Vietnam Day 7 (evening) - Hoi An

So, after a few hours of rest we returned to town for our rendezvous with the chef (can't recall the name; actually not certain that I ever knew it) who would guide us through the market, then on to his Australian boss' restaurant for a cooking lesson and dinner.

Our wise cracking local guide, mentor and chef for the evening from Hoi An's Red Bridge Restaurant. His Aussie style humour was honed through seven years working in a Melbourne restaurant;

Offerings in the central market (note the languid cigarette in the top right hand corner);

Fruit;

Marketside;

A thirty minute trip up river to the Red Bridge Restaurant;

Dockside at the restaurant;

Cooking lessons;

Regrettably the camera was put aside at this point for the night. The lessons and meal became an endless blur. Each entree course lesson was followed by the eighteen of us putting the lesson into effect and eating - where edible - the outcome of our individual work.

The first course was a spring roll and to my amazement my spring roll was not only edible but quite impressive. Sadly it was downhill for me from that course. My final effort, peeling a tomato to create a rose from the tomato peel was - not to put too fine a point on it - disastrous.

Thankfully the final and main course was a complete fish dish prepared not by us but by the chef.

It was a very entertaining and enjoyable evening.