I don't intend for this to become a food blog, but food is such a large part of travel, especially in Asia. Vietnam certainly continues our fascination with food snacks. We are traveling on the "backpacker" economy, which means cheap but also very local and authentic. It also means great food. We are not using the large expensive restaurants (expensive being relative at US$4 or $5 a plate) -- rather we tend to use street food stalls.
Click on any of the photos for a larger version.
In Nanning, China, we visited a street given over to food stalls on the street at night. In this case, we selected the food items we wanted before entering the seating area off the street. Then the food was cooked over stoves on the street, and delivered to us.
In the soup, Hien is enjoying pig's brain.
It was very smooth in texture. We also had fish barbequed over a cooker that was brought to our table.
In Hanoi, as in the rest of Vietnam, the national food is pho, a noodle soup with meat (either beef or chicken) added. There is a pho outlet on every block. We also look for other specialty food stalls.
In the stall shown in the picture Hien is eating bahn cuon, a light rice-flour-based extremely paper-thin crepe or wrap rolled up with bits of minced pork and soaked in fish sauce (nuoc nam). Notice that the seating in all of these outlets are small short stools. It is taking some time to get used to lowering my old creaking body onto these stools. The other photo is shot looking out to the street where the food is cooked on the sidewalk. You can either eat the food in the stall or on the sidewalk.
For dinner, we ate at a cha gia (Vietnamese spring rolls) restaurant, with a plate of bun cha (barbequed ground pork with rice noodles) added. As usual, the food is cooked just off the sidewalk, but in this case we ate the food upstairs.
