Eating my way from Saigon to Hue: Vietnamese Food

Today I want to talk a little bit about the things I have put in my mouth here in Vietnam but before I do I should talk a little bit about my travel buddy for a week through South Vietnam. His name is Douglas Tsoi and he is the founder of PUGS, the Portland Underground Graduate School. We have a lot of friends in common because he is in the sustainabilty sector, but got to know each other a little bit when I started taking PUGS classes about two years ago. If you haven’t heard of PUGS and live in the Portland area I recommend you check it out. Douglas was going to be in Vietnam at the same time as me and so we decided to travel together for a while.

I didn’t know it at the time but it turns out Douglas is a SERIOUS foodie. Like what I would consider three, sometimes four, square meals a day of good food kind of foodie. Don’t get me wrong, I love good food but I never make it the center of a vacation. However, since the food in Vietnam is so good I had no qualms, as long as we did other stuff too which luckily Douglas was also amenable to. Over the course of our week or so together we spent time in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City in South Vietnam and Hoi An and Hue in Central Vietnam. Originally we were going to travel to Hanoi, home of Pho which is in the North, but decided I wanted to take more time to enjoy the country so I abandoned him early.

In that time we went to two cooking classes, a street food motorbike tour, and about 15 other eating establishments. All of this was cheap, particularly by American standards. You can get a bowl of noodles or soup, banh mi, or plate with some kind of meat, rice, and sauce for less than $1 at a street food stall, and I haven’t yet had any kind of indigestion.

Before I dive into what we ate I will say that part of what makes Vietnamese food so good is the herbs that go along with them, including bean sprouts, pickled radishes and carrots, basil, mint, cilantro, and occasionally mustard greens and watercress. They also offer fish sauce, soy sauce, and chilis as condiments. One of the benefits is that you can season your food to your own liking so if you don’t like cilantro or spicy food for instance, you usually don’t need to eat it.

Onto the food! I can’t remember all the things we ate but here is a quick rundown of what I can recall organized by where I ate it. I have links to more information on many of the dishes or photos that either Douglas or I took. There are way more photos in here than my normal blog posts, because I think in this instance they really add to the content, but adding these all was a major exercise in patience so I won't be doing this again. Bon Apetit!

Saigon Street Food Tour from Hoa Tuc:

• Bahn Xeo - Vietnamese Pancake made with rice flour and egg. We also made this in our cooking class in RoHoi An. A fixture of most street food.

• Bahn Trang Nuong - Vietnamese Pizza - Not really a pizza but still good.

• Bun Bo Hue - A noodle soup kind of like Pho but from the Central Vietnamese city of Hue, which we enjoyed there too.

• Some kind of crispy crepe with bananas in it that I helped make but was not very good.

Saigon Cooking Class also from Hoa Tuc:

• Cuon diep: Mustard Leaf Roll with Crunchy Vegetables and Prawns

• Xoi chien: Fried Sticky Rice Fritters stuffed with Pork and Carrot

• Bo cuan la lot: Char grilled beef in betel leaf with lemongrass, served with a sweet and sour dipping sauce

Saigon other food:

• Douglas’ friend Judd, who is from Portland and in Saigon for a few years because of his wife’s job with Nike, took us to two restaurants in the center of the city, one was called Secret Garden and was on a rooftop terrace. You can see photos of all that we ate in the photo gallery. I can’t remember all what was here but all this food was no more than $15 per person.

• Banh Mi, including a breakfast one with egg and sausage in it.

• Coffee: Vietnam is the second largest grower of coffee in the world after Brazil. Coffee tends to come either very strong or very sweet with condensed milk. I prefer very strong on ice.

• Craft Beer - Douglas doesn’t really drink but we still stopped at two craft breweries, Pasteur St, which was my favorite because they put a few elements of Vietnamese cuisine in their beer, and East/West who’s brewmaster came from Amnesia in Portland. Craft Brew costs as much in Vietnam as it does back home...

Hoi An Cooking Class:

• A trip to the market where we bought herbs, meats, and noodles

• Typical Vietnamese Fresh Salad Rolls

• Bahn Xeo: That Vietnamese Pancake

• Stir Fried Noodles

• Pho

Other Hoi An Food:

• Banh Mi - there’s a place called Banh Mi Phoung that Anthony Bourdain likes. We liked it too. Douglas also went to a random stand right next to the tailor where I had some clothes made which is what is pictured here.

• Cau Lau - Noodle dish that is not a soup but has pork and what seem like pork rinds in it. Delicious.

• Various grilled meats

• Deep fried bread filled with fresh coconut - kind of like a donut but without as much sugar. I ate four of these.

• Banana Pancake: kind of like a crepe but everyone agreed it was better. You can put chocolate and/or condensed milk on the top.

• Random street food that was either Pork or Chicken based.

• I never did have Mi Quang noodles the other speciality dish from this region, oh well.

Fishing village halfway between Hoi An and Hue:

As part of our Easyrider motorcycle tour we stopped at a restaurant over a bay and our driver ordered a bunch of things, mostly seafood, for us to eat. Dishes included:

• Grilled oysters with some veggies in them

• Prawns

• Steamed clams with lemongrass

• Stir Fried Morning Glory which is similar to broccoli

• Tofu in a marinara sauce

• Pork

Hue:

We went to a random restaurant filled with locals that was probably my favorite meal with Douglas. The menu was only in Vietnamese but there were pictures and a helpful waiter. We ordered a stir fried vegetable dish, some chicken wings reminiscent of Portland’s Pok Pok, and a fish soup, which you can see in the gallery for the fishing village. They also give us 3 beers and all of this was less than $10 total.

Bun Bo Hue - noodle dish we also had in Saigon. Turns out it’s not the wisest choice before a 3 hour bus ride with no bathroom on account of all the broth.