leaves.

Next to these are bánh hồng, square shaped rice cakes lightly flavoured with pandan with small chunks of coconut. Large blocks of these are cut into squares and sold as a sweet, chewy snack. These are also tasty and chewy in texture.

And the bill? A total of D281,000 or $16.64AUD or $11USD. You do pay for every wet wipe that you use (D2000/$0.12AUD/$0.08USD each) and washing your hands at the sink is D10000/$0.60AUD/$0.39USD. We order a Grab car to take us home, happy and content and craving those banh xeo the next day. The car drives past late night flower sellers and jewellery stores. There are matcha and chocolate cakes waiting for us in our room and Nghia brings us another two che sweet soups for dessert via golf buggy.

The next morning we sleep so well that my alarm wakes me up when my alarm goes off at 9am. I get up and exercise while Mr NQN wakes up at 9:45am and just before breakfast finishes at 10:30am we slide into a table. We are the hotel's only guests this morning so they don't have the buffet, instead they have table service where you get plates of fresh fruit, bakery item, Vietnamese rice cakes and order a la carte dishes. Mr NQN orders a Vietnamese coffee for himself (he's completely smitten with these) while I have an iced latte because the Vietnamese coffee is too strong for me (my heart was racing during the flight!).

The pastry selection is excellent and well made with buttery pain au chocolat, danishes, butter cakes and matcha jasmine muffins. There are Pho soups, stir fried noodles and rice but we choose a few items from the Vietnamese menu. The plate full of steamed rice parcels is also tasty, some stuffed with mushrooms, others shrimp or prawns. There's also some red glutinous rice and our lovely waitress Han tells us that it is made not with tomato but gac fruit to give it that colour.

The glutinous rice here is mixed with mung beans which takes away a bit of the glutinous quality but adds a nice, sweet flavour. It is served with pork char siu, local pork and fermented sausage and a boiled egg.

We also order some Quy Nhon fish cake noodle soup with slices of local fish cake, vermicelli noodles and a large prawn with a plate of shredded vegetables and a wedge of lime. The broth is very tasty and this is a nice start to the day.

And of course no breakfast is complete without their wonderful grilled banh mi. I order extra hot chilli, salad and pickles to wedge into mine.

While it's sad to say goodbye to our hotel, I'm very excited because our next stop is a special one. We are travelling to Nha Trang via a luxury train called The Vietage. Story coming up soon!

So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever been to or heard of Quy Nhon? Do you book cooking classes when on holidays?

NQN and Mr NQN stayed as guests of the Anantara Quy Nhon but all opinions remain her own. NQN and Mr NQN travelled to Europe as guests of Vietnam Airlines.

Anantara Quy Nhon

https://www.anantara.com/en/quy-nhon/

Vietnam Airlines

Vietnam Airlines offers 23 flights per week connecting Sydney, Melbourne and Perth to Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Vietnam Airlines is continuing to add new routes having recently announced new flights to Milan, Munich and Delhi.

https://www.vietnamairlines.com/au/en/home