food, glorious food!

My father, Dad, and stepmom, Jean, are coming for a three week visit in November. In preparation for their visit, I thought I'd collect information on the amazing local food and restaurants in Hanoi. In hopes others will visit as well, I'll organize my findings in this post.

"How's the pho?" Raise your hand if you've asked me this. It's alright, everyone does.

OK, you can put your hand down now.

The pho is great of course; though different than the southern style pho bo (beef) we are used to slurping down in the US. Hanoians tend to eat chicken pho and have an amazing variety of fresh greens for mixing in: sprigs of cilantro, mint, wedges of teensy green oranges, shiso, and other tasty herbs I have never seen before. But there are so, so many other noodle soups which seem to named after the type of noodle.  Most places serve only one kind of soup so you really don't even need to know the name.

Soup with thin slices of beef, Vietnamese 'ham', fried fish, greens, ramen-like noodles...

The world's tastiest eggrolls--nem in Vietnamese. Light, crispy, peppery, and dipped in sweet and salty nuoc mam sauce. Cooked fresh at your local sidewalk 'eatery', complete with mini plastic tables and mini chairs.

Another question people ask me is what did I cook in Vietnam? Did I enjoy buying local foods at the fresh markets?

Answers: not much and not much.

I really do love the markets but come away with more photos than produce. It's hard to buy a tenderloin with the head of the pig staring at you.

As for cooking, I was so busy with work last year and hadn't really discovered my identity as a cook in Vietnam. Between all the tasty, cheap street food and the oh, so convenient Vietnammm.com through which I could order food in English from a hundred different restaurants to be delivered to my door within an hour, well, I didn't cook much.

I did pay homage to the French influence in Vietnam by making crepes most weekends. It took me a few weeks to discover flour in the supermarket as you might guess from the photo below of my crepe ingredients. In Vietnam, thanks to the French, there's a relatively good selection of dairy products, though it can't hold a candle to the dairy aisle in a Minnesotan supermarket. I actually could choose between different kinds of milk. I thought "True Milk" would be a safe choice (what's the alternative?!) And for the butter, nothing but presidential will do. I liked to add fruit--tiny bananas or pineapple bought from the fruit lady on the corner for about 50 cents US.

crepe ingredients: please note charming woven basket holding eggs.

Fruit ladies roam about selling seasonal fruit

 How's the seafood? I'm so glad you asked. It is delicious! I'm allergic to shellfish, bivalves in particular, so I can't speak to the clams, oysters, scallops and mussels, but the fish and other sea creatures are so fresh and well-prepared and accompanied by yummy sauces and salts for dipping. Below is squid grilled on the beach on Phu Quoc Island.

extra tentacles, please!

And since I've hardly made a dent in sampling the amazing variety of Vietnamese cuisine, here are some noteworthy blogs and websites on Vietnamese food:

Sticky Rice
A blog about dishes and restaurants, mainly in Hanoi but beyond as well--Hue, Danang, South Korea.

Viet Street Food
Mainly focuses on southern specialties. See this great posting about Banh My sandwiches.

Travelfish
This is more than just food. Very helpful website!

A Blog of Salt
Good food and recipes to boot.

Hanoi Cooking Centre offers cooking classes and street food tours. Check out this article on Travelfish's website for more details on the street food tour.

More street food tours and cooking classes as written up in Travelfish.

Bon appetit!
Or, as they say in Vietnam, sin moy!