http://www.panoramio.com/photo/46830955

Negrita Rum (the French spell it “rhum”) was first blended and labeled in 1847 by the Bardinet Company of France. And Bardinet still produces it. It’s the most popular rum in Spain and high on the list in other European countries. It’s a blended rum, being made in distilleries on Reunion, Guadeloupe and Martinique islands. It’s the Martinique element that gives Negrita its distinctive taste. Rums of Martinique are “agricole” rums. They are made from sugar cane juice, not molasses, a by-product of the refining process.The painted ad on Tran Hung Dao (in the French time known as Rue Marine, or Sailor Street) would have beckoned thousands of soldiers and sailors as they headed into Cho Lon for nights of debauchery at the House of 500 girls. It would have stimulated the thirst of gamblers flocking to Le Grande Monde. The dark lady on the label might have winked at Graham Green as he scoured the steamy streets for atmo to spice up The Quiet American. She was part of a neighborhood and a city whose former character is now almost entirely gone. But she has been (temporarily) preserved. In 1960 the Metropole hotel was built on that triangle of land, hard against the adjacent building, sealing up the commercial art as a time capsule. Through all the subsequent decades of war, upheaval, high times and low, change, change and hyper change, the painted Negrita slept.

She had not been seen for 50 years, until last December. With yet another tower in mind, developers demolished the venerable Metropole in that month, revealing that shrouded bit of bibulous history. I stopped in my tracks when I saw her. I must have stood and contemplated her for ten minutes, imagining all the people and events that she had witnessed, and those she had slept through. I resolved to have a drink of Negrita. I had to have a sip of Saigon history. But where to find something that disappeared decades ago?

I called my bibulous buddies. Michael Kloster, formerly of Black Cat fame and now with The Vine Group wine merchants; Linh Phanroy of Gringo’s Bar; and Charlie Wong the Hot Dog King of Saigon all went to work and did their best. But the search seemed to be in vain. Kloster managed to locate a bottle in Phnom Penh and was standing by to have it “transferred.” Phanroy promised to invent a dedicatory cocktail for it upon arrival. But King Charlie’s network of informants and operatives proved unmatched. As we sat despondently one night nursing our suds at the Drunken Duck, a dusty and battered old xe om (motorbike taxi) arrived at the door. Both driver and vehicle looked hard-ridden. A barman was dispatched to meet him. A fat wad of cash changed hands. A bottle of Negrita rum was set before me. It was a thing of beauty.

Photo Linh Phanroy

We four repaired to my quarters. With due ceremony I cracked the bottle. I poured four measures. We toasted Old Saigon. We tasted. How was it? Well may you ask. “She weren’t a goer,” as an Aussie might say. But she weren’t bad neither. I didn’t care. I tasted Old Saigon, and that was more than enough for me. Phanroy made good on his promise. He combined equal measures of café sua da, Kalua and Negrita. He calls it the Negringa. I plan to make that bottle last until the Negrita ad is once more consigned to darkness, no doubt for good this time. I pass by that echo of Old Saigon every day on my way home. And every day in my mind I drink a silent toast to her. And she replies, “I just came back to say goodbye.”

NB Every year the U.S. publishers of Travelers’ Tales gather together the best travel writing from all points abroad, published in the previous year, and republish them in a collection called The Best Travel Writing, Volume … http://www.amazon.com/The-Best-Travel-Writing-Volume/dp/1609520572 It is widely considered the gold standard of travel writing. Not only is it highly regarded by critics and readers, it is used in universities to teach the narrative art. And this year’s collection includes the story you have just read.

I took a seat at the far end of the bar. Without a word she turned and walked toward the cooler, and through the split tunic of her garment offered me hints of those long long legs that start at the surface of the Earth and go all the way up to Paradise. She opened the cooler and, like she was reaching for a switchblade, she grabbed a cold one. Off came the top in one flick of the wrist, the spent cap clattering on the tile floor and worshiping at those platform shod feet.

She walked slowly down the length of the bar, pouring the suds into a tall glass as she moved. With a cool hand and a keen eye she lifted the bottle ever higher as she poured and walked, skillfully building up a creamy, frothy head that threatened to over excite itself and foam over the top to lave her hand in its whiteness. But at the last possible moment she stopped her tease with a skill born of innumerable such non conclusions. She set the bubbling frustrated drink down in front of me.

“Jenga?” I proposed.

“Beat you again,” she warned. She usually does.

Search the world, but I don’t think you’ll find Jenga as a bar game anywhere outside Saigon. It’s just an Old Saigon thing, played in Old Saigon bars. And Hien’s, the eternal verity of Hai Ba Trung Street, is the oldest of them all. Many have come and gone, but this serene island in a heaving sea of progress remains. And the Jenga towers rise and fall.

Start with a neatly stacked pile of sticks. Pull one out from near the bottom and place it gingerly on top. Repeat. Soon a teetery tottery tower is swaying and shivering and threatening to tumble down upon you. You think the next move will be its destruction, yet it continues to gain its shaky height and the tension continues to rise amid hushed anticipation.

It’s a quiet game, this. So unlike bar dice where misinformed souls hope that the more noise they make in slamming down the cup the greater their chance that Fortune will hear their plea. With Jenga the only noise comes from the crashing tower and the relieved and happy shouts of players and lookers-on. Jenga calls for calm, chess-like concentration and steady nerves, the planner’s forward thinking, the instinctive eye of the architect. And judicious amounts of gin and beer. In an Old Saigon bar, therefore, Jenga makes drinking rather a highbrow pastime. And in the shared tension of the game a quiet bonding, however slight, takes place between the players. I’ve met many new friends and drinking buddies in the ruins of a Jenga tower. And advanced my relationships with others. Including those behind the bar. Can’t say that for bar dice.

Of course the drinks are always simple in such a place. Nothing with a paper umbrella, nothing served by a girl wearing an advertisement. Yet in the conviviality of the game, and the necessarily heightened senses, the gin always seems to have more snap and the beer seems colder. And I never leave drunk. Happy, but in command of my faculties. And though my pockets may be lighter, my purse of memories is increased.

The University of Old Saigon Bar, Jenga campus, teaches a valuable lesson. It isn’t just what, or how much or how little we drink, but how. It’s the context in which we imbibe that matters most. So when we can say that we exit the bar richer than when we entered, then we have drunk both wisely and well.

Another place to play Jenga:

Black Cat – Not exactly old, but old school

Now you know I am an adventure eater. And drinker. Pride myself on it. Made money on it. The New York Times dubbed me “Indiana Jones of Gastronomy” for my willingness to go anywhere and court any danger for the sake of a new gastronomic experience. And I was doing it long before that fat guy on the Discovery channel. So how do you think I felt when, recently, I was tooling along Vo Thi Sau boulevard and I saw a new juice bar? Now I must tell you that juice bars are a regular feature of the landscape here in Saigon, and throughout Vietnam. You can imagine that freshly squeezed tropical fruit juices are a very popular daily indulgence in these parts. And you would right about that. We have no need for Coke or 7-Up hereabouts. We got ‘em, but we don’t need ‘em.

But to my tale. I was on a mo-bike of a recent evening, on my way to who-knows-where. I rounded a corner as I sped along from some folderol in District 3, and there I saw it. A new juice bar. Bright blue neon lights proudly announced its name: “PP Juice.” Yep, you got that right, PP juice. As I zoomed by, I swore that I must soon return and enjoy PP Juice. I must tell you that it is a very attractive juice bar. Situated at the confluence of two of the city’s more attractive thoroughfares, and featuring a wide-screen TV at which World Cup fans and others may gather, and an alfresco setting that gives a lovely view of life passing by. How can you not like it?

So I had to go to indulge in PP Juice, hadn’t I? Yes, I had. But there was another reason I had to go to PP. It was because there is a pedestrian bit of knowledge I have that made it inevitable that I should have a drink at the PP.

So I told Constance (that’s the mem-sahib, you know), “Let’s go!” And so we went to PP. When we arrived, I said, “I’ll have the papaya!” I’m very fond of papaya. It’s delicious and good for the digestion, too. I have it often here. And so I had PP papaya. Isn’t that fun to say, “PP papaya”? It falls out the mouth quite easily, doesn’t it? “PP papaya!” Ha Ha! PP papaya. And it was good, too!

Oh, but I forget that pedestrian bit of knowledge that made my visit inevitable. Well, without making a fuss over it, the Vietnamese word for papaya is “du du.” Yes, it is. Now, you know that I have eaten and drunk many a strange thing, but this time I can truthfully say that when I went to PP, I had a good du du.

http://fbnc.com.vn/DetailVideo/Index/2674?nameTalk=What%20could%20be%20solutions%20for%20nylon-bag%20waste?

Then scroll down to mid screen where you see a horizontal row of blue buttons that say Vietnam in Focus. Scroll to the right and then click on “Talk show about Vietnam’s street food.”