Taking six weeks to tour Vietnam from north to south gave us the wonderful opportunity to sample regional specialties everywhere we traveled. To those unfamiliar with Vietnamese cuisine, you are probably imaging bánh mì sandwiches and bowls of noodle soup (probably phở). While we ate plenty of those, there was so much more variety than I had known, especially traversing nearly the entire country. This list is by no means complete; there are many more dishes that I would still like to try someday! To give you an idea of what we ate, I have broken this list down by each city that we visited.

We ate at many small, plastic tables like this throughout Asia.

Hà Nội

• Bún chả: I have already written my Ode to Bún Chả – far and away my favorite meal in all of Vietnam!
• Cà phê trứng: This is egg coffee – a sweet coffee drink made with egg yolks. Not as odd as it sounds!
• Bánh mì: A Vietnamese sandwich, bánh mì are offered on nearly every street corner across Vietnam. We ate these cheap and filling sandwiches in every city we visited, but tried our first in Hanoi at a stand near our apartment.
• Bánh bèo: The restaurant where we ate our first night in Vietnam had some pictures on the wall of food that they offered. We used this highly scientific method to point to one that looked good, called bánh bèo – small steamed rice cakes filled with shrimp.

Can you believe this coffee drink was made with egg yolks?!

Huế

• Rice balls: I couldn’t find the Vietnamese name for this anywhere! They were hollow balls of sticky rice, stuffed with a vegetable mixture and topped with a spicy sauce. We stopped by a street stall selling these and decided to try – they were a good snack!
• Bún bò Huế: Another delicious local soup, made with chunks of beef and thick noodles.
• Kẹo mè xửng: While on the walking tour of Huế, we stopped at a stall in the market selling sesame candies. I’m usually not a candy person, but I loved these and bought a large package to eat on our travels.
• Nem lụi: Ground pork that is grilled on a lemongrass skewer and served with vegetables, herbs and a rice paper wrapper. Dip this in some peanut sauce and you have a delicious treat!
• Bánh Tráng Trứng: The Vietnamese version of a pizza, served on a flat crispy bread and topped with various vegetables and sauces. We tried this while sitting under a bridge at the night market.

Bun Bo Hue with a couple of beers – $4.40 for both of us for dinner.

Hội An

• Cao lầu: A noodle dish from Hội An, this is served without any broth, making it different than the other noodle dishes that we tried across the country. Pork and greens accompany the thick, round noodles.
• Bánh bao bánh vạc: Known as White Rose, this dish is special to Hội An. Shrimp dumplings are made using water from a local spring and appear to be nearly translucent.
• Bánh mì: I know that I already described bánh mì above, but it deserves a second mention in this section. While in Hội An, we tried two different bánh mì stalls – opinions differ on which is the best. The battle of the bánh mì was between Bánh Mì Phượng (where Anthony Bordain ate during one of his tv shows and Jon’s top choice) versus Madam Khanh, the Bánh Mì Queen (a local favorite and my top choice). You’ll have to try them both yourself to decide!
• Tôm hữu: We made this dish ourselves during our farming experience in Trà Quế on a Typical Tuesday. It consists of leaves wrapped around a shrimp and then tied together with a slim green onion.

For lunch in Hoi An, we went to Café 43 for a selection of local dishes.

Đà Nẵng

• Mì quảng: A noodle dish from Đà Nẵng, made with wide, flat noodles and topped with herbs, a bit of minced meat, and a small amount of broth. While just as flavorful as the other noodle dishes we had tried, this one had a bit more of a kick to it!
• Bánh bao: Wanting a snack on our way back to the hostel, we stopped at a street stall selling these round buns. When we took a bite, we were surprised to find a small hamburger patty and hardboiled egg inside!

One of the many regional noodle dishes we tried – Mi Quang in Da Nang.

Đà Lạt

• Cà phê chồn: During our tour of the countryside, we stopped at a coffee plantation to learn how coffee is made. One thing we didn’t expect was to drink weasel poop coffee! The red ripe coffee berries are fed to weasels, who digest and then excrete the bean. The beans are washed and dried before being roasted and drank just like any other coffee. It was fairly expensive, but surprisingly appetizing!
• Egg and meat platter: The restaurant where we ate this didn’t give it a name – merely listed the ingredients on a numbered menu. We loved this dish so much that we returned again our second day for lunch! Eggs, pork, pate, and onion sizzle on a hot platter and are accompanied by fresh bread and a Coke. Simple but delicious.

It may not look too appetizing, but this meal was so delicious we went back the next day!

Hồ Chí Minh City

• Bột chiên: We tried dish from a street stall near Chinatown, as it originally hails from China. It consists of fried flour cakes (similar in texture to tofu) with scrambled eggs and herbs.
• Phở: The noodle dish that everyone has heard of and associates with Vietnamese cuisine. We finally ate some phở at the end of our time in the country, although I have to admit, I liked many of the other noodle dishes much better!
• Bò nướng lá lốt: This dish is very similar to grape leaves found in the Middle East – minced and spiced beef wrapped in leaves and then grilled.
• Egg waffles: I couldn’t find a Vietnamese translation for this, although the dish is again imported from China. I called these “bubble waffles” since it looked like a bunch of bubbles joined together. This served as my desert one evening on our walk back after dinner.
• Bánh xèo: This is a fried rice pancake, which is then stuffed with different meats or vegetables. When we ate this for dinner, it was larger than our plate and more than enough for the two of us to share! We ordered one with shrimp and fresh herbs.

While on a walk along the river, we stumbled upon this stall in an alleyway. Having no clue what it was, we ordered one serving and loved it!

As you can tell by this lengthy list, we did not go hungry while traveling across Vietnam! I found a new love of Vietnamese cuisine and only wish that there was a Vietnamese restaurant near me. Some dishes were better than others, but it was a lot of fun to research and try something new in every city we visited. What a fun way to get to know a country – by learning about and eating all of the local specialties!

*Note: The use of accent marks is inconsistent for a reason. I found it easier to refer to the cities by the Anglicized version, since this is what most of you will recognize. For the lesser-known places, food, or people, I’ve kept with the accent marks since this is what we got used to while traveling.