Elephant Ear Fish@ Ho Chi Minh City - PhotoHunt

 The Kissing Elephant Ear Fish :P

PhotoHunt theme : Ginormous/ Stones

We spent a day island-hopping, exploring the natural beauty of the Mekong Delta to escape from the hustle and bustle of the big city.

Walking on dusty dirt roads as we passed through a village to the next stop, we often saw piles of bricks and stones outside dilapidated houses. The owners are probably making a good living with the hundreds of tourists descending on their village daily. ;)

After visiting a honey bee farm and a candy factory, about mid-day we were absolutely famished when we arrived at a fruit tree farm. After snacking on some local fruits, we had a thrilling ride on a sampan into the deeper canals of the Mekong river to find lunch.

We had a unique lunch set in a pagoda restaurant, surrounded by lotus and koi on the Mekong Delta. 

The moment the eight of us seated ourselves around the table, a waiter plopped a pair of ginormous Osphronemus Exodon or Elephant Ear Gouramis as its commonly known before us. A waitress followed with a ginormous sticky rice ball and placed it in front of me.

Every one whipped out their camera phones and snapped away, not allowing the service staff to touch the two items until we had taken photos to our hearts' content. LOL 

Gutted and deep fried, then propped up on a plate between wooden chopsticks, the fish has a sweet and succulent flesh which is meaty. Deep fried with its scales on, the whole fish including its fins and scales are all edible. :)

The waiter picked off the flesh and together with local herbs (such as mint, cucumber basil), and noodles are placed in wafer thin rice pancakes which are tightly rolled and dipped into a Muoc Cham fish sauce.

yummy fish wrapped in rice paper

We had fried chicken, deep fried cassava balls, steamed prawns and a vegetable soup.

This local Mekong cuisine is served at Diem Phuong Restaurant. After lunch we returned back to Ho Chi Minh City.