At Pizza 4P’s Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City guests can order one pizza with two different styles, split half and half

With the cool weather of Ho Chi Minh City this festive season, we decided to visit Pizza 4P’s last week.

It was around 8 p.m. and the restaurant was full of young local people and foreigners. My friend booked a table with a view of the wood oven and a spacious spiral staircase with stonewalls that created a “stone city” atmosphere reminiscent of ancient Rome.

Pizza 4P’s offers a very creative menu. In addition to traditional pizza, this restaurant also has modern Asian versions which use unconventional Japanese sauces, seaweed, Vietnamese fresh vegetable flowers and other local ingredients such as shrimp, pork and beef.

If you are after a fusion of new pizza culture you will surely have to try the Calamari Seaweed Pizza (squid, mushroom, homemade mozzarella, parmesan, olive oil, seaweed and soya sauce), or Teriyaki Chicken pizza (chicken, homemade mozzarella, seaweed, shiso leaves, mayonnaise, olive oil and teriyaki sauce). At Pizza 4P’s you can taste something Italian and something Japanese in a single pie, all smothered in homemade cheese.

For an appetizer we opted for “today’s marinade” which turned out to be our beloved mushrooms, and for the main course we choose something classic and something innovative: Margherita Pizza and Quattro Flowers Pizza (pumpkin, leek flower and daylily flowers and homemade parmesan with sweet chili sauce).

To encourage customers to try the diversified dishes, at Pizza 4P’s you can order one pizza with two different styles, split half and half. The simple Margherita was out favorite with its generous distribution of wonderful cheese while the Quattro Flowers Pizza gave us a taste of the exotic, the succulent homemade cheese mixing nicely with the light fragrance of vegetable flowers.

PIZZA 4P’S

8/15 Le Thanh Ton Street, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City Tel: (08) 3 822 9838

For dessert my friend chose her favorite tiramisu which was very tasty and had a delightful presentation. (This dinner cost us about VND200,000 each).

“We targeted Vietnamese customers so we conducted research before opening the restaurant. We invited 50 Vietnamese people to come to taste our pizza twice a week and gathered their opinions. This menu was designed by Vietnamese people,” said the restaurant’s young CEO, Yosuke Masuko.

Masuko said he came to Vietnam from Tokyo three years ago to work in the financial sector. After this restaurant he plans to open an eco resort. “10 years ago I wanted to open an eco resort. That is why I came to Vietnam. Resorts and restaurants are similar businesses and I started with a restaurant first,” said Masuko.

After spending one year in Hanoi, Masuko moved to Saigon two years ago and together with his wife, opened Pizza 4P’s last August. The four P’s acronym stands for: Platform of Personal Pizza for Peace.

Now Masuko said works with former film director turned pizza chef, Takaaki Yoshikawa, a good friend for over 20 years.

Masuko said Yoshikawa has a good time making pizza and meeting customers in Saigon. “Six years ago, we made a pizza oven in the garden (in Japan) and cooked pizza as a hobby. We also offered pizza making classes for children,” said Masuko.

Pizza 4P’s follows an open minded concept. Masuko said pizza lovers could submit ideas for new dishes and after tests, the most popular innovation would be added to the menu. In addition to minor fame, the winner will receive copyright royalties for as long as the dish remains on the menu.

The newly-launched budget airline VietJetAir is offering a special fare of US$28 for flights between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

The promotion, which is reduced around five times from the normal price, is applied for flights between March 1 to April 25 this year. Customers have 48 hours for booking until to 11 a.m. Saturday, February 4, the carrier said in a press release.

Vietnam Airlines has slashed prices on flights to Europe and Northeast Asia by as much as 46 percent from now until March 31 , Thoi bao kinh te Saigon quoted the national carrier as saying Saturday.

According to the report, the round-trips fare from Ho Chi Minh City to London is now only US$699, down 46 percent from normal. A trip from HCMC to Moscow and back now costs $700, a 39 percent discount.

Meanwhile, customers can expect to pay $480 for a round-trip ticket from HCMC to Tokyo and $449 from HCMC to Seoul.

Quoted fares do not include taxes and surcharges, the report said.

Vietnam Airlines currently operates 25 flights per week from HCMC to Japan and 14 to South Korea. The national carrier also offers 25 flights to England, France and Germany each week, and seven to Russia.

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A former garden house in Hue, but the garden has been tiled and two concrete houses have been put up.

Nearly a hundred garden houses, a cultural attraction in the World Heritage town of Hue, have been closed over the past five years with the owners saying they were tired of preserving the heritages without getting paid.

The owners said they could not keep receiving visitors, putting on smart clothes, serving them drinks and answering hundreds of their questions like tour guides without any payment.

Nguyen Thi Minh Trang, owner of a garden house at No.1 Phu Mong Street, told the Tuoi Tre newspaper last week that a preservation project for garden houses in the town had been approved six years ago, but she has not received a single dong.

“I had to close the house to do other jobs. We still have to eat,” Trang said.

Nguyen Ngoc Trinh, the 88-year-old owner of a house at No.5 Phu Mong, said he sometimes he had to tell the visitors that the house owners were not at home, since “I cannot be a free tour guide forever.”

The Tuoi Tre report said that most other garden houses in the area also refused to receive customers, and some did so very reluctantly.

Many tourists were also frustrated after paying tour operators and not getting any service.

A total of 98 garden houses started to refuse their services after waiting for years for the garden house preservation project to provide them with funding. The project to preserve 150 garden houses was approved by Thua Thien-Hue provincial government in 2006 but the province only decided to establish a fund for the project in 2010.

Ngo Anh Tuan, vice chairman of Hue town government, told Tuoi Tre that the paperwork “took four years.”

The Thua Thien-Hue provincial administration has not named the agencies or individuals responsible for the undue delay.

The delay has not only caused 98 houses to shut their doors to visitors, but many have also been modified for different purposes, one of them because people need more room.

The Thua Thien-Hue provincial government said at a meeting in December last year that there were only 52 garden houses remaining in their original form, with a ruong, an ancient wooden house typically found in Hue, surrounded by a big garden.

One of the modified garden houses is located at 38/3 Le Thanh Ton in the town center, built in 1932.

Two years ago, two modern houses for the owner’s sons were put up on either sides of the ruong, and the garden was tiled.

One of the sons said “We have more than ten people, we cannot live in the small ancient house forever.”

Another garden house nearby at 64 Han Thuyen also saw a two-story concrete house built next to the ruong house.

The owner of another garden house at 66 Doan Thi Diem Street has built a mezzanine inside the house for shelter in case of flooding.

Researcher Nguyen Huu Thong, director of the Hue office of Vietnam Institute of Culture and Arts Studies, told Tuoi Tre that Hue was listed as a world heritage not only because of its temples and palaces, but also to the villages inside the urban zones of the town, which is a special characteristic of Hue.

“Without the garden houses, Hue is no longer Hue,” Thong said.

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The Tram Chim National Park will become Vietnam’s fourth Ramsar site, a title recognizing the fundamental ecological functions of a wetland and its economic, cultural, scientific and recreational value, according to park authorities.

Nguyen Van Hung, the park’s director, told online newspaper VnExpress that the Ramsar Convention Bureau is finalizing procedures to pronounce the park a Ramsar site.

In 1988, the Ramsar Convention Bureau designated Xuan Thuy Natural Wetland Reserve in the northern province of Nam Dinh as Vietnam’s first Ramsar site.

In 2005, another Ramsar site was recognized by the treaty organization: the Bau Sau (Crocodile Lake) Wetlands and Seasonal Floodplains in the Cat Tien National Park.

In 2011, Ba Be National Park was recognized as Vietnam’s third Ramsar site.

Tram Chim National Park 7,588-hectares) is home to 130 species of plant, more than 120 species of freshwater fish, 40 different amphibian and reptile species, and over 200 types of birds – of which 16 are listed as endangered.

The most distinguished resident bird is the Sarus crane which has been recognized as threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The park is listed among the eight most important conservation areas for birds in Vietnam.

Russian-invested tour operator Lanta Viet has resumed its operations in the Mui Ne resort area on February 2 after its sudden close following the bankruptcy of its parent firm Lanta Tour Voyage the previous week.

Nguyen Van Khoa, chairman of the Binh Thuan Tourism Association, said Lanta Viet director Konstantin Prikhodko opened the office in the late afternoon.

“Dozens of resort owners immediately came to the office to request him to sign debt notes for hosting the company’s Russian tourists over the past several days,” he said.

At a meeting with Vietnamese tourism authorities and the People’s Committee of Binh Thuan Province  on February 1, Prikhodko said he and his employees left the office in fear that some frustrated people could surround the place as happened at Lanta’s office in Thailand.

However, the resort owners said they had taken good care of the Russian tourists to maintain their reputation despite being aware of Lanta Tour Voyage’s bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, tourism authorities said they had instructed the resorts to continue taking good care of the tourists as a move to promote Mui Ne tourism.

Dozens of Russian tourists stranded in Mui Ne have left Vietnam over the past days and all of those sent to Vietnam through Lanta Viet are expected to leave by February 8.

Prikhodko committed to pay the resorts but did not offer a payment time.

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Russian tourists stranded in Vietnam as tour operator goes bust

Lanta Tour Voyage, one of Russia’s largest tour operators, declared bankruptcy January 27 and shut down after being unable to provide funding for contracted services, leaving thousands of Russian tourists stranded abroad including 309 in Vietnam.

Russia’s state development bank VTB on February 1 said it will lend Lanta Tour Voyage US$7 million at an interest rate of 12 percent, according to the Russian daily newspaper Vedomosti.

Local archaelogists have announced the discovery of a 14th century stone pathway at the southern gate of Ho Dynasty Citadel, a World Heritage Site in the central province of Thanh Hoa.

The pathway, approximately two kilometers long, runs across the gate to connect Vinh Tien and Vinh Thanh communes with Vinh Loc District in the province.

Dr Tran Anh Dung, head of the excavation team from the Archaelogy Institute, was quoted by Lao Dong Newspaper last week as saying “the unearthed road is Vietnam’s most beautiful ancient road so far.”

According to historical records, Ho Dynasty Emperor (Ho Quy Ly (1336-1407) used the royal road to travel from the inner citadel to Don Son Mountain, where he held ceremonies to heaven and earth, praying for peace and prosperity to the country and people.

Dr Do Quang Trong, Director of Ho Dynasty Citadel Preservation Center, said that the excavation project in an area of 1500 square meter around the site is expected to unearth the citadel’s original road and base.

The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) has included the 2-km royal entry into the heritage listing as the most imposing, spectacular road in Southeast Asia.

The Vietnamese archaelogists also expect to unearth three-span, five-span and seven-span abutments around 100 meters away from the southern gate.

Trong added that the project also aims to answer the question of how the emperor traveled in and out of his citadel and if it was used as merely a military building or a royal capital in the past.

In addition to the stone pathway, Dung’s team has also unearthed several artifacts, including ancient weapons made of stone and iron, and ceramic objects dating back to the Le Dynasty (1428-1528).

Excavation work will be carried out on either side of the gates and structures inside the palace.

Trong said that the excavation would affect daily activities of local people, it requires collarboration and coordination between the government and several departments.

“In order to unearth the whole underground road, it is necessary to build a new road nearby to replace the old one which is used for travelling at present,” said Trong, “Then, the ancient road should be promoted as a heritage road to protect the surrounding environment and develop tourism.”

The Ho Dynasty Citadel, located in the two communes of Vinh Tien and Vinh Long in Vinh Loc district, was built in 1397 and was recognised by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage site in June, 2011.

In September, a rock site at the An Ton mountain area of around 25,300 hectares in the province’s Vinh Loc District was discovered as an excavation site used for constructing the citadel, which is nearly two kilometers away.

No visit to the northern mountainous province of Ha Giang is complete without a bowl of the local poison, called the “poisonous porridge.”

To many natives in the province, which seems even colder than it really is thanks to the grey rocky mountains, it is not just the plum and peach blossoms in the first lunar month or the golden terraced fields in the tenth month that make the place attractive.

A major winter attraction is a porridge made from the poisonous “ấu tẩu,” a hard, rough and thorny root known scientifically as Aconitum sinense paxt, the Tuoi Tre newspaper said in a recent report.

The root is as hard as rugger rock and can only be found on the top of Tay Con Linh mountain in the province. The first use of the root is to poison arrows in hunting.

But the poisonous root has been cleverly processed by local ethnic groups like Muong and Dao into a thick and grey dish that is not only delicious but can also cure cold and strengthen one’s bones, said Nguyen Thi Huong, who runs a famous shop of the porridge at 171 Tran Hung Dao Street in the province’s capital, Ha Giang Town.

The recipe has since been learnt by people in the lowland as well.

Huong said the dish needs painstaking preparation over a whole day to make diners feel the fragrance, the taste of fat and the bitterness of the roots on the tip of the tongue, as well as the sweetness of meat and bones.

Before cooking, the roots are cleaned and soaked in rice water, with which rice has been washed, from early morning until noon, or at least four hours. The roots are then cleaned once again before being boiled for four hours until they become loose, the chef said.

A bowl of boiled ấu tẩu (Aconitum sinense paxt)

They are then left to dry and smashed until smooth. The root broth, which is red, will be mixed with boiled rice porridge and pig’s feet, before the mashed root is added and the mixture is cooked over a weak fire until it is served.

Huong said the name of the porridge is so attractive that her shop has been crowded with customers every night for more than ten years now without any advertisements.

But if the root is not properly processed, the delicacy will “poison the diners, causing numb jaws and constricted legs and arms, and even kill people if they are not treated in time,” she said.

A delicious bowl of ấu tẩu porridge should be complemented with lean meat, pepper, onion and balm mint leaves.

Diners are recommended to rest after having the porridge, thus the shops are only open from the evening until midnight.

But Huong also recommends that children under 18 not try the dish, as too much of root will make their bones fragile.

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Nguyen Hue Flower Street and other three book streets in Ho Chi Minh City attracted 3.5 million visitors between January 20-26, the Tuoi Tre Newspaper reported Friday, citing the city’s Tet Festival Organizing Board.

The streets opened for 14 hours per day during the week before closing at 10 p.m. Thursday, the 4^th day of the first lunar month.

According to Tran Hung Viet, head of the board, this year several cameras were installed along the festive streets to prevent traffic congestion and theft.

The number of thefts during the week was half of last year, he said, without citing figures.

From 6a.m. on January 27, Nguyen Hue Street opened to normal traffic.

This year, Le Loi Street, adjoining the flower street, was the highlight of the Tet festival in the city as it served as a walking street where several performances were held, including traditional music, Latin music and dances, and circuses.

Visitors to Ha Long Bay, the UNESCO-recognized world heritage site in northern Vietnam, will not have to pay any admission fee during the Lunar New Year holiday, local authorities have announced.

The Quang Ninh Province People’s Committee said in a decision that entry to all sites in Ha Long Bay will be free from January 23 to February 5.

It said the decision was the a way of saying thanks to Vietnamese and foreign visitors who voted for Ha Long Bay to become one of the New 7 Wonders of the World last November.

According to the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Ha Long Bay received has some 5,000-7,000 tourists per day during the Lunar New Year holiday in previous years.

This year, it expects to receive 7,000-10,000 tourists as three big festivals – Cua Ong Temple festival, the Yen Tu festival and the National Poetry Day – will be held in Quang Ninh around this time.