I thought I would write a bit about Vietnamese cuisine. I have some pictures to contribute to these descriptions which will help you get an idea of what I’m talking about. I was surprised with Vietnamese food and I realized how little I knew about it before I came here. The food here is definitely distinct from other parts of the world. I really like it. I think it’s really good and really cheap if you eat where the locals eat. One reoccurring ingredient I see is fish sauce or nước mắm. At first, I thought the stuff was disgusting. I had a brief bout of food poisoning about a month and a half ago and during that period if even smelled fish sauce I would get nauseous. Now I've learned to like it. It has a very strong smell which can be off-putting but it tastes alright. It can be a nice complement. There is also a more notorious sauce here called mắm tôm. It is notorious because foreigners are supposed to hate it for its exceptionally strong odor. In my experience more Vietnamese people actually dislike it than they like to admit. Mắm tôm is a sauce made from fermented shrimp and if you do eat it you will smell like it for a while. The main staples of Vietnamese cuisine are bún (these are thin white noodles), phở (these noodles are flatter and thicker than bun and they are the noodles you will find in most of the soups here), and cơm which is just normal white rice. Almost everything you eat here will come with one of these three. Vietnamese people also eat a decent amount of bread (called bánh mì). You can always find a nice baguette nearby. This is definitely a legacy of the French.
This first dish is called chả cá. It is a specialty of Hanoi. It is a dish meant to be enjoyed with friends. I was invited to eat this by a lady I do language exchange with and her friend. Basically, it is a fish fry up. There are hearty chunks of nice fish, I didn’t encounter many bones, and fish stomachs. I really like the fish stomach but I am one to be partial to intestines and innards in general. It is nicely seasoned and they bring plenty of vegetables and herbs that you add to it as you go. You have fish sauce and/or mắm tôm on the side to dip the fish or stomachs in. It was definitely a nice meal.
This dish is called hủ tiếu and I believe it is from southern Vietnam. I have only seen a few places in Hanoi that have it. This style is called hủ tiếu khô which is different from other kinds of soups because the broth comes in separate bowl. You can eat the noodles and meat with as much broth as you like. It comes with an assortment of grilled pork, kind of dumplings, shrimp, and things that I have no idea about. The broth was kind of sweet (I hear adding a bit of sugar to broth is a very southern Vietnamese thing to do) and very nice. I really like it and it is only $1.50 for a meal.
These next two are what most people think of when they think of Vietnamese food: phở. There are two main varieties of phỏ: phỏ gà (Chicken phở) and phở bò (Beef pho). This one is a phở gà and I don’t eat it as much as I do phở bò. Phở gà is usually cheaper than its beef counterpart. There is an important distinction between chicken phởs. The normal phở gà will usually have pieces of chicken skin and other parts of the chicken in it which some people may not enjoy. I think it’s OK as long as there is a decent amount of actual chicken meat. The one in the picture was pretty good. If you see phở gà ta then you know that it is chicken to the Western standards (strictly breast and thigh meat).
I really like beef phở. There is wide variety of small and large restaurants serving phở across Hanoi and it is never obvious if you are going to get a good bowl. From my experience avoid the restaurant Phở 24 and the touristy “Food Street”. Both of those places charge at least double the normal price and are not even half as good as other places. Generally if you find phở on the street and locals are eating it then it is good. The broth is very important and I have found some good places which only charge a dollar for a big bowl with plenty of meat. You can order the beef to be cooked before it is put in the broth (phở bò chín) or you can order (I like it this way) the beef to be put in raw and then it is cooked in the broth (phở bò tái). In my experience the beef has been good quality. The one thing that I honestly have never seen over here which I expected to is the tendons and tripe in phở like you buy in Vietnamese restaurants in the States. Don’t ask me why. Also, phở is generally a breakfast food and is especially nice if it is cold morning up in Hanoi during the winter.
The street BBQs are great (called nướng). They may seem unsanitary but they are a great way to hang out and eat with your friends. They very much like Korean BBQs except you are sitting pretty much on the sidewalk and using a charcoal grill instead of gas. There’s really not much to say aside from you can get all sorts of different meats and seafood to grill along with buttered bread and vegetables. It’s not the cheapest meal but it is very nice. I usually eat BBQ while taking shots of Vodka Hanoi. I’m not sure if this is part of the local culture or if just something my friend who’s been here a long time just likes to do.
This next dish may look like rice but it is actually a bit different. It’s called xôi (pronounced soy). It is glutinous rice and is much more filling than normal rice. It is a common breakfast food. Even a small bowl with a bit of grilled meat and vegetables is enough to sustain me until lunch.
This is called bún đậu and is really quite simple. It is the bún noodles but they are cut up into cubes to make them easier to pick up with chop sticks and deep fried tofu. The purple sauce is the mắm tôm I was talking about before. I think this is a very nice and light lunch. Like most Vietnamese foods they bring you assorted herbs, lettuce, and bean sprouts to eat with it. While I was eating this particular bún đậu I was sitting next a Vietnamese guy I didn't know but we talked a bit and he was friendly guy. He ended up paying for my lunch altogether. I get treated to a lot of meals over here. Vietnamese people really do have a nice culture about paying for their friends, and even people they don’t know, food.
This is known as bánh mì sốt vang. The bánh mì is just normal French style bread. You can buy this practically everywhere and you can get good baguette sandwiches with egg vegetables and some Vietnamese style pate. Bánh mì sốt vang however is a bit different. The bowl is full of a nice meaty broth and hearty chunks of stewed beef. This particular one was kind of greasy but I really like this dish. You dip the bread into the broth and scoop up the meat or you can just eat the meat with a spoon.
This is what is called cơm rang which means fried rice. You can get fried rice with beef and vegetables or seafood or all kinds of other things. I think that fried rice is really just fried rice and I don’t think there is anything very distinctive about Vietnamese fried rice and fried rice I've had in other Asian countries. It is nice to order some of this when you are chilling and drinking beer with some friends. I generally don’t eat this in restaurants since it is so easy to make at home.
This bowl of soup, that many of you might think is phở, is called bún mộc. There are two major kinds of soup here and the difference lies in the kind of noodle. Basically bún noodles are thinner and phở noodles are wider but they are pretty much the same thing. (On a side note, there are also miến noodles which are made from something called cassava. They are see-through and I don’t have any pictures because I eat it very rarely.) Bún mộc is a meatball soup. I think it’s good. It’s quite simple but with some hot sauce it can be real good.
This interesting food is called bánh cuốn. I like it a lot and I was a bit intimidated at first to eat it. It is made on a pan that looks like a crepe maker. They use a white mixture (I assume flour and egg and some other stuff) and pour it out on the pan until it cooks into a thin white pancake. They then wrap it into a dumpling type food with various ingredients. Honestly, I have no idea what they put inside those things. I think there’s some kind of beans and meat. They also put some dried pork flakes on top which is nice. You’re supposed to dip in some fish sauce as you eat it.
I saved the best for last: bún chả. This is a Hanoi specialty and a staple. There are bún chả restaurants practically everywhere. The noodles on the side are the bún noodles and you eat those alongside the bowl of grilled pork. The grilled pork is inside a bowl of a very nice broth which is made from vinegar, fish sauce, some sugar, and some other stuff. A usual side dish with bún chả is nem rán (fried spring rolls). The spring rolls are real good and can come with pork or crab meat. Bún chả is definitely a lunch time food and when I’m out looking for food I can always smell a bún chả place not too far away. This bún chả was interesting because the meat was wrapped in a leaf before it was grilled.
Overall I rate Vietnamese cuisine very highly. There are a multitude of things I didn’t talk about; mainly because I don’t have pictures of them and this blog is already quite long. I also like how everything I mentioned can be bought for $1-$5 J
Drooling!
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