A Steak Pie, a Cold Beer and the Story of a Granola Empire
I've been in Vietnam long enough to appreciate rice and noodles.

Believe me, I love the stuff.

Phở in the morning.

Bún when I'm hungry.

Rice when I'm not sure what I want.

Noodles when I've already forgotten what I ordered.

But you can't live on Vietnamese food every day.

Well, you probably can.

I don't want to.

Every now and again the body starts demanding something familiar.

Mine was demanding a steak pie.

So I wandered into Hattrick's Irish Sports Bar near An Bang Beach.

It wasn't a complicated decision.

I saw steak pie and chips on the menu and thought:

Fuck it.

I'm having one.

Danny, the owner, was behind the bar and couldn't have been friendlier.

We had a bit of a chat while he sorted out my order, and before long I was sitting down with a cold drink and a plate of what turned out to be a bloody good steak pie.

Proper comfort food.

Golden pastry.

Rich filling.

Gravy.

Chips.

After days of eating rice and noodles, it tasted as if I'd just been reunited with an old friend.

I sat there taking my time.

There was sport on the screens, people coming and going and that relaxed atmosphere you get in a good Irish bar where nobody seems particularly bothered about what time it is.

Then, after I'd finished eating, I ordered another beer.

That's when I met Peter.

He was an Englishman from London, and we got talking.

You know how these conversations go when you're travelling.

You start with the usual stuff.

Where are you from?

How long have you been here?

What brought you to Vietnam?

Then, before you know it, you're twenty minutes into a conversation with a complete stranger and discovering they've got a story worth hearing.

Peter had one.

He told me he'd previously built and sold a corporate marketing agency in London.

Then came the decision to change his life.

He moved to Hoi An with his wife and their two young children, originally looking for something rather different from the life he'd left behind.

A quieter existence.

Family life.

Vietnam.

A bit of sunshine.

Perhaps even retirement.

It didn't quite work out that way.

Instead, Peter ended up building a granola business.

Pete's Luxury Wholefoods.

It started with a problem that sounds almost ridiculous when you say it out loud.

He couldn't find decent granola.

Not the stuff loaded with sugar and cheap fillers.

He wanted the good stuff.

So, like many accidental entrepreneurs, he decided to make his own.

He bought a cheap toaster oven and started experimenting in his kitchen.

Australian oats.

Vietnamese cashews.

Coconut.

Dried fruit.

Different combinations.

Different recipes.

Small batches.

Then he put some up for sale in a local Hoi An expat Facebook group.

That was the moment the experiment stopped being an experiment.

People wanted it.

Then they wanted more.

What started in a kitchen gradually became a proper business.

Peter went from delivering jars around Hoi An on a bicycle to supplying shops, cafés and hotels.

His range grew too.

Granola.

Muesli.

Trail mixes.

Coconut clusters.

Even something called Granola-Jacks, a bar named by his daughter Lottie.

I liked that detail.

There's something wonderfully Vietnamese about the way businesses seem to grow here.

You don't always start with a ten-year business plan and a boardroom full of accountants.

Sometimes you start with a toaster oven because you can't find the breakfast you want.

Then somebody asks if they can buy a jar.

And suddenly you're in business.

Peter even showed me the company's logo.

A woven Vietnamese basket boat beneath a rising sun.

It's a small detail, but it says something about what happens when you stop being a visitor and start becoming part of a place.

We carried on talking over another beer.

And this is one of the reasons I love travelling.

I hadn't gone into Hattrick's looking for a story.

I'd gone in because I wanted a steak pie.

I ended up with a good meal, a friendly conversation with Danny and a few beers with a Londoner who had accidentally built a granola empire in Vietnam.

That's travel.

You can plan the destination.

You can book the hotel.

You can arrange the taxi.

But you can't book the conversations.

Those are the things that happen when you're sitting somewhere with nowhere particularly important to be.

Peter eventually went his way.

I finished my beer.

Outside, the evening air was warm, and the road towards An Bang was still buzzing with scooters.

I walked back thinking about how strange life can be.

A man leaves London intending to retire in Vietnam.

He can't find decent granola.

So he makes some.

A few years later, he's supplying hotels and cafés across the country.

And me?

I came in looking for a steak pie.

I found a story instead.

I'll take that.