Mentos with lunch
We get mentos with our bun dau mam tom.
The culprit is the mam tom, the pungent shrimp sauce. Some people, including many Vietnamese, don’t like the smell. It can be divisive, like Nato in Japan or the Durian in Singapore. Hence the mentos for when you get back to civilisation.
Notice also the 1980s design of the shop, appealing to nostalgia. Now I miss Hanoi. Let’s go there soon.