After three trips to Vietnam, with a street food tour and cooking class always on the agenda, I feel like I’ve still only just scratched the surface of the array of Vietnamese food on offer. Always a perfect balance of spicy, sour, salty, sweet and savoury – there’s freshness and deliciousness in every dish. The influences from Vietnam’s cultural diversity is always on display too – from China, France and other parts of South East Asia.
We’ve tried most of the staples like Bahn Mi from the streets of Ho Chi Minh, made fresh spring rolls in cooking classes and had pho for breakfast all over the country and so here are a few of our favourites;
Pho: Silky rice noodles and tender slices of meat in a fragrant beef or chicken broth, which has been lovingly cooked for hours, this is the go-to breakfast while traveling through the country. Adding your own fresh herbs, lime, chilli, bean sprouts and sauces from the table means you can make it exactly how you like it. For us, that usually means spicy as!
Banh Mi: The influence of France couldn’t be more on display here with a crusty baguette filled with grilled pork, pâté, pickled vegetables and fresh coriander. This is Jarvis’s favourite Vietnamese food – both when traveling in Vietnam and when at home in New Zealand. He always knows where the best spots are and it’s something we regularly make at home too. On our latest trip to Dalat in December 2022, we were lucky enough to have the best chicken Bahn Mi in the city shop right next door to our accommodation, so it became a daily treat for breakfast. So delicious!
Summer Rolls: These are something on offer at nearly every cooking class we came across and are super fun to make. Rice paper wraps stuffed with pork, prawn or tofu – or sometimes all three – with fresh herbs, vermicelli noodles and vegetables. The accompanying peanut dipping sauce adds some sourness and sweetness.
Bun Cha: As you travel through the country, you come to realise that each region has its own specialities. And while some dishes like pho are available throughout, also each city or area will have their local delicacies. This local Hanoi dish combines char-grilled pork patties and slices of pork belly with vermicelli noodles, herbs and dipping sauce.
Cao Lau: Hoi An’s local dish combines thick rice noodles, slices of pork, herbs and crispy rice crackers in a savoury broth. The noodles are thicker and have more texture than typical rice noodles and are said to be made using the water from an ancient well in Hoi An, which gives them their unique flavour.
Banh Xeo: These crispy Vietnamese Pancakes, who’s name means sizzling cake, are a favorite of Rob. These savoury pancakes are typically made from a batter of rice flour, turmeric and coconut milk, creating a unique flavour and crispy texture. The cooked pancake is then filled with pork, prawns and bean sprouts. And to eat, you wrap the pancake in fresh lettuce and fragrant herbs and dip in the tangy fish sauce and lime juice dipping sauce.
These dishes are found on pretty much every street throughout the country so then I’d also highly recommend a food tour to explore the cuisine further. While in Hoi An, we went out with The Original Taste of Hoi An, which was awesome – https://www.tasteofhoian.com/
Taking us beyond what we’d already discovered ourselves, we tasted at least 20 new dishes including sweet black sesame soup served from a bubbling kerbside pot and local ice cream “Kem” from a street cart. Doing this at the start of one of our trips meant we then had the confidence to recognise more delights and try other new dishes, which we might have otherwise by-passed, as we went about our sightseeing.
Then learning to make Vietnamese food at home yourself means you can continue on with your culinary journey after your travels end. We love watching food and travel shows so we’re already familiar with Luke Nguyen’s cooking shows. On one trip to Ho Chi Minh/Saigon, one of the first things we did was book a class at his cooking school, Grain – http://www.grainsaigon.com/index.html
This was such an awesome family experience and the kids loved getting involved, even though they were only 5 and 7 at the time. You get to eat all the food you make, of course, which takes care of lunch for that day and also opens you up to even more new dishes that you might not have tried yet.
Also, check out our travel blog here on our South East Asian holiday in 2022/23 starting in Ho Chi Minh City, also known as Saigon.
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