Saigon Saigon

Tauranga, NZ

Every time I come back to Vietnam, there's always an agenda. This time, it was 2 concerts, celebrating 40 years of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and Australia. I was honored and humbled to be asked to represent in this iconic and historical moment, especially being the child of a refugee! The concert went swimmingly well and the performance as well as the behind the scenes footage will be up soon on my YouTube channel HERE.

Of course in the moments I had in between rehearsals, dress fittings, interviews and photoshoots, I love to suss out the new hangouts and eateries as well as Vietnamese designers so here are my recommendations and findings:

1. Lunch Lady

Where: google map it. Just type in lunch lady and it actually comes up - it's District 1 :)

What: made famous by Anthony Bourdain, it's a street vendor. Don't expect fancy. You're on low plastic seats, in the heat and she cooks a different soup everyday sitting at about 35,000 VND ($1.50USD) They also have rice paper rolls at 5,000VND (25 cents a pop) so winning all round! 

Recommend: trying whatever is on offer on the day. 

2. Quan Bui 

Where: there are 2. The one i went to was 17A Ngô Văn Năm – District 1.

What: Vietnamese home style cooking, great for lunch or dinner but in a very pretty old-school setting, not quite as lavish as Cuc Gach but similar vintagesque feel. I went on a Tuesday and booked and would highly recommend it because it does fill out. There are 3 floors, ground floor doesn't have A/C and the other 2 do.

Recommend: all the traditional stuff - caramelised pork in clay pot, lotus salad, kankong or morning glory in garlic sauce, lemongrass beef. 

Pricing: very reasonable. You'll see higher end Vietnamese or ex pats here. 

3. Fê Cafe

Where: 26 Ly Tu Trong, District 1 (literally across from Vincom)

What: cafe newly opened by the founding director and designer for Valenciani, Adrian Anh Tuan. Super cute, small but full of character and befittingly designed. It also houses the Devon London line of clothing. What more could a girl want? Coffee and clothes :)

Recommend: coffee ... Duh! And their iced teas are fab too! 

4. M2C Cafe

Where: 44 Ly Tu Trong St, District 1(just around the corner of Quan Ngon, corner of Ly Tu Trong and Pasteur, and right next to Fenetre de Soleil)

What: cafe and restaurant. This place literally had its soft opening the day I arrive in Saigon this time (Sunday 8th dec) and 2 days later I was in there with the Elle Magazine girls tasting the menu. Opened by the same owners of the I.D Cafe, Art Director Dzung Yoko and ex model and entrepreneur Minh Anh so finely curated this beautiful cafe. Spread across 3 levels, the lounges through to the light fixtures, plants, resurfaced walls and who could forget the Unicorn are so carefully positioned to create a beautiful setting to have coffee or a meal. The food is fantastic! 

Recommend: Bun Cha (it's a vermicelli fish soup), honey banana smoothie as well as the M2C rice paper rolls! Tastes a bit like Brodard rice paper rolls in California! 

5. L'usine

Where: I know I've posted L'usine before but that's their flagship cafe on 151/1 Dong Khoi St. Their second one is 76B Le Loi St, 

What: cafe, kitschy hipster clothing and accessories, perfect gifting ideas and stocks Australian designers like Finders Keepers along with Herschel Bags etc they sell all their outfittings from lights to tables to decor. Just think Alexandria/Surry hills feel for you Aussies. 

Recommend: caramelised pork salad, a latte (real tasting coffee, not the Vietnamese coffee because sometimes you just don't need that speed hit!), olives and then of ochre some vino during their daily happy hour from 4-8pm! 

6. Dong Pho

Where: 57 Ho Xuan Huong, P. 6 District 3
What: a central-Vietnam cuisine restaurant! Seriously delicious and so many different dishes. Nice and quiet setting too with great decor. Seemed to have a lot of Japanese and French tourists.
Recommend: all the different 'savoury cakes' like 'banh bot loc', 'banh cuon', 'banh it' etc. There's also a French cakes section to the restaurant so go nuts, all you non-gluten intolerant people :)

I will need to do a post on clothing separately I think! 

That's all from me for now folks! Go nuts!

Love and grace,

Van-Anh

And for the Right Nows:

Wearing: lime green Dawn Lu Shoes, J Brand waxed denims, Tommy Hilfiger belt, LF peplum, Carrera sunglasses.

Favorite food: rice paper rolls ... Gets me every time. Oh and green mangoes. Major salivation happening right about now!

Current city: Tauranga

Next city: Bay Of Islands
Listening to: Pharell Williams 'Happy'

Reading: Shantaram ... Never got to finish it

Wish list: a GoPro Hero 3

Missing: the same amounts of food I devoured over the Christmas period. Plane food sucks! Oh and missing a hell of a lot of sleep too! :)

Obsession or Addiction or OCD?

Saigon, Vietnam

Playing with the Vietnamese-American Philharmonic Orchestra, USA

Meeting and chatting about my life as a pianist to handfuls of new people everyday is a reoccurring theme. Do I enjoy it? of course I do. I love curious minds, having one myself.

People are fascinated at the fact that piano is my occupation. That it has been able to take me around the world. How it is that I line up the projects. It's endless work. It's endless love and passion for the piano. Then I question, is it an obsession?

Sitting at coffee with two friends yesterday afternoon, I had to leave them for a  brief moment to do a TV interview in the cafe. Upon coming back, they asked me 'how do you line these things up? You only got here yesterday!'. Well, word spreads quick doesn't it! :) I had just done a 2 hour rehearsal on a monstrous 9 foot Steinway and was exhausted. They asked me about this and I found myself rattling away with energetically about how wonderful the Steinway was and the monstrous sonorities that I was trying to draw out of this instrument. I draw comparisons to how it was like a car. Big sweeping sounds was like revving a car! Divine. One of them looked stunned. 'What?'
'You're so passionate about it'.

Well, yes, yes i am.
Am I obsessed with it? YES.
Am I addicted to it? more than ever.
Am i OCD about it? YES!

The motion of practice ... it is OCD. You can't NOT be! Aiming for perfection, whatever THAT is. Geez! But in all honesty, you hone in on parts, you drill, you aim for accuracy, musicality, individuality ... then you start to over-think parts. Is it meant to be this way? or that? No wonder kids play Mozart better than adults. They just play. They just BE.

I've been listening to the Grieg Concerto umpteenth times. Rehearsing with orchestra for the first time today gives me butterflies. I've done this before but I still get jitters. To the point where I haven't been able to sleep properly because I keep running over sections of the piece, learning what instruments are playing where. But there is nothing more exhilarating than playing with an orchestra. The mass of sound that comes from behind you. The support. The intensity excites me beyond a comparable feeling. Maybe like a roller-coaster.

Some of the pictures from the La Mirada Theater performance I did earlier last month has come through and I thought i'd share them.

Much love & grace,
Van-Anh

And for the RIGHT NOWS:

Current City: Saigon

Next City: Sydney

Fav food: definitely a vietnamese papaya salad!

Missing: mum and dad! wish they were here for this upcoming performance!

Wearing: not much. it's early lol

Reading: the frickin Grieg Concerto score backwards and forwards and backwards again! 

Wishlist: Charlotte Olympia heels. 

H is for ...

Every so often, I gift myself something. Not out of shopaholic senses but because I work hard, I am married to my job - that is married to the piano, I spend more times in hotels, up in the air, on the ocean, in other countries and in airports more than I am at home. There's no need to buy souvenirs from each place (bar the token fridge magnet for the country). Rather, I pick up pieces of designer items that remind me of that place. That moment. What my state of mind was. And you know, when in doubt, I tell myself 'I deserve it'. 

I was at LAX airport yesterday with some time to kill so after scoffing down a Cali Umami burger, I roamed the airport. The usual designer stores popped up but then there was Fred Segal. Quirky, hipster, left field items. I spotted three heart pendants and one of them had the engraving of 'hot mess'. I'm not sure why i was drawn to it but I waved the shop assistant down and bought it on the spot. I soon found out that the store doesn't sell online and they pride themselves for being a SoCal based brand with the airport store being the third store out of three (the other two are down by Santa Monica and Melrose).

That was the second 'H' thing I had bought in 2 days. The first was a white sweater with H stitched on the front. Everyone I saw during those two days asked me what Harold for. 

The first word that came to mind was Happiness. 

Then i thought a little harder.

Honesty 

Health 

Hope

Heaven 

Hot

Home

So many important H words! It's all about H right now :) 

What does H stand for you?

With love and grace,

Van-Anh 

And for the Right now:

Current city: Taipei 

Next city: Saigon 

Most recent purchase: IGWT 'hot mess' hand made pendant 

Reading: 'where chefs really eat'

Wearing: Tommy Hilfiger rose tee, Tommy Hilfiger 'H' sweater, lee denims, mango bomber jacket, pink converse chucks, Tommy Hilfiger pulled-leather belt, cotton-on leopard print scarf. 

Wish list: Lassen hoodie, oh and any Toni Maticevski dress. 

Missing: home. And also the energy that only comes from connecting with a like-minded musician. It's like an oxygen boost. 

Fashion worlds collide

Talk about serendipity. So. Arrived in saigon yesterday morning and in true Van-Anh style, went straight to my place, freshened up and was out and about, roaring to seize the day!
First stop, the Park Hyatt for some Sunday brunching with a great group of people.

Second, the cigar club to tinkle the ivories for some friends, be a human Shazam for a bit.

Third stop, Fê Cafe (26 LY Tu Trong St) for some fashionising with Devon, a fabulous designer for label Devon London. She had just launched her A/W13 collection the night before which I was bummed out I missed on but now I got one on one time with her. I had already perused the look book so knew exactly what I wanted.

This is like one of my all time favorite hobbies. Playing designer dress ups with the designers themselves. Adrian from Valenciani was also there too  (being his cafe of course) so that was awesome.

There was another girl sitting there of which I thought was a journalist or Publicist for Devon or Adrian. She was about to leave and we said goodbye and Devon mentioned she was also a fashion designer from Australia. Wait a minute! Just wait on a minute! What? Who? Where? Which part? There's only 1 designer I love who is Vietnamese who is in australia. It was on the tip of my tongue.

She said Betty Tran. Oh my frickin god! I had been following her stuff for forever! And she was standing right there in front of me!

I was like 'omg I love your stuff, particularly your green dress that Jess Hart has worn'.

How cool was that? Sitting right there in saigon was someone who I had admired the designs and successes of for quite some time!

We chatted and rattled on about fashion and music! So cool!

Serendipity! It seems to happen more and more to me! Full of positivities and wonderful networks!

Love and grace,

Van-Anh

And for the right nows:
Current city: Saigon
Next city: Sydney (finally!!)
Wearing: LF daisy crop top, vintage gold poof skirt.
Reading: thinking, fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman
Favorite food: craving a Mekong Merchant coffee and also L'usine olives (random I know)
Missing: the US ... Weird I know but I do! Always wanting what you can't have!
Missing:

American football on steroids

I've never been to an American football game in my life yet somehow managed to be able to have what is probably the ULTIMATE experience one could ever have. 

I got to have entry firstly onto press level, sitting right next to the press box and newscasts and coaches for the Chargers. secondly be in the Owners' Suite and meet some of the Spanos Family, thirdly wine and dine whilst watching the game and last but definitely not the least, be given a tour downstairs and onto the field, pre-game!!!! It was electrifying to walk through the hallways where the coaches, players, cheerleaders and performers had walked through. That descending slope where the light was shining through, sheer excitement. Onto the field right next to the players warming up was unbelievable. Some of these guys, I would NOT want to be in their way. They are HUGE. Media, television hosts, coaches, cheerleaders, footballers wives, referees... The whole ambience kept building as Qualcomm stadium filled out for the game. 

Now if you ask me if I understand the rules, no. I don't. But it was amazing to watch regardless. The Americans are full-on! You have the die-hard fans, then the tailgaters outside hooking up their massive flatscreens out the back of their cars and cooking up a storm (I can see Australians doing this!), merchandise (of which I had to get some sort of Chargers memorabilia). 

Would I go to another game? Hell yes! A pity the chargers lost to the bengals but what a fun experience. Now going to another game will never be the same. 

It was truly star treatment and I couldn't thank my Sacramento family enough for allowing me to join them in such a cultural experience! Murrrrrca! 

Much love and grace,

Van-Anh 

Absolute heaven

Not much is needed to say here except there's a unicorn, there's heaven, there's wifi up in the air and life is magnificent :)

Love and grace from me in the sky,

Van-Anh xx

Show post-mortem

Playing the piano is truly the icing on the cake. Everything else that happens behind the scenes is why you get paid. From flying to getting your body adjusted to a new time zone, from promoting your show through all avenues possible (even if it means going clubbing to meet and greet and shotting Hennessy shots) to not knowing who will actually come to your show, from drawing up a VIP list to printing name cards to personally place on seats ... The list is endless. The stresses of putting your own show on in another country is something that I would not wish upon anyone. But it happened and I couldn't have done it without a handful of people. I say a handful because there are a lot (let me stress A LOT) of talkers. Then of course, there are the doers. 

Doing such a show definitely showed who were my true friends and had my best interest at heart. It exposed those who used my name in vain, it drew me closer to the right people and sent me running the other way to those who were complete shit-talkers and used my name only to get themselves further. 

I could ellaborate but there's no need to ponder in the past. The show itself went great and musically, I was happy with the versatility that our show had. 

Orange County, you will be missed. The 24 hour Pho joints, Trà Teahouse, the various local clubs that need not be named because the locals know what I'm talking about. 

I'm ready to go home. This last stint of touring has been taxing on the body. I sure have had fun but you know it's time. 

Til next Easter, thank you OC! 

Love and grace,

Van-Anh

And for the Right nows:

Wearing: pink converse chucks, Dotti crop navy sweater, Claude maid tee, Zara denims

Favorite food: Pho at 2am at Thanh long on westminster

Wish list: a new suitcase (how I managed to break a new IT hard case bought only 6 months ago!)

Reading: where chefs really eat 

Current city: San Diego

Next destination: Phoenix Arizona 

Missing: home, that is, Sydney