Quynh Chau Homestay: A Cozy Stay in Hoi An
The sun finally rose on the first day of our trip, and being my lazy self, I slept in. I can't even remember the last time I had hotel breakfast because I always slack off on trips, but this time was different. My travel companion is a morning person when it comes to food, so the moment they opened their eyes, they blurted out, "Let's eat," forcing me to stop slacking off and eat.
I'll talk about breakfast a bit later. First, let's talk about Quynh Chau Homestay, the first place I saw in Vietnam outside the airport. I left everything about the hotel to my friend, so I didn't really know where we were staying until we arrived. After getting here, I looked it up and found it's a pretty famous homestay. It had a high score on Booking.com and quite good reviews from Koreans, who are known to be picky. I didn't expect much since it's a homestay, but aside from having no pool, slightly lacking shower facilities, and no elevator, I'm highly satisfied. Honestly, not having an elevator is pretty fatal, but the most satisfying strength is the kindness of the host lady, who always tries to feed us at least a little something before sending us out. Additionally, she runs a car service to Da Nang Airport and hotels in Da Nang for about 15 USD one way. (Honestly, I'm not sure if she runs it directly or uses an agency.)
The restaurant in the lobby has an interior that doesn't fall behind any hotel. She used Hoi An's characteristic beautiful lanterns perfectly as subtle accents, and decorated the surroundings beautifully with plants she grows herself. There isn't much to see in Hoi An during the day, so if I were staying here for a long time, I'd probably kill time during the day relaxing in this carefully tended lobby, drinking a beverage and reading a light book.
Not only is the restaurant pretty, but the food is quite good too. To bring up the breakfast story I put off earlier, the system here is that you order the food you want. We could have eaten two bowls, but due to my laziness, I only tried the banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich). Looking just at the banh mi I had, it obviously falls short compared to Banh Mi Phuong. But it's not so bad that it's inedible; rather, it's quite good. It makes me think this might be what real Vietnamese home-cooked banh mi is like. Perhaps because they don't use artificially strong spices to captivate customers, I got a home-cooked meal vibe from a single sandwich.
If I could give one piece of advice, it's best to definitely include cilantro when eating banh mi in Vietnam. Banh mi doesn't have a lot of vegetables, so you need cilantro to cut the greasiness. When I took the cilantro out, it just became a dry sandwich that only tasted like meat seasoning. Surprisingly, Vietnamese cilantro isn't as strong as in Thailand or Malaysia, and the intensity is quite palatable, so I recommend giving it a try.