Traditional dishes in Hanoi

What to try in Hanoi

Vietnamese cuisine has incorporated Chinese, French, and Indian traditions. The Vietnamese have no inhibitions, so they eat everything: a variety of seafood (shrimp, octopus, cuttlefish, snails, etc.), various types of meat, including snake, turtle, ostrich, rat, and dog meat. True, the locals aren't big on dairy products, but you'll still have no trouble finding them in the stores.

What's the first thing to try in Hanoi?

Pho soup is the hallmark of Vietnamese cuisine. It's made from meat, rice noodles, sprouts, and herbs.

Nem, or spring rolls, are something Koreans borrowed from the Chinese. But today, you can't imagine local cuisine without these rice flour pancakes. Fried vegetables, glass vermicelli, and meat or seafood are wrapped inside. The resulting roll is then deep-fried.

Vietnamese Cuisine: What to Try

Rice vermicelli, bun, is generally included in many dishes, each with its own unique flavor. For example, roast pork is added to bunchu, beef to bunbo, and snails to bunyeok.

Another unusual dish is Chao rice porridge. It is most often served with small pieces of meat. To make it, rice is boiled until it is completely soft, and then fish sauce and lemongrass are added. This porridge is said to be good for an upset stomach.

Food in Hanoi

For a sweet treat, you can get banh com, a popular local dessert made of rice (you can't beat it!), peas, and coconut shavings wrapped in banana leaves.

But be careful not to overdo it with the local delicacies. The food here is unfamiliar to Europeans, so you may have digestive problems.