This post will be a true drooling page as I’m going to intro to you all the Vietnamese food we had in Hanoi.
STREET FOOD
PHO
First and foremost, the most famous Pho. I really got confused by the Vietnamese word.. road also they call in Pho, rice noodle they call it Pho?!?! I guess the tiny tiny symbol are the pin yin.. phở is the noodle soup that is most emblematic of Vietnamese cuisine. This simple noodle soup, more than any other dish, is recognized around the world and both warms the hearts and satisfies the stomachs of Vietnamese and others alike. You can easily find it in Hanoi as every single streets have a shop/ stall selling it.. They normally serving Pho Ga (Meaning Chicken Rice Noodle) and Pho Bo (Beef Rice Noodle).
Our First Pho in Hanoi is right after we check in the hotel and starting our DIY adventure. I have some problem communicating with the Vietnamese as most of them can’t speak English.. But no problem, how you order your street food in Hanoi is, see what the other’s eating, they dun mind you to peek at their food.. Point at the food at the seller, and the seller will show you the note meaning how much it’ll cost you. I guess this Pho is a mixture of pork, beef and chicken… Their food portion is consider quite big as compare to our local hawker’s portion.. Their rice noodle is soft you feel like it slips through your throat when swallowing.. meat was cook without any seasoning, just cook in the sweet broth and it taste really really nice… But they put too much of greens in a bowl of noodles.. I dun eat parsley and spring onions.. so I had a difficult time to filter all these greens… This bowl of Pho cost us 20K dong.
My First bowl of Pho
Location :Road:Nha Tho. The row of shops at the right side of St Joseph Cathedral.
We had the true Pho Bo and Pho Ga provided by the hotel as breakfast the next day morning.. I’m a person who takes heavy breakfast.. I love it soooo much to have a bowl of steaming hot noodles in the morning.. The hotel didn’t cook it,I guess they bought from the roadside seller in the morning.
Our Breakfast Menu
Pho Ga (Chicken Pho)
Pho Bo (Beef Pho)
Location : Hanoi Golden Plaza Hotel
BUN RIEU
Next its this noodle we had as lunch in the old quarter, I think its call Bun Rieu, Its slightly different with Pho. As you can notice, Pho is a thin flat noodle, but Bun Rieu is a round noodle, more like our laksa noodle.. This is the cheapest meal I ever found in Vietnam, it only cost us VND 10K. (RM2). The ingredient is sooo sumptuous for a bowl of noodle cost this price. You have mince pork, fish paste, big sweet radish and also bamboo shoot… The local loves to squat at roadside for their meal, some even without table, just a small stool and they held their hot steaming bowl in hand… We dare not to try that so we look for a better roadside stall, at least with table.. hahahaha..
Bun Rieu
Location: At the back of Dong Xuan market, next to a fried rice stall
DUMPLING (I dunno what its call in Vietnamese)
The fried dumpling is similar to any Chinese cuisine dumpling, but in Hanoi, its bigger in size, like a curry puff size with minced meat and vermicelli as filling. Its not cheap though, one cost VND 5000.
The Fried Dumpling
Location: a mobile seller in front of Hapro Supermart at Hang Giay.
THIT BO KHO
The Vietnamese salad. We dun even know what is it, we were rushing for the water puppet show and spot it on a roadside stall. The ingredient in it are shredded cucumber, and some vermicelli kind of noodle, chop parsley and greens, the black in color one I have no idea what meat is that, soon found out that its beef jerky, its very hard to chew! And the reddish color meat is like our “Cha Siu”, topping with crushed peanuts and some soury sauce. It taste not bad, but funny, cause you dunno what you are putting in your mouth. Cost VND 10,000.
And this is Thit Bo Kho
Location: Roadside stall just in front of Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre.
GRILL
I have no idea what is this, but its similar to our otak otak, and cover with a layer of honey + lime… hahahahaha, very funny combination. It’s one of the street food many of the youngster that hang out at backstreet on Saturday night likes to eat. Each stick at VND 2000.
Location: Just in front of Hanoi Golden Plaza Hotel.
RESTAURANTS
CHA CA LA VONG
If you ask recommendation of Vietnamese food from tour guide or even your hotel, they’ll sure recommend you Cha ca la vong, its even recommended in Lonely Planet guide book. This restaurant has very limited choice in their menu and their signature dish is definitely the Cha ca. Cha ca is fish cubes fried in turmeric. There’s a sizzling pan on each table. First they’ll heat the oil, a lot of oil and deep-fried the fish cubes together with herbs and green… And you have to eat together with bun noodle together with a sauce made of fish and shrimp paste. This dish is not really to my liking as the fried fish is tasteless, you can just taste oil and I dun like fish. Cha ca is quite expensive for Hanoi standard, it cost VND 100K per head. I have some difficulties ordering my noodle here.. Since I have had 5 meals of Pho and soup noodle the day before and in the morning, I asked if they have any dry noodle, the waiter assured me “ ok ok, dry noodle! And my dry noodle comes like this!!
My so called "Dry Noodle"
Speechless.. its another bowl of bun noodle with shredded chicken and mushroom.. and compare to the one we had near Dong Xuan Market, that is much more better. This soup noodle is same like the Cha ca, tasteless.. However.. It cost VND40k. We ordered the Bia Hanoi (Beer Hanoi), it’s the bottled type of Bia Hanoi, but it taste very smooth and light. Beer Hanoi is very very cheap here and comparative even to drinking water. A bottle of Bia Hanoi for 2 sharing only cost us VND 20K. Where you can even get a glass at VND 5k at the roadside Bia Hoy Corner J
Safe territory - No runaround cats
The Famouse Cha ca la vuong menu
Cha Ca La Vuong and Bia Ha Noi
Rating : 7/10. Average, pricey but clean and have a decent dining area compare to the roadside stall.
Location: No: 14, Hang Luoc Cha Ca (They are so well known they even have a street of their dishes)
THANG LONG RESTAURANT
Thanglong Restaurant is just next to the Halong Harbour. Normally if you take a tour in Halong Bay, they’ll include a lunch in Thang Long Restaurant. This is one of the grand restaurant we seen in Hanoi, its big.. as big as the size of Chinese Restauramt back in our place that can host wedding dinner.
Our lunch here was included in our Halong Bay package and its pre-order but not inclusive of drinks.
We share the 8 dishes lunch with our travel buddies on the junk.
The dishes include
o Vege soup
o Stir fired squid with onion and vege. Though I really hate to eat onions, but this is my favorite dish.. I like the chewy squid!!!
o French Fries
o Sweet and sour chicken
o Fried Spring Roll (The Vietnamese signature dish) Wrap in the thin rice paper, not our type of popiah skin. Filling is meat, vege and I think I tasted taro. And dip in the clear fish sauce. Yum yum
o Stir fried noodle with a lot of vege. This is the first time I really tasted dry noodle in Vietnam after so many days of soup noodle.
o Sweet and Sour Fish – I didn’t touch at all cause I don’t eat fish.
o And also a fried cabbage..
Anti Clock wise : Vege Soup, Stir Fried Squid, French Fries, Sweet & sour chicken, Spring Roll, Fried noodle.
Next photo : Sweet & sour fish and fried cabbage
I must conclude that they don’t use a lot of MSG in their cooking unlike our Malaysia Restaurant, they use a lot of fish paste in their cooking.
Rating : 7/10. Another commercialize restaurant meant for the tourist. You don’t see local dine in there, all tourist. They have souvenir shops inside and unlimited roadside seller that beg, force, pester or persuade you to buy souvenir once you have eye contact with them.
Location : Next to Halong Harbour.
RED CAFÉ RESTAURANT
A visit to Red Café is another lunch meal included in our Day tour program. Red Café is link together with a Hotel I couldn’t remember the name and the tour office of Hanoi Open Tour. It’s again served with white rice and dishes. We share the dishes among 4 of us, and again, no drinks included…. I ordered a chilled soft drinks cause its just too hot outside. It cost me VND 8000. I pay a note of VND 10,000, suppose the waiter thought the balance is going to be his tip. I’m so cheapskate to ask for the balance back…. I tot VND 2000 is a lot but its only converted to RM 0.40… So malu…. The Vietnamese must be thinking that Malaysian are super stingy~ sorry I spoilt the reputation….
Our lunch package of course is less sumptuous as the one in Thang Long Restaurant. It only comes with 4 Dishes and refillable white rice. At first we have the Fried Spring Rolls, Its very crispy and nice. Fried beancurd with tomato sauce, you can see tomatoes from the picture, but frankly speaking, I did not taste any tomato taste at all. This dish is salty. Fried chicken, also taste salty, but acceptable but I hate the fat chicken skin attached~ yeeeewwwwww. And lastly, it’s the fried Chinese mustard (Choi Sum) with nothing. Just fry, and of course, it taste like leaves!!
The Red Cafe Restaurant
Fried Spring Roll Tomato Beancurd
Chicken Fried mustard
Rating 4/10. The waiter and waitress doesn’t response to you despite many times calling them.Our tour guide need to serve the food to us. Overall, only the spring roll is nice, the beadcurd, chicken and mustard taste awful.
Location : Hang Be Street.
3 MEALS ON BOAT
Signing a package for Halong Bay gets you the chance to have your meal in the scenaric Halong Bay of mountains and waters… Let see how’s the Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.
We’re provided with breakfast the second day morning, we only have the basic breakfast of 4 pcs of bread with butter and jam, and a piece of fired egg (Telur Mata Kerbau), and serve with a plate of fruits. The coffee is not inclusive, cost you VND 15,000 (About RM3)
The 1st meal we had on junk was the lunch served 1st day.
We have Fried fish, Dunno what fish but with a lot a lot of bones (I didn’t eat lah of course)
Fried Pumpkin. My fist time eating pumpkin, surprisingly it taste quite nice!!
Fried Beancurd with Tomato. (Also no tomato taste, funny!)
Fried Squid with Vege (Onions, Purple cabbage, spring onions and carrots) The squid is nice but the purple cabbage is so raw and taste a little bitter.
Fried Kangkung. Not our usual style fried with Sambal Belacan. Not spicy
We were so hungry after long hours of travel and all dishes were gobbled up by 5 of us.
The dinner were served at around 7.Outside was all dark you can’t see a thing and the light in the dining cabin was dim… Dinner were served more dishes than the lunch. This time we share a table with the Vietnamese couple and their daughter and Mary from Australia.
We had these for dinner.
Fried Spring roll. Taste the same in every restaurant. They maintain the standard of making it everywhere
French fries
Fried fish again that I dun eat
Cucumber
Fried Peanut
Fried Egg
And fruits
Rating : 5/5. Common food, nothing to be shout about.
Location : Junk - Tung Tuang 18 on Halong Bay.
QUAN AN NGON
This is the best restaurant we found in Hanoi on our last night. Many traveler guide book will highly recommend this restaurant and even the local do. The concept at Quan An Ngon is a one stop shop for Vietnamese street food of every region and variety. Quan An Ngon is designed with seating in a spacious courtyard surrounding a giant central tree, with food stalls on all four sides cooking the food to order so you can also browse the stalls and simply point at what piques your interest to order. All items on the menu are translated into English and the names of dishes describe quite literally the ingredients and method of preparation.
Quan An Ngon
The interior of Quan An Ngon
We’ve tried as much as possible Vietnamese dish in Quan An Ngon.
Banh Cuon (Rice flour spring roll- non fry type)
Filling is minced pork, shrimp, lettuces, shredded carrots and spring onion. Eat with the peanut Sauce.
Beef Fried noodle
I ordered this. The noodle is actually similar to our kuey Toew but the fried it to crispy like a roti canai…(confuse). Gravy similar to our beef kuey teow serve with a large portion of beef and mustard.
Mung bean sticky rice
Our tour guide recommended this dish so much. It’s a glutinous rice with crushed mung bean paste. So so only, more like a dessert.
Pork chop rice
This is Teh maincourse. White rice served with Deep fried pork chop (With honey), omelet and fried shallots.
Seafood Fried rice
Both mummy and Seh ordered the seafood fried rice. Its no different with any ordinary fried rice. Nothing so special, but tasty.
Che
Che is a dessert similar to our cendol. Ingredient: red bean, corn, attap seeds, the greenish chendol ingredient, and brown sugar syrup… Too sweet for my liking!
The total bill for all these food comes to less than VND80,000 per person.
Rating : 9/10. Nice ambience, a food heaven gather of all Vietnamese food. It’s a must go in Hanoi. But its kinda far from old quarter.
Location : 18, Phon Bai Chau at the west of Hoan Kiem Lake
FOOD I BOUGHT BACK FROM VIETNAM
GREEN BEAN COOKIE
The Green Bean cookie is a recommendation from our tour guide. We bought it at the Handicap Art Center on the way back from Halong bay for VND40,000. You can actually find it in shops in Old quarter and the Intimax Supermarket. It’s also too sweet for my liking. But it makes a great souvenir.
TRUNG NYUYEN COFFEE POWDER
No one visit to Hanoi will leave without buying the Vietnamese coffee powder. I bought this 500g Coffee powder and the coffee filter at only VND50K (RM10). I bought also the pre pack G7 Coffee but this sachet pack is not as good as the filtered coffee. Vietnamese coffee is very strong in aroma and highly caffeinated. However, me and BB like this Vietnamese version of Espresso, and its best to have it with ice.
VIETNAMESE INSTANT NOODLE
My BB commented that this is the best instant noodle he tasted before. It’s a instant kuey teow to be exact. The noodle is not to saggy and the soup base just taste too nice to die for… I bought many packets from Intimax Supermarket, and its cheap. About VND3500 per packet… many flavour
