“An com chua?”
If
you’re going to understand Vietnam and the Vietnamese, this three-word phrase
is key. A friendly greeting exchanged throughout the day, it poses a seemingly
mundane question: “Have you eaten yet?” (The polite answer, even if you have,
is “Why, no—let’s eat!”)
Food
is at the very heart of Vietnamese culture. Almost every aspect of social,
devotional, and family life revolves around the procurement, preparation, and
shared pleasure of nourishment. Even commercial life: more than half of
Vietnam’s population makes a living in agriculture or the food trade. Markets
are on every corner; cooks on every curb. A sneeze elicits the blessing com muoi, or “rice with salt.”
On
a recent train ride from Hue to Hoi An, food was everywhere in sight. At each
station stop, vendors rushed up to the windows proffering homemade treats:
shrimp cakes, jerky, sticky rice. One vendor came aboard and walked the aisles,
selling sun-dried squid. (An American traveler bought one, thinking it was a
decorative fan.) In the bar car the train conductor and his staff spent the
whole ride not collecting tickets but preparing lunch: cooking noodles,
shelling prawns, trimming basil into woven baskets.
Follow
any lane in any Vietnamese city at any time of day and you’ll find some
contented soul crouched over a bowl of broth or rice. Then again, if you lived
in Vietnam, you’d eat all the damn time, too. The food is beautiful to behold,
if only for the colors alone: turmeric-yellow crêpes, sunset-orange crabs,
scarlet-red chiles, deep-purple shrimp paste, and endless jungles of vivid
green. Vietnamese cooking is fresher, healthier, lighter, and brighter than,
for instance, Chinese or Indian or French, three of its closest relations.
Though it is often described as “honest” and “direct” - cooks resist fussy
ornamentation (except in Hue; more on that later) - this is a cuisine rich with
nuance, carrying a complexity that is all the more surprising for its being served
in, say, a plastic bowl with a Tweety Bird logo, on a flimsy table on the
pavement. Flavors and textures are deftly arranged so each note rings clear,
from the piercing highs of chili paste and nuoc
mam (fish sauce) to the bottomless depths of a stock that’s been burbling
since dawn. These are tastes that sate, soothe, and just as often shock you
awake - particularly the pungent greens and herbs that figure in almost every
dish. After the wonder that is Vietnamese produce, the stuff back home seems
like a recording of a recording of a cassette that was left out in the sun.
Hanoi
I’ve
spent roughly 100 days in Hanoi over the past 12 years, and I don’t recall ever
once seeing blue sky. Not that I’d have it any other way. Like London or
Seattle, this is a city that becomes itself under cloud cover. During those
moist, moody afternoons, when mist hangs over the streets like smoke from a
cooking fire, Vietnam’s gorgeous old capital feels more intimate than it
already is.
Even
in the heat of summer, Hanoians favor cockle-warming dishes suited to far
chillier climes. The most renowned of these is Vietnam’s de facto national
dish: pho bo, eaten at any time of
day but especially for breakfast. Taking root in an earthy, long-simmered beef
broth - shot through with clove, ginger, and star anise - the soup is filled
out with rice noodles and one or more varieties of raw or cooked beef, tendon,
or tripe. Southerners sprinkle fresh herbs and bean sprouts on top, but a
Northern pho is generally unadorned,
with only a few scallions and a bit of cilantro cooked into the broth and
perhaps a squirt of rice vinegar.
Pho
Gia Truyen, on Bat Dan Street in Hanoi’s Old Quarter, doesn’t look like much
from the outside—or from the inside, for that matter. The room has a clock, two
fans, three bare lightbulbs, and a handful of communal tables. The only
decoration is the food itself: hulking slabs of brisket suspended from hooks, a
hillside of scallions on the counter, and a giant cauldron puffing out fragrant
clouds of steam like some benevolent dragon. A cashier takes your money (about
a dollar a serving), her colleague fills a bowl with noodles and chopped
scallions, and a teenager with a faux-hawk ladles strips of ruby-red beef into
the broth to cook for two seconds, then spoons it all into the waiting bowl.
Half of Hanoi queues up for a seat, while others slurp their soup perched on
motorbikes outside. All wear serious expressions, and eat in a silence that
feels not joyless but reverential. The stock is so wholesome and protein-rich you
feel yourself being cured of whatever might ail you, perhaps of anything that
ever could.
A
proper restaurant culture, the sort with waitstaff and normal-size chairs, is
still in its infancy here, but Vietnam has a long tradition of eating out - quite
literally so. Western notions of indoors and out are reversed: at a typical Old
Quarter house in Hanoi, the motorbikes are in the living room and the stove is
on the sidewalk.
When
people here crave a particular dish, they usually visit a particular street
vendor, often on a particular lane (which may even be named after said dish).
The best way to tackle Hanoi is to treat the city as one vast progressive
buffet, moving from the spring-roll guy to the fermented-pork lady and onward
into the night. (For an exhaustive guide to Hanoi’s top street stalls, check
out stickyrice.typepad.com.)
Or
you could make it easy and hit Quan An Ngon (locals call it simply “Ngon,”
meaning delicious). The owner recruited an all-star roster of street-food
vendors to cook their signature dishes in the courtyard of an old villa, added
menus and table service, and watched the crowds pour in - not just foreigners
but also well-heeled Vietnamese, who can’t get enough of the place. (There’s
also a branch in Saigon, a.k.a Ho Chi Minh City.) The quality is excellent, the
atmosphere convivial, and seats hard to come by after dark. Come for breakfast
and the food is even fresher (and the cooks outnumber the patrons). Most of
these dishes are traditionally served all day, so the morning menu is much the
same. My ultimate breakfast: an order of bun
cha (grilled pork in a marinade of sweetened fish sauce with a side of rice
vermicelli) and a bowl of banh da ca,
a fabulously tangy fish soup from Haiphong laden with chunks of tilapia, chewy,
fettucine-like banh da noodles, dill,
scallions, and the magical rau can (a
woody stalk with a strong, cedary bite).
Speaking
of fish, Hanoi cha ca is one of the
great Vietnamese dishes, a note-perfect blend of raw and cooked ingredients,
assertive and delicate flavors, with a DIY element as a bonus. It’s often
associated with a century-old Hanoi institution called Cha Ca La Vong, which is
very good, indeed, though I prefer the more peaceful surroundings and local
clientele of its rival, Cha Ca Thanh Long, a few blocks away. The firm white
flesh of the snakehead fish is first marinated in galangal, shallot, shrimp
paste, and turmeric, and briefly seared on a grill. It’s then brought to your
table in a large pan with bowls of shaved scallions, crumbled peanuts, chiles,
and a hedgerow of bright-green dill. A tabletop brazier is ignited. This is
where you come in: tossing everything into the sizzling pan, sautéing the fish
to a golden brown, then laying it onto a bed of cool vermicelli, with a few
more dill sprigs for good measure. Add a dollop of supremely funky shrimp paste
if you dare (and you should).
For
all their obsessive eating and snacking, Hanoians tend not to linger at table.
Most finish dinner in seven minutes flat. Where they do while away the hours is
at the local café. Hanoians drink a lot of coffee: thick, rich, tar-black
stuff, sometimes cut with condensed milk but often taken straight. The bohemian
soul of Hanoi’s café scene is Nang, a 1956 landmark on Hang Bac Street whose
74-year-old owner, Ms. Thai, still brews nearly every cup herself. (Her
father-in-law, who lived in Paris for a spell, taught her how to French-roast
the beans.) Ms. Thai’s blend, sourced from Dong Giao, in the northern Nghe An
province, is strong enough to power a 125 cc motorbike. The café is only eight
feet wide, with tiny wooden tables and tinier wooden stools, occupied all
afternoon by young Vietnamese men sporting the currently in vogue greaser look:
slicked-back hair, black leather jackets, skinny jeans, white pocket T’s with
single cigarettes poking out. The place looks exactly as it must have in 1956 -
a perfect microcosm of a city that’s always had a tenuous relation to the
present tense.
Hue
Hue
is a slow-burn town. While Vietnam’s former imperial capital is certainly beautiful
(the flame trees lining the boulevards could make a grown man swoon), it’s also
sleepy and standoffish, more village than city. There’s an upside to this: a
short bike rides out from the center will bring you into unkempt wilderness,
where only cicadas break the silence. But even downtown isn’t much livelier.
And though Hue figures into plenty of travelers’ itineraries - for its
magnificent Citadel, pagodas, and imperial tombs - many find it tough to crack.
In
all my visits I never really “got” Hue, until I met Vo Thi Huong Lan, a friend
of a friend who offered to show me its elusive charms. Lan is something of a
professional enthusiast (her three favorite words: “I love it!”) and is
positively mad for her hometown. “They say Hue is a place you leave, so you can
miss it when you’re gone,” she told me, “but I never want to live anywhere
else.” Most of all, she’s crazy about the food. Hue is renowned for its
elaborate cuisine, developed by the skilled cooks of the royal court. Legend
has it that the Nguyen kings, who ruled a united Vietnam from Hue in the 19th
century, refused to eat the same meal twice in a year, so their cooks came up
with hundreds of distinct, visually arresting dishes (most using the same few
dozen ingredients). This tradition endures in the local craze for dainty,
flower-like dumplings and cakes such as banh
beo, which aesthetically owe much to China and Japan. Banh beo is an acquired taste (“I love it!” Lan says), a bit too
gluey for my own; it may be the only Vietnamese food I don’t enjoy.
But
I was knocked out by Hue’s other specialties, from com hen (a spicy clam-and-rice concoction) to banh khoai (a fajita-size rice-flour crêpe similar to the Southern
favorite banh xeo). Lan, it turns
out, eats like a five-foot-tall Anthony Bourdain, reveling in the bottom of the
food chain: pig intestines, chicken heads (“I love the brains!”), and shrimp
eyes (“My mother says if you eat them, your own eyes will brighten”). For
breakfast at Quan Cam, we tucked into a stellar bun bo Hue, the city’s signature dish: a fiery broth of
long-simmered beef bones, suffused with lemongrass and stained red from chiles,
ladled over a bowlful of umami: paper-thin strips of beef, crab-and-pork
meatballs, pig’s trotters, and huyet
- quivering cubes of congealed pig’s blood. (These are way, way better than
they sound.) The bun bo is served
only until 9:30 a.m., so early mornings are the busiest time. Some customers
grabbed takeaway portions in skimpy plastic bags tied with a string. Lan,
meanwhile, gobbled up huyet like so many Snickers bars (“I love it!”), then
cast a still-hungry eye on my bowl: “Are you going to finish that?”
A Food Tour of Vietnam. © 2012 Daniel Frauchiger/ Getty Images
In
the leafy enclave of Kim Long, we lunched at the open-air canteen Huyen Anh,
which serves two dishes only: banh uot
thit nuong and bun thit nuong.
The former, dim sum - like ravioli stuffed with grilled pork, are terrific. But
it’s Huyen Anh’s bun thit nuong that
sums up everything that’s simple and delightful about Vietnamese cooking. Bun means noodles - in this case a bowl
of vermicelli - that arrive still warm and soft, with a moistening drizzle of nuoc cham (fish sauce and lime juice
infused with clove, chili, and garlic). Shaved banana blossoms, shredded
lettuce, bean sprouts, peanuts, cucumber, and green papaya provide a textural
counterpoint, while sprigs of cilantro and aggressive peppermint fill in the
high end. The crowning touch: glistening slices of char-grilled pork. At home
in New York I used to order bun thit
nuong twice a week at our local Viet kitchen; alas, Huyen Anh has ruined me
for anyone else’s.
The
highlight in Hue, however, was a three-hour dinner at Hoang Vien (“royal
garden”), opened in March by the painter and chef Boi Tran in a restored
French-colonial house. In an open-walled dining pavilion, long teak tables are
set with vases of yellow roses: an ideal setting for a modern take on Hue
cuisine, presented with appropriate flourish, like Vietnamese kaiseki. “Shrimp
with five tastes” was reminiscent of Thai tom
yum koong, with a single, plump pink prawn swimming in a consommé spiced
with Kaffir lime leaf, lemongrass, chili, shallot, and ginger. Each flavor came
through brilliantly. Hoang Vien’s nem ran
(pork, shrimp, and mushroom spring rolls) were shrouded in wispy golden threads
of fried rice paper and accompanied by a salad of rose petals. Across five more
courses, all presented on exquisite china from Bat Trang, the famed pottery
village outside Hanoi, Boi Tran and her chefs took the precious formality of
Hue cuisine to a new place, where the pleasure of pure flavor, not mere visual
dazzle, was primary.
Hoi An
It’s
true that the quaint, narrow streets of this fishing village turned backpacker
mecca turned resort haven are often choked with tour buses. But Hoi An still
evokes Vietnam’s long-ago like few places can, especially at night, when the
lanes are finally quiet and silk lanterns glimmer like rainbows off the river.
Like Hue, Hoi An has a fine culinary tradition, including some dishes that are
only made (or made well) here. One is the soup known as cao lau, whose thick noodles are cooked in water from one of five
local wells. Any other water, people tell you, just won’t work.
Because
Hoi An is still a town of fishermen - at least those who haven’t taken jobs at
luxury hotels - it’s a fantastic place for fresh seafood. On nearby Cua Dai
Beach, barbecue restaurants have set up tables in the sand; the best of the lot
is the amiable, family-run Hon, whose muc
nuong (grilled squid) and ngheu hap
(clams with ginger, lemongrass, and fresh mint) are both ridiculously good.
The
doyenne of Hoi An’s food scene is Vy Trinh Diem, whom everyone calls Ms. Vy.
The 40-year-old chef owns four restaurants here, the flagship of which is
Morning Glory, a bustling two-story house in the heart of the Old Town. Morning
Glory is a tourist haunt, and proudly so. It’s also the best place in town to
sample Hoi An cuisine. While you can get a very good cao lau from stalls at the Hoi An market, Morning Glory’s rendition
is endlessly richer: a tangy broth spiked with anise and soy sauce, sprinkled
with chives, mint, and cilantro, and topped with a crumbled rice cracker. In
the center are juicy strips of xa xiu
(soy-simmered pork, pronounced sa-syoo, as in the Chinese char siu). Ms. Vy’s cao lau noodles are so toothsome and chewy
you’d swear you were eating soba, not rice noodles.
But
what Hoi An is mainly known for is banh
mi. Vietnam’s iconic sandwich is rarely served in restaurants, but sold
from bakery counters and street carts. The term (pronounced bun-mee) refers to
the baguette itself; the sandwich is formally a banh mi thit pâté (thit = meat, pâté = pâté) or sometimes a
banh mi thit nuong (thit nuong = grilled meat). In the
classic version, the pâté - a rich, velvety, offal-y spread - is paired with
smoky barbecued pork and/or some mortadella-like cold cuts. Atop that goes a
slathering of mayonnaise, strips of pickled carrot and daikon, cucumber,
chiles, a few sprigs of cilantro, and behold: the best sandwich ever.
That’s
what I used to think, anyway. But no prior encounter could have prepared me for
the marvel of Phuong Banh Mi, a sandwich stand on Hoang Dieu Street run by a
young woman of the same name. I’d heard about Phuong from friends in Hanoi and
Saigon. The concierge at the Nam Hai resort practically growled with hunger
when I mentioned the place. Phuong’s banh mi is unique in that (a) she adds
sliced tomato and hand-ground chili sauce, along with the standard trimmings;
and (b) unlike in the South, where the baguettes are inflated to balloon-like
proportions, Phuong’s are modestly sized, the bread-to-filling ratio spot-on.
Come in the early morning or late afternoon (after the second baking) and the
bread is still warm. Phuong wraps her creations in newspaper if you want them
to go, but I devoured mine right there on the curb in about 47 seconds. It was
unbefreakinglievable.
Ho Chi Minh City
(Saigon)
Ahh,
the South. Everything is hotter: the air, the chiles, the woks, the fashion.
Beer is served with a big chunk of ice; it melts before you’re finished.
Compared with the food up North, the dishes are generally lighter—the heat,
again—and sweeter. (Southerners have a predilection for coconut milk,
sugarcane, and saccharine desserts.) And while Northerners might call Southern
cuisine unsophisticated, its origins are varied and complex. Unlike Hanoi, a
more insular city whose identity is decidedly Vietnamese, Saigon has always had
one foot in the outside world—just as the world has always had at least one
foot in Saigon. Foreign influences are readily absorbed here, from the Indian
and Malay flavors that inspired Southern-style ca ri (curry) to the Singaporean noodle shops now favored by Saigon
teenagers.
This
is an upwardly mobile city, consumed with money and ways to show it off, and
its dining scene is accordingly flashier, more cosmopolitan. Alas, things
change quickly in these boom times; every year or two I return to Saigon to
find that more old favorites have disappeared. Thankfully, some touchstones
remain—including my beloved crab joint, Quan Thuy 94. With an industrial fan
roaring in the corner and a Jason Statham movie cranking on the TV, it’s short
on visible charm. But the staff is adorable, and the kitchen knows the hell out
of crab. The soft-shells, coated in lip-puckering tamarind sauce, burst in the
mouth to unleash a creamy, tangy sweetness. Cha
gio cua (crab spring rolls) are fried to an unerringly calibrated crunch.
The unmissable order is mien xao cua be:
glass noodles sautéed with crabmeat, mushrooms, chiles, and vermilion-colored
crab roe. (A word about the name: Quan Thuy 94 used to be at 94 Dinh Tien
Hoang. When it moved down the street to No. 84, it kept “94” in its name.
Confusing things further, a whole new crab joint has taken the old No. 94
storefront—but it’s No. 84 you want. Got that? Onward.)
While
the city evolves relentlessly around them, Saigon’s traditional street-food
stalls provide a rare sense of continuity. High-rise hotels and IMAX theaters
might shoot up next door, but the iconic sidewalk cook keeps plying her trade,
unfazed. Case in point: Nguyen Thi Thanh, known as The Lunch Lady. For 13
years, Monday through Saturday, she has set up shop on a patch of pavement on
Hoang Sa Street near the zoo—working from 11 a.m. until she runs out of food,
which happens quickly. Office workers, schoolkids, and lazy housewives queue up
for whatever Lunch Lady is serving that day: usually noodles of some sort,
invariably delicious. Wednesdays she often cooks up a knockout hu tieu, a Southern noodle soup laden
with roasted sliced pork, prawns, peanuts, and soft-cooked quail eggs; the
smoky broth is flavored with shallots and dried squid. It’s a family affair:
from an adjacent stand, Lunch Lady’s cousin sells goi cuon, fresh summer rolls filled with sweet shrimp. Nearby,
another relative blends ripe, fragrant tropical fruit into icy sinh to (smoothies).
Fruit,
in fact, might be the single best thing about eating here. Saigon’s proximity
to the Mekong Delta - which supplies fully half of Vietnam’s produce - means
the city overflows with papaya, mango, coconut, jackfruit, soursop, and other
exotic treats. Wildly colorful fruit stands are on every other corner, their
artfulness rivaling the displays at Takashimaya. Even at Ben Thanh Market,
where rapacious vendors sell watered-down food, the sinh to stands are uniformly fantastic. I’ve had few more
refreshing drinks than the smoothie I tried at Ben Thanh one sultry 97-degree
afternoon, made with sapodilla fruit and avocado.
Hanoi
may lay claim to its invention, but plenty of pho lovers (including myself) favor the Southern incarnation, which
uses fresh herbs and raw greens for a broader range of textures. For years I’ve
scoured the back alleys of Saigon, trying to find a better version than that
served at Pho Hoa on Pasteur Street, but to no avail: this tour group–friendly
institution really does serve the tastiest pho
in town. To get the full experience you need to come early for breakfast, when
the clientele is all Vietnamese. Pho tai
nam is your order, with rare beef and well-done flank (recalling a
thick-sliced pastrami). In genuine Southern style, dress it with bean sprouts,
hoisin sauce, chili sauce, a squirt of lime, and leaves from the heaping
platter of basil, sawtooth coriander, and rice-paddy herb, whose tiny leaves
pack a cumin-like punch. Now it’s 7:15, and you’re ready for your first cup of
coffee.
Herbs
and greens are also integral to a Saigon banh
xeo (pronounced bun say-o, meaning “sizzling cake”). This rice-flour crêpe
is reminiscent of an Indian dosa, but
wider, and yellow with turmeric - bright as the sun and nearly as big.
Guidebooks will send you to 46A Dinh Cong Trang, an alley-side joint in
District 3. But a better version can be found at the newer Banh Xeo An La Ghien (loosely translated as “eat and be addicted”).
Into an outsize wok the chef tosses a fistful of bean sprouts, pork, shrimp,
and/or mushrooms, then pours in a slick of marigold-yellow batter, rich with
coconut milk. The resulting crêpe is the size of a Monopoly board—so large it
overwhelms the table, let alone the plate. Its crisp, lacy edges break off with
a satisfying crackle, complementing the moist and savory fillings. The key
elements, however, are the pile of fresh herbs to tuck inside the crêpe and the
giant mustard leaves to wrap the thing in; their aroma and bite are as powerful
as a jarful of Dijon.
It’s
not hard to find great street food in Saigon: just walk 10 steps in any
direction and pull up a stool. Nor is it hard to find, say, some sumptuously
decorated dining room in some gorgeous 19th-century villa where the waft of
jasmine incense and a warble of jazz help distract from the blandness of the
food. The hard part is finding atmosphere and authenticity in the same package.
According to what I call the Law of Inverse Relation, the tastiest food is
served in the least inviting venues, and vice versa. (A good rule: incandescent
lights = order drinks only; fluorescent lights = eat here now.)
That
all held true until, by some blissful accident this April, three friends and I
stumbled upon the exception: 10-month-old Cuc Gach Quan (“the brick house”),
owned by architect Tran Binh and his French-Vietnamese wife, Thai Tu-Tho. Binh
acquired a derelict colonial mansion and reimagined it as an indoor-outdoor
fantasia, blending historic details (antique armoires; a wall map of 1960’s
Saigon) with contemporary touches (gorgeous lighting; a floating staircase) to
create a strikingly romantic space - a gauzy, soft-focus realm that plays with
one’s sense of time. Pre-1975 Vietnamese folk plays on a vintage reel-to-reel
tape machine. A flowering cherry tree in the courtyard provides the fragrance.
But
again: graceful interiors are a dime a dozen in Saigon. It’s the cooking that
makes Cuc Gach Quan remarkable. From an open kitchen, the chefs, Co Diep and
Chi Bay, sent out a phenomenal thit kho
to, or clay-pot-stewed pork belly; intensely flavored but not at all heavy,
it tingled the tongue then melted in the mouth. Eggplant cooked in scallion oil
was deliciously smoky and tender. Diep’s cloudlike house-made tofu was lightly
fried with lemongrass, shallots, and chiles, creating a sauce worth bottling
and smuggling home. This was not showy, dazzle-me cuisine, like Boi Tran’s
cooking in Hue, but more like the com
binh dan (worker’s food) that Vietnamese enjoy every day. “My grandmother
used to cook like this,” said my friend Anh with a sigh. “Just not as well.”
It
was clear that every detail had been considered, from the handsome tin canister
that held the chopsticks to the fresh juice service, with a stalk of morning
glory for a straw. Yet nothing felt labored or pretentious. There was an ease
and simplicity to the service and the food that belied the elegance of the
setting. Most of all there was joy. And as Duy Khanh crooned a sweet nostalgic
ballad on the reel-to-reel, we all felt entirely at home.
When to Go
Vietnam
is at its best from October to April; the summer can be uncomfortably hot and
often rainy. However, the climate varies from region to region, so consider
local weather patterns if you’re visiting only one or two places.
Getting There
Fly
to Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon); this usually involves a connection
elsewhere in Asia (Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, Seoul, Taipei). Vietnam Airlines (vietnamairlines.com)
runs several daily flights between the two cities and from both of them to Hue
and Da Nang (the closest airport to Hoi An).
Stay
Great
Value La Résidence Hotel & Spa
Hue’s top choice, for its riverside location and Art Deco details. 5 Le Loi
St., Hue; 84-54/383-7475; la-residence-hue.com; doubles from $146.
Nam Hai The best - and best-looking - resort
in Vietnam, 15 minutes outside Hoi An (by taxi or hotel shuttle), on Ha My
beach. Hamlet 1, Dien Duong Village, Hoi An; 84-510/394-0000; thenamhai.com;
villas from $750.
Park Hyatt Saigon Central as can be, right on Lam Son
Square, with superb service, an inviting pool deck, and the best buffet
breakfast in town. 2 Lam Son Square, District 1, Saigon; 877/875-4658 or
84-8/3824-1234; park.hyatt.com; doubles from $290.
Great
Value Sofitel Legend Metropole
Gorgeous 1901 colonial landmark with a fine new spa, good restaurants, and
atmosphere galore. 15 Ngo Quyen St., Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi; 800/763-4835 or
84-4/3826-6919; sofitel.com; doubles from $250.
Eat
Hanoi
Café Nang - 6 Hang Bac St., Old Quarter;
84-4/3824-0459; coffee for two $1.25.
Cha Ca Thanh Long - 31 Duong Thanh, Old Quarter;
84-4/824-5115; lunch for two $12.
Chau Long Market - Corner of Chau Long and Nguyen
Sts., Ba Dinh District; lunch for two $2.
Hanoi Cooking Centre - For a full-on immersion into the
city’s food scene, take a market tour with Tracey Lister, the Australian expat
who runs the center. 44 Chau Long St., Ba Dinh District; 84-4/3715-3277;
hanoicookingcentre.com; cooking classes from $45.
Pho Gia Truyen (a.k.a. Pho 49 Bat Dan) - 49 Bat Dan St., Old Quarter; no phone;
pho for two $2.
Quan An Ngon - 18 Phan Boi Chau, Hoan Kiem
District; 84-4/3942-8162; dinner for two $20.
Hue
Hoang Vien - 22 Han Thuyen St. (inside the
Citadel); 84-54/359-9779; dinner for two $30.
Huyen Anh - 52/1 Kim Long St.;
84-54/352-5655; lunch for two $2.
Quan Cam - 38 Tran Cao Van St.;
84-54/383-1671; bun bo for two $2.
Hoi An
Hon Stall - No. 9, Cua Dai Beach (off Lac
Long Quan St.); 84-510/392-7272; lunch for two $7.
Morning Glory - 106 Nguyen Thai Hoc;
84-510/224-1555; dinner for two $30.
Phuong Banh Mi - Hoang Dieu St. (in front of the
market, a block north of the bridge); no phone; banh mi for two $1.
Ho Chi Minh City
(Saigon)
Banh Xeo An La Ghien - 74 Suong Nguyet Anh St.,
District 1; 84-8/3833-0534; lunch for two $6.
Ben Thanh Market - Intersection of Le Loi and Tran
Hung Dao Sts., District 1; smoothies for two $1.
Cuc Gach Quan - 10 Dang Tat, Tan Dinh Ward,
District 1; 84-8/3848-0144; dinner for two $23.
Nguyen Thi Thanh (The
Lunch Lady) - Street
stall near 23 Hoang Sa St., District 1; no phone; lunch for two $2.
Opera - Park Hyatt Saigon, 2 Lam Son
Square, District 1; 84-8/3520-2357; breakfast for two $40.
Pho Hoa - 260C Pasteur St., District 3;
84-8/829-7943; lunch for two $5.
Quan An Ngon - 160 Pasteur St., District 1;
84-8/3827-7131; dinner for two $16.
Quan Thuy 94 - 84 Dinh Tien Hoang St, District
1; 84-8/910-1062; lunch for two $11.
Vietnam
is in constant flux these days—restaurants open and close every minute—so the
Web is your best source for the latest food listings and reviews. Check out the
blogs stickyrice.typepad.com (Hanoi), gastronomyblog.com (Saigon and beyond),
and noodlepie.com (all over Vietnam, with a focus on Saigon), as well as Andrea
Nguyen’s excellent site vietworldkitchen.com.
Author’s
note about street food: In Vietnam, some of the best local food is served at
rough-and-tumble stalls spilling out onto the sidewalk. If a place is busy it’s
almost certainly fine to eat there. (I have never gotten sick from food or
drink in Vietnam.) That said, use common sense: don’t eat anywhere with slow
turnover (this includes fancy-yet-empty restaurants) and ensure uncooked greens
have been washed before eating. Drinking bottled water is advisable.
By Peter Jon
Lindberg/ Travel+Leisure