Sunday

Sunshine headed to the airport this morning with last night's¹ band. At present, they are playing half the country away in Đà Nẵng, which you can find at nearly the midpoint of Việt Nam's north-south axis, east at the South China seashore.² She'll come back tomorrow. After last night's show, I realized I'd not eaten all day. Sunshine took a cab back to our apartment while I lit out on foot looking for food. My first stop was the rooftop terrace at the Rex Hotel, where things were hopping, the night was steamy, and I waited ten minutes without being served. The food at the Rex is excellent, but I didn't feel like competing with the afterhours crowd for service. I left. By then it was after eleven and many District One restaurants were closing; open hotel restaurants promised more of the environment I'd avoided at the Rex: fun for group drinking but challenging for quick, lonesome dining. Two opportunities remained: southwest to what's called the "backpacker district" near the New World Hotel, a cluster of twenty-four hour bar-restaurants, hostels, and massages; or due east to an upscale expatiate area near the river where, incidentally, rows of Japanese restaurants live. I went that-a-way. I went that way again today, foraging for myself while Sunshine's in Đà Nẵng. How Saigon is: last night I hunched into a midnight yakisoba haven where two beers, salmon sashimi and huge noodle bowl ran under ten bucks; tonight, miso soup, sake, and assorted sashimi soared over thirty. Both were excellent, but I liked last night's more: the lone eater along an empty six-seat sushi bar, between a waving cat and racks of J-pop magazines; welcomed by a squat, bellicose Japanese expat who handed me the TV remote before disappearing to do my cooking. [Cavin]