I went on a street food tour of Hanoi’s Old Quarter with Viet Beauty Tour. My guide Tran asked me what my favourite Vietnamese dishes were. I answered pho right away. She said there wouldn’t be pho on the tour.
Pho [ pronounced fuh] refers to the white rice flour noodles, which are served in a special broth unique to the chef/vendor. It is served with a side plate of fresh herbs to add to the soup as you please in addition to condiments such as chili paste and fish sauce.
I love pho. I could eat it every day. It’s my type of dish. Fresh, light, simple but complex and tasty.
I was disappointed.
Tran said she wanted to take me instead to local food places that are specific to Hanoi and you can’t get anywhere else. Food such as pho are common and you can get everywhere.
I love trying new foods but sometimes I go back to what I love to eat because it’s comfortable and easy.
There is nothing wrong with this but when there is an opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and try something new then why would I be disappointed that there is no pho on the menu tonight?
I let go of my expectation of pho and followed where the guide wanted to take me. A good lesson about pho and life!
When you’re in Hanoi I definitely recommend taking a food tour, group or private. Here’s why.
1)It’s not expensive. My tour was $25 USD, which ended up to be a private tour as no one showed up for the group tour, for three hours of great local food and drink spots.
2)A good tour will take you to local spots that are specific to the region and often hard to find because the signs are in Vietnamese and they are sometimes hidden.
For example, take the hidden egg coffee cafe, which I fell in love with, the coffee and the cafe. The coffee was strong and hot with a buttery caramel foamy topping. It’s like coffee and crème caramel combined. Yum!
Here’s the guide leading me up the stairways in an old house converted into a cafe.
The cafe was crowded, smokey, hip, cool like a bar but the focus is on coffee. It reminded me of scenes of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and 1960s that you see in movies and is described in Jack Kerouc’s writing. Young people sitting on low stools, drinking coffee, smoking (yes it’s still done inside here ), chatting, with alternative music blaring loudly with the windows open wide.
There are many places like this in the city that are not as hidden. We would go by one and I would say to Tran, “great ambiance in that bar” and she would say, “no it’s a coffee shop.” I love the coffee culture here!
3) If it’s a private tour, you can go off the beaten path.
As we were walking, I noticed a place that was super busy with lots of people and scooters coming in and out from the inside. I asked her what it was, thinking it was a garage of sorts. “State ice cream store,” she said. “Really?”, I said. “Do you want to see it,” she asked. I said, “yes please I’m curious”. And we were off.
It was a large garage type setting with lots of scooters inside and people eating ice cream while on them or around them, a simple large ice cream counter at the back with staff in green and white uniforms and the freezer full of sticks of different coloured ice cream. I chose green sticky rice, she chose coconut. I paid for that separately from the tour. It was 16,000 Vietnamese Dong for 2 (71 cents USD).
4) You get the chance to interact with a local Vietnamese person that can answer your questions.
The guides I’ve had in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh were lovely, in both cases young women in school and happy to have a job where they can speak English. They were kind, gentle, mature, smart and spoke perfect English.
Tran took me to a local dessert place called Tào Phớ Nghĩa Tân with fresh soft tofu with black jelly and small white prunes. This is the summer dessert. I love fresh tofu,which is like a soft custard.
Tofu in Asia is not the hard dense tasteless kind that is sold in supermarkets back home but is a daily artisan creation like cheese with many variations.
There were child size plastic stools in the small cafe, which are common all over the city, in restaurants and cafes but also on sidewalks, on the side of the road, and being transported by people on scooters and street vendors.
I asked my guide about this. Why are the chairs so tiny? And why so many everywhere?
Tran explained that it’s because people can easily transport the chairs to where they want to sit on the sidewalk and vendors place them where they want to sit and sell their food. It’s part of the their culture and way of life.
I also heard that many generations are forced to live in one very small place and thus the only way some people can get some space and meet friends is outside the home.
The Vietnamese people seem in general shorter, thinner and less bulky than Western people so it’s easier for them to sit on these stools.
There was a older tall British man sitting down with his family at the dessert place. There were a lot of groaning as he sat down on one of the low plastic stools. I laughed and told him that squatting is good exercise. He gave me a smile that seemed to be hiding apparent pain from his sitting position.
5)You find out about hidden gems and the proper way to eat things.
When I travel to foreign countries, I often order in languages I only know a few words of, take my chances of what I’ll get and point a lot. The downside to this is you might not get what you think you’re getting, you don’t know what you’re eating, and it might not be as good as it looks.
I’m fine with this but it’s great to have your host with your best interests in mind choosing things that are delicious and unique, and explaining what you are eating.
Case in point. We went into a small place that serves Bánh xèo, a savoury fried pancake filled with bean sprouts and other ingredients. I asked her the name of the place. She said it has no name.
As we were waiting for our food from the women cooking in front of us in the common rustic model of a hibachi type grill and some pots, there were several foreigners that came in. When they heard us speaking English they asked for help with the menu items that were on the walls and written in Vietnamese.
Basically they wanted what we were having as it looked delicious and may have noticed my When Harry Met Sally moment with my moaning as I ate the dish. If you don’t know this famous scene in the movie, it’s a must see.
Bánh xèo is served with fresh rice paper that doesn’t need to be soaked, along with herbs, lettuce and a sweet-sour-spicy dipping sauce. Tran showed me how it’s eaten and I followed. I am a quick learner, especially when food is involved! Instead of a carrot dangling before me, it is Bánh xèo! This was my favourite dish of the night!
5) You get a good range of food from snacks and mains to desserts and drinks. When I’m on my own, I tend to eat in the Western way, filling up on on one dish and eating too quickly. The latter habit I picked up from the restaurant industry where there is no sitting but grabbing bites of food when you can.
It was lovely to try many dishes and drinks spread over a few hours while chatting with my guide and observing locals, foreigners and the cooks.
6) They will order and pay.
The paying part is less stressful and more relaxing with a guide, especially in a country where the currency is in thousands and millions and is confusing. There are vendors that know this and will prey on you if you’re not careful.
Case in point. There was a nice looking elderly woman selling donut holes on the street. I thought I would try some and pulled out my wallet to pay, looking though my wallet awkwardly at the bills. She said something I couldn’t understand. I thought it was my mistake. I was busy trying to look through all these bills in my wallet which she was trying to look through as well. I asked her how much again and she said 150,000 VND ($6.62 USD). I thought she had said a smaller amount before but I was too busy trying to find the right bills and be less self conscious.
Walking away, I realized that I had paid way too much for the bag of donuts and just got had. When I told my guide sheepishly what had happened because I felt stupid for spending so much on donuts, she said “oh the donut women, they’re bad like that”. She said that donuts should be around 2000 VND (10 cents USD)!
7) You have someone you can follow as they cross the road.
Crossing the roads here are not easy as the roadways are always busy with tons of scooters, taxis and cars and there are limited stoplights.
You have to go out on to the street into traffic and hope that they will stop for you as you cross. The guide said, “tourists usually get nervous over this part.” I explained, “it’s not usual back home to go out into busy traffic and hope that people will stop for you.”
There was a method to her madness. She never waited for the right time because basically there is not a right time as the roadways are always congested.
She went out and waved her hand at the scooters and cars like she was a princess and had a magic wand and people would stop or pause for her, though sometimes just in time or sometimes one car usually wouldn’t and so she would have to swerve calmly out of the way. I would follow her like my white angel of mercy and try the hand stopping thing but wasn’t confident at it and it felt a bit ridiculous doing it. Perhaps you have to grow up doing this.
When she was a little girl, did her parents encourage her go out a play in traffic?
If you can wait until the weekend, the street around the lake closes and becomes a car-free pedestrian zone, making the area calmer and crossing roads around not an issue.
I love traveling because it throws the expectations and assumptions we have grown up with out the window.
When we see more of the world and let go of this old belief system we realize that there are different approaches to life and with this comes new ideas, amazing dishes that we never knew existed, and taste memories we will remember forever.
8) You find out some of the culture and history along with the food.
I wondered why there were so many foreigners in a place she took me for ban cha. She said bun cha is popular with Americans tourists after Obama’s visit in May 2016.
Bún chả originated and remains very popular in Hanoi. It is a dish with grilled pork and rice noodles with lettuce, herbs and dipping sauce.
I love the photo of Obama eating ban cha in Hanoi with Anthony Bourdain. Here’s what Bourdain wrote afterwards about the experience.
“The next day, I was suddenly recognizable to the Vietnamese who rode their scooters and motorbikes around me. They’d seen me in the newspapers and again and again would point at me, shouting “Bun cha! Mister Bun Cha!”
Also published on Medium.
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