Cooking Class & Dien Quang School Choir

Dien Quang School Choir

THURSDAY 28 JULY 2011

After a relaxing breakfast I cycled to the tailors to pick up my Kimono and later went to the Hai Cafe for a Vietnamese cookery course. There were 9 of us on the course, including David and Simone Brown who live in Port Douglas, Australia. Simone used to live in Llangennith! There was also a woman called Andrea who has been living in Australia, but comes from Watford near where I was brought up. She was there with her friend Meredith from Brisbane.

We were taken to the market to look at all the different types of fruit, vegetables and herbs and then went on a boat about 2 kilometres up the river to the Red Bridge Cooking School. We made Rice Paper, Fresh Rice Paper Shrimp Rolls, Crispy Hoi An Pancakes and Eggplant in Clay Pot. We were also shown how to make a tomato rose and a cucumber fan. We then ate what we had cooked and a couple of other dishes that were made for us, before being taken back down the river by boat.


Meredith and Andrea came with me to the White Lotus restaurant to see the children from Dien Quang sing. The White Lotus Restaurant is part of Project Indochina and all its profits go to various programmes in Vietnam. It also trains young Vietnamese from disadvantaged backgrounds in food service skills. Each year the Indochina Project runs English language programmes during the school vacations in a disadvantaged community in Vietnam and this year it was held in Dien Quang, a village about 30 kilometres away. It was a very special evening - the girls were excellent and Ann was very pleased that so many people had come to hear them sing. She invited me to visit her next time I’m in Melbourne.