Vietnamese cuisine

We travelled the length of Vietnam from the South to the North, sampling the different cuisines along the way. Here's what we found.

South

We started in Phu Quoc, an island actually closer to Cambodia than Vietnam. It was Tet (Lunar New Year) while we were there, so some places were closed for the holidays, but we still managed to have some interesting food.

The first night we were there we went to a rather fancy resort restaurant called the Spice Cottage. This was exactly what we needed to reset and offered a gentle introduction to Vietnam. The toilets in particular were excellent, not something you can say about most places in South East Asia! I enjoyed chicken and mango skewered on a lemongrass stick, followed by more mango for dessert, this time caramelised with ice cream and a shortbread biscuit. The mango here is particularly juicy and sweet, delicious!

Another highlight for me was copia fish, something I’d never come across before. This came sizzling to the table, for me to cook myself, and was a very meaty fish. It was made even better by the large amount of butter on the side! Being by the sea, we also had some tasty prawns, which were easier to eat since we were shown the best way to peel them at our cooking class in Thailand.

A classic Vietnamese dish is phở (pronounced fer), a hot noodle soup with chicken or beef and eaten for breakfast. We had this a couple of mornings at a little cafe down the road. Personally, I’m not a massive fan, at least not for breakfast, but then it’s too hot later in the day for soup. James liked it though!

Strangely, one of my favourite lunches was an ice cream fish, which we ended up having a couple of times throughout Vietnam. These come in many different flavours, including green tea and red bean (not my thing!) but the best one was vanilla with chocolate sauce. They’re surprisingly filling!

In Can Tho, we tried fresh spring rolls. This was great for me as I don’t like coriander and it meant we could add our own fillings. Again, a very classic Vietnamese dish which were enjoyable at the time, although we think they may have given James a dodgy stomach so we stuck to the fried variety after that!

Central

Hoi An was particularly good for food. We did our cooking class here and made two dishes in particular that were extremely tasty and we’ll hopefully make at home.

The first was fried spring rolls. Despite James overfilling some of his and making monster ones, these were super crispy and amazing just out of the fryer.

We also made a country pancake. The pancake itself is made of rice flour and turmeric, which is fried with a filling of prawns, pork and beansprouts. To eat it, you wrap it in rice paper and dip it in a chilli sauce. This was one of the nicest things we ate in Vietnam.

Our hostel also took us on a street food tour, which was a great way to try things we wouldn’t have considered. The main dish in Hoi An is Cao Lâu, a noodle dish which has protected status as the noodles are made using water specifically from wells in Hoi An. The noodles are a bit thicker than normal and have a darker brown colour.

Another classic Vietnamese dish is Bánh Mì. We had this a lot for lunch, as it’s essentially a baguette filled with pate, chicken, pork or egg, or sometimes all together! Some of mine were a bit bare as I kept asking for no coriander, which was translated as no salad! But by far the best one we had was at Bánh Mì Queen in Hoi An. The sauce was delicious, as was the pate, which gave it a very rich flavour. I’d go back to Hoi An just for that, it was so good!

North

The speciality food in Hanoi is Bun Cha. This is pork meatballs in a sweet sauce, served with cold vermicelli noodles and salad on the side which you dip into the sauce before eating. It appears that everything in Vietnam comes with a dipping sauce! The caramelised nature of the pork balls really adds to the flavour too and we ended up having this a couple of times in Hanoi.

Another thing you must try in Hanoi is egg coffee (assuming you like coffee of course!). Being one of those strange creatures that doesn’t drink coffee, I can only say I have it on good authority that it’s delicious, but I can confirm it works equally well with hot chocolate!

The Vietnamese take a lot of pride in their coffee and it appears that Vietnamese coffee houses are the equivalent of pubs back in England. The traditional Vientamese coffee is made through a drip filter and is very strong. The only downside from James’s perspective is that they love sweet coffee so he had to spend the whole time asking for iced coffee, black, no sugar, as typically they would use sweet condensed milk even if they didn’t put actual sugar in.

Throughout our time in Vietnam, there was the usual food on sticks, which remains delicious, wherever you are in South East Asia. We also had plenty of fried rice and fried noodle dishes, although the noodles in the rice dishes were more like pot noodle but a lot more tasty!

Finally a word on the fruit here. We tried various fruits as part of our cooking class, our favourite being the milky apple. James is also a big fan of jackfruit. The bananas are also really good, particularly on pancakes for breakfast! They’re a bit sweeter than at home and have a thicker texture, a bit more like plantain.

My biggest surprise was how little coriander there appeared to be in Vietnamese cooking as it was something I was rather worried about. The food overall wasn’t particularly spicy, as the dipping sauces added the flavour and you could regulate this. We’ll definitely have a go at making some of the things we ate here back at home.