The Vietnamese Marketplace. Denis Finnin / AMNH

The 77th Street lobby of the American Museum of Natural History has been transformed into a bustling Vietnamese marketplace, replete with bamboo stalls overflowing with vibrant textiles, colorful lanterns, stoneware, rattan items, hand-embroidered linens, carved boxes, necklaces, earrings and other jewelry, one-of-a-kind silver plates, lacquerware, and musical instruments, all available for purchase. Suspended from the ceiling, arching above the marketplace, is a vivid multi-colored 76-foot-long papier-mâché ceremonial dragon, used in Tet (Lunar New Year) celebrations. Created to accompany the exhibition Vietnam: Journeys of Body, Mind & Spirit, this marketplace provides visitors with a glimpse of daily life in Vietnam even before they enter the exhibition.

Café Pho, a focal point of the marketplace, offers visitors a varied and authentic menu of Vietnamese food. Ubiquitous throughout Vietnam, this type of café allows diners standing on the street to create their own meals from noodles and various kinds of broth into which chicken, roast duck, beef, pork, shrimp, or tofu can be added and then garnished with anything from cilantro sprigs and basil leaves to lime wedges and peppers. There are also dumplings filled with shrimp and pork, lemongrass chicken, or crab and chili, and rice noodle ravioli stuffed with shrimp and vegetables.

Restaurant Associates Executive Chef Bruce Barnes, who oversees the food service at the Museum including Café Pho, has an abiding interest in Asian cooking, especially Vietnamese cuisine. He researched and spoke with Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans to gather recipes. Chef Barnes also prepared a chef's table and delegate dining room buffet of Vietnamese food at the United Nations as a salute to Vietnam during a food festival in March 2002. (See the rotating menu for Café Pho below.)

The grouping of merchandise stalls, typical of what a visitor to present-day Vietnam would find on the lively streets, displays a range of items from books detailing the history and culture of the country to imaginative and colorful Vietnamese handicrafts. Many of the handicrafts produced by Vietnamese craftspeople are marketed through Craft Link, a not-for-profit organization that assists groups of artisans in finding market opportunities. Highlights of the goods offered in the marketplace include:

• A range of artfully designed brass and wood musical instruments including a gong, brass cymbals, a 16-string zither, and a slim wooden flute
• Hand-embroidered white linen napkins and a square linen tablecloth
• Hand-carved soapstone rectangular "wedding box" showing a Vietnamese wedding party on the removable cover
• Hand-carved and painted decorative turtles
• Hand-painted traditional water puppets with articulated limbs featuring horsemen, musicians with instruments, and fisherman in bright rainbow hues
• Distinctive Vietnamese cylindrical lanterns in a selection of orange, lime, red, blue, and purple patterned silks
• Multicolored patterned silk scarf with fringe; reverses to solid wine color
• Hand-woven six-inch-wide oval rattan handbag with shoulder strap
• A large selection of books on Vietnamese culture and history, videos on travel within the country, and music CDs including samples of music used for water puppet shows (prices vary)

Restaurant Associates, which operates Café Pho, provides the food service and event catering at the American Museum of Natural History, and provides the bar and tapas menu for the popular Starry Nights, live jazz on the first Friday of each month in the Rose Center for Earth and Space.

Rotating Menu for Café Pho at the Vietnam Market Place

A diner begins at Café Pho by taking a bowl filled with rice noodles and adding to it a broth: spiced beef, sweet and sour tamarind, or ginger chicken. This is followed by adding a choice of chicken, roast duck, beef, pork, tofu, or shrimp, topped with a garnish of cilantro sprigs, basil leaves, bean sprouts, diced chilies, pickled cabbage, fish sauce, hoisin sauce, sriracha chili sauce, lime wedges, fresh ground black pepper, crispy fried shallots, sliced mushrooms, julienne carrots and peppers, or sliced scallions.

Other menu offerings include:

Steamed Dumplings:

• Shrimp and pork, chicken and chive, and pork and bok choy Salads:
• Ginger spiced cucumber and shrimp salad
• Green papaya salad with spicy beef
• Grilled lemongrass chicken on watercress with ginger dressing
• Grilled curried tofu salad
• Vietnamese curry chicken salad
• Rice noodle salad with lemongrass beef, grilled marinated tofu and vegetables, or grilled shrimp
• Iceberg lettuce and fresh mixed herbs with tomatoes, cucumbers, roasted peanuts, and tamarind vinaigrette

Other choices include:

• Fresh shrimp summer rolls with peanut dipping sauce
• Sausage and jicama summer rolls with chili dipping sauce
• Shrimp paste on sugar cane
• Grilled mini basil and lime meatballs
• Grilled lemongrass and chili beef satés with tamarind dipping sauce
• Five-spice chicken satés
• Grilled pork ribs in caramel sauce
• Grilled calamari over mixed greens and tomatoes
• Grilled five-spice chicken wrap with watercress, tomatoes, and cucumbers
• Vietnamese cinnamon pâté on baguette
• Green curry shrimp wrap
• Charred sweet and sour eggplant wrap
• Lemongrass beef or chicken with lettuce, cilantro, carrots, and peppers
• Chili-crusted shrimp with daikon and watercress wrap
• Roast pork with pickles and chilies
• Sticky rice with gingered shrimp wrapped in banana leaves Desserts:
• Moon cakes
• Sesame cookies
• Bags of dried fruits
• Coconut and cassava cakes
• Lime and coconut tartlets
• Tapioca parfaits with coconut and bananas
• Lychee and ginger jelly parfaits

Beverages:

• Jasmine tea
• Saigon beer
• Tropical nectars
• Vietnamese coffee
• Milk
• American sodas

Café Pho is open weekends from 11:00 a.m.-4:45 p.m.

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