Hai San Ba Ro - a review

I have a side account on Instagram exclusively for reviewing food (@esthereatsrealwell). There's some photos, there's pertinent information I affectionately refer to as Very Important Bits (VIBs). Back home in the States I did it for neighborhood gems I frequented and as a newly minted global citizen, I decided to include foodventures wherever else I'm traveling. It's a sporadic venture at best. I'm just too lazy (and at times preoccupied) to compile everything I need for a Full Review every time I eat out. But today, while I was elbows deep in crab shell, I began composing what I'd like to write in my mind. It was such an Experience. And my reviews get wordy but this level of verbosity just can't fly with character limits so I've decided I will post it in its entirety here on Substack as a change of pace and because I enjoyed putting it together.

The truncated version will go live in Meta and the Director’s Cut can live in Substack. I don't mean to do this routinely or ever again for that matter but as a writing exercise, it's a bit of fun.

The coastal city of Da Nang contains some truly massive seafood restaurants up and down its coast, ablaze in lights rivaling Vegas, signs visible from space, whole clubs of motorbikes choking the sidewalks, and Hai San Ba Ro is no exception.

Except that it is. About a 10 minute drive inland from the strip, the resto commandeers a huge building and the open space across the street in a relatively quiet residential sector. It's the only thing going on at any given night but no less a spectacle to behold.

There is no English menu, most of the waitstaff speak no English at all, and the few that do, know the same 10 words in English that I know in Vietnamese. Regardless, we make it work. Metal tables at the exact height of your knee are hemmed in by colorful plastic chairs. The energy is absolutely frenetic. Your squat table is an epicenter. The menus never leave: point to what you want (or the closest Google translation approximation), indicate how many,  and wait. A cup of ice, bottle of water, and a can of coke substantiate - up to you if you go for them. The freshest sea creatures caught that self-same day will soon arrive in towering, steaming piles.

Unlike many other restaurants in Vietnam as a whole, there's no tiny trashcan under your table, you drop your denuded creature husks right between your manspread legs onto the ground. Ditto napkins and empty/used plates or dishes you've finished with. The infantry will appear at the ready, dumping reusables into buckets, squeegeeing the rest onto the floor, then sweeping it all up into a standing dustpan. It's over in seconds. It has to be. There's people waiting.

This is a carnival. Families and extended families have come, friend groups, dates, everyone local, you might be the only foreign buffoon who dared. Take it in stride, despite the language barrier the staff are unbelievably gracious. There's men in Beijing bikinis, women in elegant and dainty floral dresses, 20 somethings taking selfies with their food. The crowd is so big vendors walk through hawking everything from lottery tickets to cell phone repair services to actual balloon animals for the kids.

I order snails of some variety which are steamed and buried under peanuts, shallots (fried and fresh), herbs, and green mango, a side of nuoc mam to dunk it all in. The morning glory is the kind of silly waste of stomach space salad is at a buffet. It may only exist on the menu because someone read somewhere "vegetables are good for you." That someone is me. I order crab, "market price is 700k per kilo today," is what I think the young man says over the rabble, I hardly care, "one please! whatever the best way is." It arrives under sauce that looks like lava and is twice as hot with a baguette and a nutcracker. I'm ready. I've been snacking on the greens and snails but when the crab arrives, it's down to business. I go both hands in, burning my fingers in the lava sauce before slicing them on the shell shrapnel. The sauce isn't the same as Singapore chili but it's delicious nonetheless. The crab meat springy and sweet. When it's over I wipe sauce and tidbits off my hands with a piece of bread then eat it. I was determined to embrace my inner barbarian, one we all have if we stretch back far enough. Frankly, if you go to a place like Ba Ro without this mental preparation, without this mindset, shame on you. Dishonor! Dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow.

My waiter brings a restaurant branded wet wipe, big enough to be a bib, and it’s chilled. Having conquered the crab and dumped the evidence under the table, I decide to order a set of grilled oysters (6). These are hands down the best bites of an already impressive meal, the flavors exploding literally and figuratively. There's peanuts and butter and green onion and fried garlic with a squeeze of spicy mayo? Whatever is in there, it's bloody earth shattering. If I weren't already struggling, I would order 2 more sets.

Ba Ro was a recommendation from my tour guide this morning, a Da Nang local these last 7 years. No gatekeeping from that young man, bless him. While I asked for Seafood, he gifted me justice.

Payment was briefly hinky as they indicated they only accept cash even though Google says they accept credit cards. Neglecting that,  we are in a part of town where ATMs do not abound and I'm about 50k short. There's fumbling inside of a drawer for a card terminal, more fumbling in a second drawer for the connecting cable, and then... success! Just my J. Hancock now.

In the interim, a crowd of servers has gathered waiting on tickets to be processed for their own tables, of which there are a substantial amount. This foreigner's folly took up egregious amounts of time and I'm awash in over-apology. Just so, they all smile and nod as I juggle my leftovers and receipts and wallet and water bottle and shoulder my way out into the dark street. A happy ending.

Was there an inflated "foreigner tax" applied to my cheque? Potentially. The "market" in Market Price can certainly mean different things for an American in Da Nang but for all the calisthenics, everything cost <$30. And that was for dinner and a show, by my count.