Showdown at the banh cuon joint

In a typical Hanoi-style family-run restaurant—please

picture: granddad (in his pyjamas) eating tofu while

watching TV beside the family altar down the back—

three middle-aged women dunk the last morsels of banh

cuon (rice-flour crepes filled with diced pork and

woodear mushrooms) into the chilli-laced fish sauce

while their husbands drain the last dregs from the

bottles of Bia Ha Noi on the table.

The meal draws to a close and everyone appears replete

but there is a tension in the air. Everyone is avoiding eye

contact. One man’s legs are jiggling under the table.

Another’s head is twitching as he works a toothpick

along his molars. The third has already lit a cigarette and

draws deeply. The normally loquacious women have all

fallen strangely silent. Was it something somebody said?

Have they simply arrived at that awkward moment when

people realise they have nothing else to say to each

other?

No, there’s something else going on here. The wives keep

glancing side-to-side as if they’re all trying to see who will

make the first move then suddenly, all three jump up

and bolt for the front of the restaurant while trying to

open their purses. The men also stand up, trying to clear

a path for their respective partners by blocking the other

two women. Everyone quickly gets in a jam. The women

are shouting, “Thoi! Thoi! Thoi!”, which is kind of like ‘no,

no, no’, but in this case more like, ‘don’t, don’t, don’t’.

Two women wriggle through and collide in a strange,

tangled dance in the middle of the restaurant, twirling

together, each holding the other back, while trying to

spin forwards, grimacing and tutting in tandem, each

with a crisp VND500,000 (about $23) note held aloft in

the air. As these two women grapple each other into a

deadlock, the third woman slips past everyone and

triumphantly reaches the cashier-slash-cook-slash-

owner, who is sitting behind the steaming pots and pans

and trying her best to ignore the woman demanding to

pay for everyone.

There are squeals of anguish and cries of protest from

her two friends so the cashier-slash-chef-slash-owner

knows better than to take the money, she just laughs

nervously, and looks at the woman as if to say, “You and

I both know that I can’t take that.” There are unwritten

rules to be respected and it is clear: there must be a

resolution before money is accepted.

By now all three women have reconvened at the front of

the restaurant so there are three notes being waved

around and three cases to be heard: “Let me pay. I

haven’t seen you guys for such a long time”, “No, no,

no… you both came such a long way today. Let me pay!”,

“Oh, It’s been so long since I came to this part of town.

Let me pay!”

The cashier-slash-chef-slash-owner looks at the three

husbands for an intervention but they only shrug their

shoulders and start to parrot what their wives just said:

“We’re inviting you as you travelled so far”, “No, we’re

inviting you as it’s been such a long time since we all

came here”, “No, we’re inviting both of you because we’re

so happy to see you all again!” But eventually one

woman’s patience snaps and she rasps, “Stop it! We

asked you to come here today so this time it’s our treat!”

and she plants the cash in the hand of the cashier-slash-

chef-slash-owner with a fierce stare.

Everyone knows the dispute is over, but for the sake of

appearances, they don’t want to seem like they’re

yielding too easily, so everyone continues to mumble for

half a minute or so, but there is some sense of relief in

the air. Soon all three couples are shuffling out to their

motorbikes on the pavement, and everyone is chuckling,

as if it were all fun and games, but as one of the defeated

women lifts her leg over the pillion seat behind her

husband, she shakes her head and wags her toothpick at

the bill-payers, as if to say, “We’ll get you next time. Just

you wait and see. Nobody pays for our lunch and gets

away with it.”

Showdown at the banh cuon joint: to be continued.