Food in Hanoi
- Next Stage Travel
- 1 day ago
- 23 min read
Food in Hanoi, Vietnam
We've got you, foodies! We searched out all the standards in Hanoi, plus some extras we learned about from hotel staff. We were so lucky to have inside tips from a local food maven. It was better than a street food tour!
Finally, we have our list of sweet treats in Hanoi!
General rules:
The more rustic your seating and the chef's tools, the better the food will be. This means you'll need to sit on the sidewalk on little plastic stools at little plastic tables, and probably be crowded by parked mopeds, the washing up from the chef, and folks at the table next to you.
Broth is really good in Vietnam. In Hanoi, we never had subpar broth.
While you can search out specific restaurants or stands for a particular type of food (and we often did), there are so many great foods in this country and especially this city that wandering and looking at what others are eating is a great way to go. Hanoi vendors also tend to sell things in groups, so the crab soup folks are in a 2-block radius of each other. This helped when we sought out a particular Bun Cha place and found they had sold out and closed for the day. There were at least a dozen other Bun Cha restaurants within a few blocks so we looked in diners' bowls and selected our second choice that way. It was delicious.
Keep the minimal downside in mind. Ask the price upfront for an item you want to try - usually the price is listed on the posted menuboard. Keeping in mind the price of a full-meal soup (20-40K dong when we visited), you know that smaller items with less meat should be less expensive, and folks selling from their bikes should be way cheaper. Now that you know you are only about to spend a dollar US on a food "risk" don't you feel better about being adventurous?
Let’s start with some drink options.
Vietnamese Egg Coffee
Many people recommend Cafe Giang (39 Nguyễn Hữu Huân, Lý Thái Tổ, Hoàn Kiếm, Hà Nội, Vietnam) for egg coffee because they originated it. That made sense to us! We tried them first, then a few other spots, then returned to Cafe Giang for some of their variations on the original. The basic egg coffee is sweet and bitter. You can mix the coffee in with the egg cream as much or little as you like to mellow both the bitter and the sweet. The foamy texture of the egg cream is pleasant as well. In Cafe Giang, sometimes the servers will help you locate an empty table. There's a lot of traffic coming in and out. Service is fast, the cups are small, there is no food, so folks do leave pretty quickly. (But also some parties linger and chat.)
When we sampled egg coffee elsewhere, we still enjoyed the flavors and that some folks make it a little less sweet, but we missed Cafe Giang's way of serving in hot water so the coffee doesn't cool off too much while the egg cream is added. When we returned to Cafe Giang we tried cocoa egg cream (hot chocolate with egg cream), cinnamon (coffee + cinnamon + egg cream), and mung bean + egg cream. They were all good, and this means if you are not that into coffee, they still have something for you. We saw (and tried) cocoa with egg cream elsewhere, but the others seem like a Cafe Giang thing. Check out the photo of the menu below for other non-coffee and coffee-based variations.
And for a recipe to try this at home, check out our Recipes post.
Sugarcane juice
It is sweet and a little melon flavored. 15-20k for a cup. We tried the one located at 77 Hang Dieu on a block with several other restaurants we’ve reviewed here. There are sugarcane stands all over Old Town (and probably the city). In addition to the sugar cane, this drink has a touch of green kumquat juice. Green kumquats are ubiquitous in Hanoi, substituting for limes because they are cheaper.
LÁ NẾP/ Pandan Leaf
We tried this on our HaLong Bay cruise and fell in love. La Nep is usually made from fresh leaves of pandan plant. It tastes like corn and smells like rice. It was served ice cold before our massage on the cruise, and again in a sweetened version as a dessert soup. When we returned to Hanoi and asked our lovely hotel receptionists Daniel and Lizzy for help finding La Nep, they said they'd send someone to the market for us "so we will not be overcharged." They ended up ordering for us online though, which is a great option.
We later found la nep in the market, but only sold fresh (which we can't bring back to the US). Our suggestion is if you like the taste and smell of corn and rice, ask your hotel receptionist to help you do an online order for la nep. If you plan to do a cooking course while you are here, you could also ask them to make something with la nep in the course so you can try it. The image above shows the price we paid for online purchase, so if you do find the dried version for sale in the big markets you know about what to pay. (We also found it for sale several places, dried, in Chiang Mai, Thailand, though it was packaged in smaller amounts for the price.)
Beer
We enjoyed several beers at Beer Corner (located at and around the intersection of P. Luong Ngoc Quyen and P. Ta Hien), just off beer corner, and in every restaurant.
Bia Hoi means beer on tap (literally 'fresh beer'), and it is generally cheaper than getting a beer in a can (and tastes the same but with more bubbles). Bia Hoi was 10K in a restaurant off beer corner, and canned beer runs 15-30K most places; it's 15K at a convenience store. When we moved to just off beer corner, we had tap beer for 10K! and next door we got grilled oysters, eggplant and more. The address for the off-Beer-Corner food and drink is on the bottom of the overhead sign.
Below: here is a video of us at the actual Beer Corner. Very lively!!
Now let’s talk about main dishes!
Banh Xeo/ Egg with Fillings
This is a specialty of the Mekong Delta region. The restaurant where we first tried it, Nha Hang Mr Bay Mien Tay, had lots of great looking food but we were only a little hungry so ordered one of the Banh Xeo Bo (beef) to split. At the front of the restaurant, we saw them making it and that enticed us. The egg is filled with meat and vegetables, then cut into pieces. We assemble it ourselves with a rectangle of rice paper: add lettuce or herbs of your choosing, then the egg. Roll it up and dip in the sweetened fish sauce/vinegar they have brought, which softens the rice paper. We went back later and ordered more things which you can see in the pictures below.
Bun Cha
2 types of meat (pork) in a broth. Add greens of choice and rice noodles. The spring rolls are dipped in either the yellow broth or the meat soup.
We went to a really well-known bun cha place first, Bun Cha Hang Quat, (74 Hang Quat, Hanoi), but they were out of food by 1pm. So we walked down the street until we found another bun cha place. It was good.
Two weeks later we returned to the first place, and it was better than the first restaurant. Go in the alley, passing the cooks, and find a spot on a low stool. There will also be a grandma ushering you into the very back space, to "regular" tables and chairs. This is a separate cafe. They make their money by selling drinks to those who come for bun cha. We did sit here because there were no low tables available when we arrived. Their orange juice was good. When I paid the bill, the grandma had a hard time with the math. (She added it up 2x 30K + 1x 20K. I gave her a 50 and a 20). I gave her exact change but she was confused, and even asked the young Vietnamese women next to us about it. They looked at the bill and our money, and had to tell the lady twice to take it. The bun cha price was 70K per bowl at the same 74 Hang Quat location. It might have been cheaper at the first place we ate, around the corner, but the quality was not as good.
In the photos above, you can see the exterior of 74 Hang Quat Bun cha, the
alley where they cook, and the drink menu for the place at the back. You will pay 2 bills if you sit in this space: one to the cafe and one to the bun cha folks on exiting
Also in the photos above are nearby stores selling rubber stamps and cookie presses. You can customize the stamps, and if you'd like to do this, plan to arrive at the stamp store before you eat and they will likely be able to finish the customization by the time your lunch is finished. (For example, they can add a name to the stamp.)
Below are photos of the first bun cha place we tried; their meatballs were bigger. Taste fine. Other place is better.
Pho Cuon/Rice Rolls
On Truc Bach island in West Lake there is a neighborhood of Pho Cuon restaurants. The one we went to,Phở Cuốn Hương Mai, is a chain, and there is a location on either side of the street. Then all up and down this block are other restaurants serving the same thing. We ordered one plate of 5 Pho Cuon plus a plate of fried corn. Both were excellent. The rice rolls have meat and vegetables inside. The servers bring you a little bowl of dipping sauce first, and this is for the rolls when they eventually come (which happens quickly).
There are green kumquats on the table which enhanced the taste of the corn, and there is also a spicy sauce. Dan had a beer for 15K (and we noticed at the local grocery the same can cost 16K, so thanks for not marking up your alcohol, Pho Cuon Huong Mai.). Our total bill was 93K Dong, or about $3.90. When you are ready to pay, note there is a piece of paper on the wall behind you with a letter and number. Take a photo with your phone and show the hostess at the front of the restaurant on the main floor. This is where you pay.
Bun Bo Nam Bo/ Beef Salad
Many people (including our hotel) suggest Bách Phương (at 67 Hang Dieu, Hanoi) for Bun Bo Nam Bo. Fortunately, it's easy to find as the words "Bun Bo Nam Bo" are on the sign (and the restaurant name is so small we thought the restaurant was just named Bun Bo Nam Bo). It was excellent indeed. The restaurant was very busy at 7pm. They have other things on their menu (like a vegan dish and some meat sticks) but basically, they do one thing here, so we were asked how many and our answer, 2, brought us 2 bowls of Bun Bo. It's a bowl of rice noodles, grilled beef, fried onions, peanuts, bean sprouts and a bowl of herbs you can add. It is slightly brothy at the bottom, which is a good thing because all broths in Hanoi are good (so far as we've tasted).
We did not try the meat sticks, but the locals all had them. They look like luncheon meat rolled up in a banana leaf. Peel and dip in the salad, or eat plain. All children in the restaurant were eating the meat. Dan had a beer. Our total bill was 25K for the beer, and 65K for each of the bowls, so about $6 for the two of us. (When you sit in an actual restaurant instead of on the street the price goes up!) We came back another night and tried the fried dough which, if you like fried dough, was a yummy addition. It was slightly sweet and is meant to dip in the vinegar-based sauce of the Bun Bo.
Bun Rieu/ Crab Soup
One of the employees at our hotel said this is a food from farther south in Vietnam, and something he missed from his days living there. He recently found Bun Rieu in Hanoi and directed us to a block featuring several sellers; it's near one end of the night market on Hang Khoai just off P. Dong Xuan (the street of the Weekend night market). We saw a few signs for Bun Rieu and chose one where we could see all the little pots of things out, and two people eating already. Note that most of the sellers are there around lunch time and early afternoon. There are a few sellers at night, though if that's when you go to this block.
In typical Hanoi fashion, we sat on small plastic stools at a small plastic table. This soup included fried tofu squares, crab cake, lots of greens, and noodles.
Banh Cuon Cao Bang/ Rice Rolls with Dipping Broth
Our hotelier got this for his own dinner and we asked him to order some for us. A few weeks later, we went to the actual restaurant, Bánh cuốn cao bằng thể giao (Address: 11b The Giao, Hi Ba Trung, Hanoi), for a repeat. The Banh Cuon are rice rolls with mushroom inside. They are served with a broth that has a pork dumpling in it, and natives dip the rice roll in the broth. They also had very good warm soymilk here.
The first photo above is the take out version. The rest of the photos are from our dine-in visit to the restaurant.
Eel
This place is usually the one recommended for eel, and also happened to be very close to our hotel, located at 87 Hang Dieu . We ordered 3 different eel preparations and liked them all. The difference is basically in broth vs rice porridge base. In the first photo, you can see mien nuoc in the top--fried eel and assorted veggies in broth. In the middle is the chao luon, eel in porridge. At the bottom is mien tron; all the greens and toppings you see here are the same as in the broth one at the top. The difference is with this one, the broth (which tasted then same to us) is on the side.
Steak
Would you like a 6 oz top-grade steak for $3? We saw this restaurant on the way to our cooking class and it looked yummy so we returned for dinner. The menu had three choices: 2 sizes of steak or pre-cut cubes of the same in a black pepper sauce. Our best guess is that folks get the whole steak if they want more meat, or if they want to choose a dipping sauce other than the black pepper. We all got the black pepper choice and were very happy. It comes on a super hot brick and cooks at your table, topped with fried garlic. On the side is bread and some pate, plus the dipping sauce, so you can make your own little banh mi with it. You can add more bread if you like. You could also order a side salad (especially if you want cucumbers, lettuce or tomato in your banh mi). Pretty much everyone in here was on a date. Address: 30 P. Nguyễn Hữu Huân, Lý Thái Tổ, Hoàn Kiếm, Hanoi.
Banh Chung/ Sticky Rice with Ground Pork and Green Beans
This is another recommendation from Daniel, the receptionist at our hotel. It is a very typical Hanoi food. It is a block of sticky rice with 2 layers inside: one of "green bean" which I think is soy bean or some other similar bean, not the haricot vert type that Americans call "green beans", with an additional filling of ground pork. The size of these varies, and Daniel said that when one has a large Banh Chung and can't finish it, it is then sliced and pan fried for a second eating. Many vendors sell it wrapped in a leaf and tied with string - they are distinctive in that they are usually square.
Chaca Thanglong/ Turmeric Fish with Dill
Sometimes you want to sit in a restaurant on a full-size chair, even though you know it will cost you twice as much and the food may not be as good. Cha Ca Thang Long is a good choice, and neither of us are huge fans of catfish but this was really good. They serve only Cha Ca and it's 126,000 VD per person, or about $5. The clientele are Vietnamese folks from the South on vacation in the North, and foreigners. The staff has 2 questions for you: how many orders and what do you want to drink. They bring out a bunch of little dishes, light your cooktop, and bring out a saute pan with the fish. If you just sit there and do nothing they will come to your table and prep things--first adding a mound of dill and green onions to the frying pan and later demonstrating how to serve yourself the fish, greens, and condiments to your personal bowl.
The fish was moist and not chewy. (Again, we don't really like catfish but we like this!). The bushel of dill sautéed with it is amazing. You put that on top of rice noodles, add a little fish sauce, green onion, and peanuts. MMMMMM. The guy next to us asked for a purple sauce that we did not get, so we pointed and asked our server. It is a fermented shrimp paste and you will also see it sold in the market. If you want to try it (no additional charge), show the picture below (of the bowl and metal spoon) to the waitstaff.
Chả Cá Hạ Hồi
We tried one other Cha Ca place that isn't famous, called Quán Chả Cá Hạ Hồi. They had more fish and more dill for about the same price, though the dill was slightly bitter (more stems) and the fish perhaps a bit better tasting at Cha Ca Thang Long. They also served the fermented shrimp paste without us needing to ask. Dining is in the street leading to the alley, the alley, and inside the building--all on small chairs and tables. Price per person was 120K.
We thought the quality was good but had a slight preference for Cha Ca Thang Long. Address is listed as 20 Xom Ha Hoi, Tran Hung Dao, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi. If you decide to try this restaurant, note that Googlemaps may get you only to a parallel alley. To find the actual location, go to the end of the alley and turn. About 2 doors down there is another alley and the restaurant sign at the start of this alley.
Chao Suon/Rice Porridge"chao-suon"
We had a slow day in week three and at lunch still felt like something breakfast-like. We set out for a Chao Suon shop recommended by our Hotelier Lizzie that is across from the Dong Chuan Market, called Cháo Sườn Sụn Huyền Anh Đồng Xuân Chao Suon is rice porridge made with broth. It is thinner than Chinese congee if you are familiar with that dish. This place served it with chunks of chicken meat and dusted with shredded, dried chicken, plus a bowl of fried bread pieces on the side to dip in the porridge.
It was good in a home-cooking, comfort food way, though the chicken had too much fat on it for our tastes. Later the same day we saw another woman selling this on a street near our hotel. The chef invited us to try; we told her we had it already for lunch. "You did? Was it a food tour?" When we told her we found it on our own, she was impressed and surprised.
Cơm bình dân/Rice Plate
The translation of this is "commoner's rice". Basically, it's rice with several side dishes you choose from a large cabinet in the front of the restaurant or stand. We went to a Cơm bình dân restaurant, called Cơm Nghệ Sỹ, near the Vietnam History museum in an alleyway near the Hilton and the opera house (Address 1A Trang Tien, Phan Chu Trinh, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi; may show up as 1C Trang Tien on google maps). There were no tourists there - in fact, while we were eating a big group of Hanoi bus drivers came in (I suspect they dropped off the foreign tourists for lunch somewhere else...). For 50,000 dong (US$2.15), you get rice, 2 meats or fish, broth, and as many vegetable sides as you want. I got meatballs wrapped in shiso and fried river fish as my mains, plus a spicy cabbage salad, wasp larvae, bitter melon, pickled eggplant and fried tofu. The wasp larvae (not bee, as they were pretty big) were creamy and lightly flavored with soy and vinegar.
In the photos below, you can see the front of the restaurant. Its name is what it serves and address is on the left corner of the awning. The cabinets show the food to choose, and the close up is of Dan's plate of food, with wasp pupae at bottom right.
KOTO
Traditional Vietnamese food (with job training ) https://www.koto.com.au/koto-enterprise/koto-van-mieu
Are you going to the Temple of Literature? This restaurant is right across the street. It is another chance to sit down in a full size chair, in a restaurant, though remember you will again pay at least 2x as much. At least the food is good here. Koto Van Mieu is a project from Australia that provides job training to at-risk youth, helping them start their own careers in the hospitality industry. That means all the waitstaff are eager to practice their English and their service skills.
We ordered the banana blossom green papaya salad, crab soup, prawn + pork on lemongrass, and fresh fruit for dessert. The soup was ok. It's like egg drop soup, so a bit more cornstarch than we prefer, but had good flavor and plenty of crab. The papaya salad was amazing: fresh, crunchy, perfect sauce, lean meat, and nice crispy somethings on top. The prawn and pork was served beautifully and tasted good. The dipping sauce was nice and it had a little side of pickled fig slices and garlic. The fruit was sweet but probably the most expensive item. Still, we felt the need to eat more fruit so we were glad to see it. We returned another day and tried the betel-wrapped meat and the fried fish spring rolls. Both were good. The fish we recognized as a modern take on a traditional food. Cha ca (see entry above) is a fried fish with turmeric and served with dill. They took the fish and dill and wrapped them in rice paper and added wasabi mayo. This was a great combo, adding a new type of heat and the creaminess of the mayo.
We walked in at noon and they said they could take us if we didn't stay more than an hour. They get VERY FULL for lunch serving tour groups. Staff said that for dinner we didn't need to worry about reservations. (When we returned for our second visit, we were seated with no issue at about 11:30. They filled quickly but had fewer tour groups this time). We checked out the pre-printed limited menu that would be offered to the tour group which would take our seats when we finished. It did not have the items from the original menu we would want, so beware if you think coming here with your tour group will get you quite what we had.
Location: in addition to its location adjacent to the Temple of Literature, this restaurant is on a block with a few high-end shops we'd recommend. (One "Indigo Store" specializes in ethnic clothing from the north; another has fine modern and traditional women's clothing). Check out our Hanoi shopping page !
Com / Rice in Leaves
On the streets you will see women with baskets of leaves. Underneath is com--rice--ready to eat. The one we tried had some mung bean in it too. I think this is generally vegetarian/vegan. It is sold by weight. It was ok. We are glad we tried it, and perhaps from a different seller it would have been softer or more flavorful.
Grill Your Own
Nhà Hàng Đồ Nướng Quán Sứ looked like fun and it was. There are lots of places that have some version of cook-for-yourself meals. We were a little disappointed that all the hotpots seemed to be based on pork. We were feeling pretty tired of pork. There was still plenty to eat from the other sections though: okra, beef with enoki mushrooms, shrimp, and shiitake mushrooms. All that plus a beer and water was $11. Address is 61 P. Quán Sứ, Trần Hưng Đạo, Hoàn Kiếm, Hanoi
At 7pm there were 3 tables, but by 7:30 they had 10 tables, stretching farther down the street; you can see this in the photos below, along with our bill (where the 3 large numbers are for the meat).
Fried Seafood Rice and Seafood Soup at My Nieu Pho Gam Restaurant
70K for the soup and 40K for the fried rice. Seafood was fresh.
In the 4th photo below, you can see a closeup of the Be Be--mantis shrimp--in the fired seafood rice.
Seafood Street
If you are looking for seafood, this neighborhood has many options on skewers and in bowls.
Daniel and Lizzy asked if we'd like to join them for dinner on our last night in Hanoi. They wanted to introduce us to something "quintessentially Vietnamese" that we had not yet tried. Since Dan and I had tried just about everything, that left us a choice between chicken feet and fried organ meats.
So we headed to the organ meat place, Long Ran Nhat Quan, Dan and Daniel on one bike, Sarah and Jenny on another bike, and Lizzy alone. Riding mopeds is certainly quintessentially Vietnamese. Sarah was a little scared, having never ridden a motorized 2 wheeler of any kind. We ended up with quite the Vietnamese experience: Daniel pulled over for a traffic violation and the interaction with the cop that followed, and Jenny rerouting for a drive the wrong way on a one way street in heavy traffic.
Here's my view from the back of Lizzy's bike, going the wrong way in heavy commute traffic.
In the center, Dan riding with Daniel. At right, Daniel got pulled over by the traffic cop. Daniel and Jenny under the blue arrow, Dan under red arrow, and cop in between
Finally we all arrived at the restaurant: Long Ran Nhat Quan 23 Nguyen Sieu. Daniel and LIzzy ordered up several dishes of organ meats. Dan tried them all. Sarah tried a bamboo shoot and a bit of greenery from 2 different dishes. I'd say we are still unconvinced, but we are just not organ meat people.
The first photo includes bamboo with organ meat, and it was served with bun (noodles). The second photo shows apricot wine. Bottom row, Dan, Sarah, Jenny, Lizzy, and Daniel--and lots of organ meats to eat!
If you like organ meat, you can show the pictures of the dishes here to the waiter to help you order. Each dish is about 80K dong. Daniel also explained that the women and children who try to sell candy, gum, and other small items to you at the table are usually working for pimps and the local way to deal with this organized crime is to buy an item and leave it visible on the table so that the next salesperson can see you are already supporting the business. We had seen such hawkers throughout our time in Vietnam but they generally ignore tourists.
Thank you to Daniel and Lizzy for making our stay in Hanoi so warm and wonderful. We will miss them so much!
Other things you might like to try
Our hotelier foodie, Daniel, who recommended so many great restaurants also recommended trying goose and blood sausage, though we did not try them.
Some other food prices & souvenir ideas (Oct 2022)
pork on a stick: 20K
Pineapple long slice: 10K
Bahn mi 25K on the street, more like 40K if it's an actual shop. We liked the street version better, with freshly grilled meat, more greens, and toasted bread.</li>
dried corn snacks (Ngo Cay): 60K
beef jerky (Viet Thuy): 100K for a package. Our preferred seller at 56 Hong Chieu gave samples and did not overcharge us as tourists
dried chicken or pork floss
dried hibiscus flowers; dried butterfly pea flowers (Hoa Dau Biec). You can see images in the photo story below. These items are a little pricy in the US and very reasonably priced in Vietnam.
The first photo is the beef jerky seller we liked, and the product we bought. The last two photos are hibiscus (red) and a bag of butterfly pea flowers (Hoa Dau Biec)
And now it's time for dessert!!
Dessert 62 ways
The shop Che Dung (or Che Ngon) located at 95 Hang Bac in the Old Quarter is our recommendation for dessert. We ordered several types of dessert here and enjoyed them all. PLUS--they give you a printed menu with prices and English language descriptions on most of the choices, AND they have so many of the typical Vietnamese desserts it would seem whichever one you really wanted to try is here.
They served it with a cup of chipped ice which locals add to the mix. We were being super careful about not ingesting water we had not filtered ourselves so skipped the ice. It's still good, just not ice cold!!
Chuoi Nep Nuong/Grilled Rice Dessert
This is a dessert! The photo below right is a banana inside sticky rice which is then grilled. It is placed in a bowl, sliced, slathered with coconut milk, and sprinkled with coconut and nuts. It's the only Chuoi Nep Nuong we saw in Hanoi. The address (1 Hang Duong) shows in the sign pictured below. That address is actually for the building behind it, which at the time of this writing was some other business. It is common, however, for food sellers to claim the same spot every day (and they pay rent to the building behind them), thus you can still use this address to find this rice banana dessert if you like.
In the photos above, the grilled rice are in the back row and one on the grill. 20K is about 90 US cents.
Banh Com/Mochi Treats
There is a stretch of about 2-3 blocks on Hàng Than with many purveyors of this rice-based sweet (and other sweets). We loved seeing at the very first shop that they were making them on-site. One of the employees gave us a sample. Good business move! We bought 5 boxes. The outside is green rice mochi and there is mung bean mash inside. We saw watched at several other shops as they filled boxes with similar green mochi and also yellow. We tried a yellow one and it had coconut inside. About one block in, we came to Xua Nay shop which had a storefront that looked fancier than the others, their sign proudly listing they opened in 1932, and a production line with 6 people busy making the mochi cakes behind glass (Address: 60 Hàng Than). We bought a single green cake for 10K Duong (40 cents) which was twice the price we had paid at the other shops! Result? No flavor inside. Perhaps it was something else that was white, but it was not particularly flavorful and the mochi part tasted the same as the other store. Our assessment: Our favorite was My Linh. We recommend you start at this shop at the top of the street (2 Hàng Than) and then sample single green or yellow as you wander to see which you like best.
Photos top row: My Linh shop with address and making the mochi treats
Bottom: Boxes of green Bahn Cun and production at Xua Nay shop, which was nice to see but we didn't like the quality as much
Banh Khoai/Fried Banana (or Banh Chuoi--fried sweet potato)
We lucked out that one of the receptionists at our hotel (Daniel) was a foodie and eager to share his recommendations. One evening, when we returned from finding our dinner, he surprised us with a fried banana. He said the change in the weather, from sunny to rainy, made him long for this food which is an autumn thing in Hanoi and he wanted to share it with us. So basically, fried banana is the local version of pumpkin spiced latte; fried bananas will be found in increasing numbers over the next few months.
The banana slice is coated with an unsweetened rice powder and deep fried. The result is crispy and not too sweet. The same sellers will also offer sweet potato slices. "No tour guide will take you to get these," he said, but it's the real-deal Hanoi treat. We went to the seller on the sidewalk at 1 Hang Dieu Street (FYI, from about 8 AM - 2 PM it's a pho sidewalk cafe; then from 2 - 9 PM they do fried banana and sweet potato).
Daniel said since we had eaten the bun rieu crab soup and the fried banana, we were now real Hanoi-ians :)
Price: 10K for each
Tip: there is a good banh mi set up next to this particular banana seller. We liked their grilled meat, toasted bread, more greens, and spicy sauce better than other permanent stores we tried. The sweet potatoes are visible in the rack over the pot in the first picture, with the long banana pieces in the frying oil. The photo at right shows the bahn mi and other fixings available.
Banh ran - Rice Donuts
Women sell these in carts (usually converted baby strollers with a basket on top) in several exterior flavors including sesame, sugar, and plain. The inside has mung bean. Show the woman how much you want to spend (like 5K or 10K) to try it out. Otherwise, they will load you up with 50K with which, if you like donuts, will probably be fine with you but we like to start smaller than that.
Chocolate
Maison Marou
Maison Marou is the shop first on everyone's list of chocolate locations in Hanoi. They are a nouveau bean-to-bar, eco-and-ethically conscious chocolate producer. The cafe also has non-chocolate savory items. The chocolate was pretty good. It is also expensive--about $4-$6 a bar, $6 for a slice of opera cake. The chocolate tart had a base that was good if a bit fruity, but the mousse topping was surprisingly good. In the photos below, you can see items for sale and their prices, employees making the chocolates, and the menu.
The Metropole Hotel
L'Epicerie du Metropole is inside the Sofitel hotel.
We needed chocolate while in this neighborhood. Prices were predictably high but quality was good. We had an opera cake that fed 2 and a raspberry mousse dome. Both were fresh with good flavors. We bought 3 types of chocolate truffles to take back to the hotel: cinnamon, green tea, and coffee.
We tried 2 roll cake slices: one chocolate and one corn. They were both good, and each was 55K dong or about US$2. The chocolate one was good quality chocolate and chocolately enough, and the corn was pleasant. They were both fresh and light and nicely packaged to take away. Address is 45 Tue Tinh
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