It started when I walked Libby to her class that she was teaching. On my way home I took a different way and ran across a place called Fressen Beer. I was intrigued because I had never heard of the name of this beer, but I had heard about microbreweries in Hanoi. So I walked in to see what it was like, and since I hadn't had lunch, I ordered a bowl of soup and looked around.
It turned out it was a restaurant in the style of a German beer hall, complete with German-style beers. Cool! Strangely, though, they also had bottles of whiskey on every table, including their house brand single malt whiskey. I'd never seen that before.
There were a few strangle things on the menu (I was only having vegetable soup -- no worries):
But the fun started when the four guys sitting at the table next to me saw that I was sitting alone and insisted on having me join them. They had told my server to give me a beer, so what could I do? I joined them and toasted them. They were were a great group who lived about 20 km outside Hanoi but had come into town because one of them was buying a car, and they were celebrating.
As I got up to leave -- which was very difficult since it was clear they were staying awhile and wanted me to stay -- they insisted they were paying for my beer and bowl of soup. We exchanged phone numbers, but I'll remember the good conversation and hospitality in a German beer hall in Vietnam in the middle of the afternoon.
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