How we found ourselves in the Ea Tu Commune We were staying in Buôn Ma Thuột, Đắk Lắk, Vietnam and one morning a friend took us to visit several small durian farms in the mixed urban-agricultural outskirts of the city (see the Youtube video). As I peered out the truck window down a red-dust road […]
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The 10 Best Durian of 2017 – My Year in Review
When I tell you where I ate my 10 best durians of the year, I’m telling you a story about me. “Best durian” are deeply personal. They’re where I was and what I was doing and what was important to me when I ate them. This post, The 10 Best Durian of 2017 is essentially […]
Review of Frozen Vietnamese Durian, 3-Mien Brand | Portland, Oregon
I was excited the moment I saw the words “Vietnam” printed on the label. This was in the USA, and the durian was frozen, and it was sitting innocently between two packages of Thai durian pretending that the USA has always had choices when it comes to to durian. As I picked up the package […]
Vietnam Durian Varieties
Vietnam has between 20 and 30 native varieties, most of them unnamed. There’s some debate whether durian first arrived from Thailand, Malaysia, or even the Philippines but there seems to be a mix of large-spiked Thai varieties and small-spiked Malaysian. Most varieties are very mild and taste more like vanilla than durian, although I thought […]
Dak Mil Durian Village
Dak Mil is a very small town in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. It’s only 180 miles from Ho Chi Minh, but the trip takes about 8 hours due to the poor condition of the road. We definitely weren’t sure what we were getting in to when we climbed on the overnight bus. I […]
Dona Techno Vietnam Durian Factory
While scrolling through google searches on Vietnamese durian, I was surprised to find several news articles about Dona Techno, a durian factory in Long Khanh, Dong Nai province, that has made shipments of frozen Vietnamese durian to the USA. This was way back in December, before Rob and I had even set food in SE […]
Guide to Durian in Vietnam
Rob and I flew into Ho Chi Minh on August 1st. I was expecting to be disappointed, as we were really late for the reported season, in June, and I’d heard that Vietnam only grows Monthong anyway. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Vietnam has an estimated 20 unique varieties, undiscovered and unnamed treasures that […]
Mekong Delta Rice & Durian
The Mekong Delta is a low lying region crisscrossed by wide rivers and muddy streams. This is the region of the famous boat people, a community of nomads who spend much of the year on their brightly painted, flat bottomed fishing boats trolling the river for fish, wild vegetables and jobs. It seems strange that […]
Goodbye Malaysia, Good Morning Vietnam
I began feeling nervous as soon as we touched down in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Rob and I have been in Malaysia since the beginning of June. I was beginning to feel very comfortable there, where many people speak English and the language, Bahasa, is more accessible to my western ears than the more […]
