re: Exploring the food culture in Vietnam beyond pho

Got to tied Phu Qu?c specialty dish, herring salad. I found out about this dish through YouTuber Chad Kubanoff. Essentially herring sashimi soak in lemon juice or vinegar and then tossed into a salad. Then you’d roll the herring salad with greens and dip it in fish sauce. My favorite roll this trip, so fresh.





Prior to eating the salad, one of my relatives went and bought some fried bananas. I wish went along to see how they did it because I can eat 4-5 in a sitting. I made fried bananas before but they’d take a back seat to these.

Phu Qu?c night market

Overall, it seems to be a tourist hot spot. Prices are marked up 30%-100%. As I walk through I can hear 4-5 different languages by the vendors and boy are they aggressive.



Live seafood


Cooked seafood


Handbags


Jewelry


Ice cream rolls


Grilled meat


Water coconut. I got this.


Another kind of coconut


Water coconut drink. Soft but little bland. I prefer the regular coconut meat.


Grilled stuff rice paper. Ok


Grilled pork skewers and ground beef wrapped in betel leaf. Good.


Octopus, very mid


After that I went to get some sweets. This is by far the winner of the night.

Seems like a light wafer, topped with fresh grated coconuts, roasted peanuts, black sesame, condensed milk, and some chewy string candy.


From one piece of candy, vendor makes a bunch of tiny threads


Very cool to eat. Crispy of the wafers, crunch of peanuts and coconuts, chewy candy thread. Right amount of sweet.

Yesterday went to a banh xeo restaurants and got couple of combo plates. All this for around $14, enough for 4 people.



Banh xeo (beef and shrimp), minced pork on sticks, vermicelli sheets, roasted pork belly, fried spring rolls. Other plate has boiled pork belly. You can eat as is or roll it up. I chose chose the later. Peanut and homemade fish sauces for dipping.

Went and got some che after sushi. Hard to say the correct translation for “che”. For people say it’s “sweet soup” but I don’t think that accurate because not all che are liquid based. Some che are think like a paste. Just know it’s probably the most popular dessert in VN cuisine.

Like I mentioned before, there’s hot che and cold che where ice is added. And it’s mostly eaten at night. And boy, do people come out to eat their che.





My plastic tiny chair is on the right. I was lucky enough to use it as a back rest.


There were 20 items on the menu, I got the palmyra palm and coconut milk Che.


I can see why it’s a hit among the locals. Very tasty cool and refreshing. Sit back eat, socialize, and watch people go by.

Great photo. Looks like the living is good. Families hanging out.

Loving this thread.

How long will you be there?

quote:

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XiaomaNYC?

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No, this nyc guy Vietnamese is choppy.

Probably three more weeks.

Had Hu Tieu noodle last night. Excuse the picture as this vendor is operating on a dark corner. It’s ok but very cheap, catering to low income locals.



In the morning I got on a bicycle and rode around the city. Stop on the Han river bridge for a couple of pics.

North end


South end, you can see famous Dragon bridge.


I got to the outside the perimeter of Con market when I saw a vendor selling baby clam rice. I’ve heard of this dish but never had it so I had to try it out. It’s a Hue specialty and the vendor is from the Imperial City based on her dialect.



Upon tossing it to eat, there’s all this greens and herbs on the bottom layer. It kind of a salad. It’s good not great but it’s one of those foods that makes you keep eating.




During lunch time, I saw a push cart vendor selling soft tofu with sweet ginger syrup. It’s used to be a very popular afternoon treat eaten by after school kids. This old lady vendor has been manual labor most of her life by looking at her hands. When she opened her cash box to give me change, I knew it’s been a slow day. I told her to keep the change abd she was grateful.



It doesn’t look good from appearance but it’s kind of a nice snack. Warm, silky smooth, a little sweet with a hint of ginger. It really brings back my childhood.

Just got through the 8 pages...really appreciate you doing these posts. Really great looking food and culture. I was in Vietnam back in the 90s for very short stay...didn't get to enjoy as was work focused trip. Spent a lot of time throughout SE Asia though and that part of the world truly is magical. Planning to go back in '25 to Japan for work and this time am going to add a week or so vacation time on the trip...and definitely going the Vietnam food tour route as you have inspired. Thanks again Pete