FOOD
Vietnam has abundant food supplies and an elaborate cuisine. Cooking is seen as an art and some Vietnamese dishes have achieved international fame, including such traditional dishes as noodle soup (pho), pork sausage (gio lua), spring rolls (nem ran), and fish balls (cha ca). In addition to Vietnamese food, the larger hotels also serve a wide variety of Continental and Chinese cuisine. In the smaller cities, where hotels only have one restaurant, ordering a-la-carte may involve a slight wait. Consequently, it is advised that if in a rush, you take advantage of the large and diverse buffets available at these hotels to minimize any delay.
Never drink water from the hotel tap, no matter what category of hotel you are staying in. Bottled mineral water is available at all hotels throughout Vietnam. Do not have any ice in your drinks as this is often made from water that has not been purified.
Joining in a half or full day cooking class is a fun and unique way to become more acquainted with Vietnamese cuisine. Please see our excursions in Hanoi, Hoi An and Ho Chi Minh City for detailed information about cooking classes.
Vietnam has some excellent and atmospheric restaurants. Please refer to our sales team for restaurant recommendations or contact your local tour guide for more suggestions.
POPULAR SNACKING IN VIETNAM
Com: Boiled rice is eaten for lunch and for dinner. This is the main food for a Vietnamese meal. That why the meal and the rice in Vietnamese bear the same name "com".
Pho: The most typical Vietnamese food is Pho, the noodle soup with meat in it.
Bun Thang: " Ladder" soft noodle soup: Dishes made of soft noodle soup are diverse such as vermicelli and fried chopped meat, Bun Thang, vermicelli and sour crab soup, stewed vermicelli, vermicelli and boiled lean meat, etc. The popular dish is vermicelli and sour crab soup whilst Bun Thang is for connoisseurs, unique and available in Hanoi only. A bowl of Bun Thang includes lean pork paste, thin fried egg, salted shredded shrimp, chicken, onion, shrimps paste and a little Belostomatid essence. Especially, Bun Thang bouillon made from shrimps and meat must be very sweet and pure. Without enjoying Bun Thang when arriving to Hanoi, it somewhat seems to lack of a taste of Hanoi.
Banh cuon: a steamed rice dumpling into which minced pork and moc nhi is rolled, and served with ca cuong, a special type of nuoc mam dipping sauce containing a filtered extract from insect semen, which gives the sauce its flowery aroma and pearlike taste. Well-known banh cuon can be tried at Vietnamese Traditional Cuisine Street of Tong Duy Tan in Hanoi.
Banh Tom Ho Tay (West lake fried shrimp cake): All people who used to live in Hanoi are familiar with Banh Tom Ho Tay restaurant on the "Young" street. The cake preparing process includes wheat flour mixed with potato fibres, placing on shape with shrimps upper, then fried with oil. The cake is brittle, soft, sweet – smelling and served with vegetable pickles and sweet and sour fish sauce for best taste.
Cha Ca La Vong (La Vong Grilled Fish Pies): It is a unique speciality of Hanoi people, therefore one street in hanoi was named as Cha Ca Street. Cha Ca is made from mud –fish, snake- headed fish, but the best one is Hemibagrus (Ca Lang)
Fish bone is left away to keep meat only, then seasoning, clipping by pieces of bamboo and frying by coal heat. An oven of coal heat is needed when serving to keep Cha Ca always hot. Cha Ca is served with roasted peanuts, dry pancakes, soft noodle soup, spice vegetables and shrimps paste with lemonand chilly. You should enjoy La Vong Grilled Fish Pies on a coool rainy day in summer or in winter
Banh Chung: The traditional sticky rice cakes are made of glutinous rice, pork and green bean paste, and sometimes with onion, wrapped in bamboo (or sometimes in banana) leaves. They are made by soaking the rice in water for an entire day. The pork meat includes skin and fat and the beans are about the same size. Wrapped in the fresh bamboo leaves, the rice turns slightly green.
Vietnamese families must include the banh chung among the offerings at the family altar and the cakes are also traditional during Tet meals.
There is a legend attached to the creation of this traditional dish: Prince Lang Lieu created and presented the rice cakes to his father, winning high acclaim and thus securing the throne.
Nuoc mam: The fermented fish sauce is used to spice anything. (without it no Vietnamese meal is complete). And if you find the flavor not strong enough, try "mam tom", other form of "nuoc mam" which is known as "tear gas" to foreigners.
Baguettes: A legacy of the French are the small white bread leaves, resembling baguettes. You can get them for as little as VND 1.000. Sometimes they are combined with well spiced meat, vegetables and salad to form an excellent sandwich.
Cafe le duong: coffee is coffee everywhere. Coffee "le duong" (served at coffee stalls facing streets) makes the difference. Dipping a cup of coffee while sitting waching life going on around in an meditating way would bring different benefits to different people. This is quite popular daily habits to most of the locals.
Duck eggs: A speciality is definitely the duck egg. Instead of the yolk it has an already partly developped foetus, complete with feathers, limbs and beak.
Goat hotpot (lau de): Vietnamese hot pot (lau) is popular served with fish (lau ca), or goat (lau de), or vegetable only (lau rau). The most favorite is lau de as it is said that de (goat) produce more than just nutritious meat - but sort of viagra The pot is ready laid on a table, fired underneath, bone-cooked soup with delicious gradients inside and eaters are served with raw goat meat and vegetable. The interesting is that cooking and enjoying meal is at the same time and one can test their own cooking skill and others'.
Snake meat: It's a controversial topic. Some say it;'s scary. Some say it's great. The other don't know what they are talking about: the meat or the snake, or the snake-soaked wine. But they all know for sure that there is a snake village named Le Mat near Hanoi where locals live mainly on catching and breeding snake and one could collect a life - experience there.
Thit cho: meaning dog meat - the favorite dish for the Northern Vietnamese in the winter time. The dish goes well with "mam tom..;"The dish is just reserved for informal occasions where tasters sit right on the floor in the way they feel most comfortable. This is the right dish that helps to bring relaxation and drive away stress of working days - they say. And you'll find it right right after a try. Anyway, no one has been killed because of eating thit cho.
Bia hoi: Bia hoi is widely available in small eateries and other dives off a busy road throughout the country. Hanoi has hundreds of bia hoi places to choose from. As a foreigner, you might get a few stares at first when you sit down on the tiny stool next to the tiny table in this tiny joint but it's all worth it. Bia hoi haunts get packed in the evening as the locals congregate to drink and talk. On a warm Hanoi summer day, a fresh cold glass of beer is a welcomed respite from the sweltering heat. Very fresh and very refreshing.
Not only can you savour locally-brewed beer but you can also nibble on some excellent Vietnamese food for lunch or dinner. Popular drinking snacks include peanuts, grilled meat, stir-fried vegetables and also certain exotic meat for the real adventurous palate.
You'll see local patrons obviously quite enlightened by the local brew. If you ever feel like toasting with the Vietnamese, you should learn the words Mot tram phan tram. This expression means 100% and will require you to down your bia hoi in one gulp.
As large billboards promoting brand-name beers pop up around Hanoi and bottled beer become the norm, classic bia hoi joint may become part to the past. Like its counterparts in Prague or Dublin, bia hoi is a local tradition worth preserving.
