John’s Tours, Phu Quốc | Vietnam

Every tourist city in Vietnam seems to have an ubiquitous day tour, the low price/greatest hits combo that’s sold by every agency and hotel, but serviced by only one or two companies.

In Phu Quốc, that tour is the 4 island boat trip by John’s Tours, best with the Aquatopia water park/cable car upgrade, and often combined with evening squid fishing (and let me be super clear, I have not been compensated by them in any way):  https://phuquoctrip.com/daily-boat-trips

You can do the cable car and Aquatopia water park by yourself, of course, but I found that they were less expensive when combined with the tour due to the included hotel transfers. There was also more than enough time at the water park to do 5 or 6 of the big slides and a trip around the lazy river.

You can choose between tour boat and speedboat; I much prefer the tour boat! The islands are all pretty much the same anyway: OK beaches with seafood restaurants, coconut stands, and maybe a cocktail bar, plus weirdly contrived instagram stations and sun loungers costing $1-2 whether or not you buy a drink. Less than a month later, I did not even remember how many islands there were, much less any differences between them.

I appreciated the dedication to keeping me consistently buzzed, loved the packs of beach dogs, and was very amused by the trend among Vietnamese couples and families to wear matching tropical print ensembles for their photo shoots. That said, none of this is worth rushing towards in a cramped speedboat! The chill experience of sunbathing and napping and having lunch on the slow boat is far superior.

Lunch is included on the slow boat, and it’s pretty good: shrimp, fried tofu, fish soup, veggies and rice. Pretty early in the morning they offer up a variety of shellfish you can have barbecued and served with your lunch (for an additional cost). I didn’t order anything because it was too early in the morning, and the thought of seafood made me feel a bit nauseous. I regretted it! The prices were fair and the selection was the freshest, most exotic stuff, including a variety of bigger snails that are hard to find on local menus, sea urchins, and horn scallops.

Snorkeling was for maybe 30 or 40 minutes between two of the islands. A lot of the coral was bleached and there weren’t a ton of fish; visibility was OK but it wasn’t very colorful! However, I love swimming and snorkeling so for me it was a nice part of the trip.  

I’m no connoisseur of amusement parks or water parks, I find them a bit scary to be honest! There were definitely sufficiently frightening water slides for adults and big enough safe play zones for kids. I found myself *considering* a couple of the more precipitous water slides. I’m working on recognizing my feelings of anxiety and converting them to feelings of excitement, but got stuck picturing my lovely teeth cracking out of my mouth in some catastrophic accident. To be clear, I don’t think this is likely at all! Everything seemed very new, safe, and well-maintained . . . I’m just a work in progress!

The cable car was actually the most expensive and anticlimactic part of the trip. I think the cable car ticket alone is $20 or more. It was lovely, I guess I just enjoy being on the water more. There’s also nothing to do at either station (just overpriced souvenir shops), and you can get much better footage of the islands with a drone.

The evening squid fishing, available as a separate tour or as an add-on for $15, was a terrible disappointment. It was just another couple hours on the tour boat, not far offshore, with insufficient lighting to attract squid, and hand reels! My grandfather taught me how to fish with a pole as a 6 year old, I had never even touched a hand reel before. Needless to say, no one caught anything and there were some really disappointed dudes there. Dinner was also pretty terrible shrimp congee with very little shrimp. I can't recommend it!

All in all though, I had an excellent time and would do the same tour again.  To state the obvious, don’t do it on a rainy day!

Hội An Cuisine and Where to Eat It, According to Locals | Vietnam

Lastly, I MUST mention 2 truly outstanding “Western” restaurants . . .

BEST Italian:

Good Morning Vietnam

I spent two months straight in Hội An, and visited a few times over the course of 7 months. It was enough time to get to know the ladies I was staying with, and I was delighted to find that not only were they Hội An born and bred, they are also intrepid travelers themselves, and one trained as a chef in Saigon! I simply could not have been luckier in sourcing local restaurant recommendations.

I requested restaurants that are old and highly regarded, places popular with locals, their personal favorites, and (most importantly) true Vietnamese cuisine with strong emphasis on local specialities.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS LIST ON GOOGLE MAPS

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BEST ONE STOP SHOP:

Mót Hội An

150 Trần Phú, Old Town

The local food at this tiny restaurant is excellent and cheap, and the place is always packed. Their menu has all of Hoi An’s greatest hits: bánh mì, cao lầu, thịt nướng, cơm gà, bánh vạc bông hồng trắng, hoành thánh chiên, and mì quảng are all on the menu; plus phờ, spring rolls, and wonton soup.

Their popularity, however, stems from the traditional Chinese medicinal drink sold here for just 12,000 dong. Sometimes called lemonade, sometimes tea, the bare bones ingredients for chanh sả (which literally translates as lemongrass lime) are lime, lemongrass, cinnamon, ginger and honey. At Mót they incorporate several additional ingredients according to an old family recipe, originally formulated to soothe digestive ailments. It’s incredibly refreshing and delicious!

This restaurant is also smack in the middle of the Old Town, the most centrally located of any on this list. If I only had one day in Hoi An, I would just come here and order one of everything!

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BEST Bánh Mì:

Bánh Mì Phượng

2b Phan Chu Trinh, old town

Obviously, bánh mì is an ubiquitous food that didn’t originate in Hội An. Equally obviously, it tends to be a street food rather than a restaurant food. Yet, foodies seem to agree the best bánh mi in the country comes from two shops here, this being the more famous.

The back of their bags quote the late, great Anthony Bourdain as saying: “The world’s best delicious bread brand” . . . which he obviously didn’t, being a native English speaker. I’m sure whatever he did say was positive though, because the bánh mì here is fantastic, and the scene aired on his Travel Channel show. I probably saw it and forgot it myself, years before I ever imagined coming to Vietnam.

I always order the vegetarian (chay) because it’s so damn delicious: tofu marinated in local soy sauce (Vietnamese soy sauce is sweet, yellow/brown and thick, not at all like the Japanese sort imported into the US) then lightly fried; avocado slices; peanut pâté, sautéed eggplant; a stalk or two of rocket; a leaf or two of lettuce; chili sauce; and chili jam; all on a perfect Việt baguette (crispy but not tooth-cracking like its Parisian ancestor).

Lunch here is a truly class-free society moment: jetsetters, schoolboys, street cleaners, and office ladies all queue up. They have a seating area, but sometimes the owner’s husband is the only one there, chainsmoking and people watching, so I tend to order through Grab.

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ALSO THE BEST Bánh Mì:

Madam Khánh

115 Trần Cao Vân, old townish

Foodies are always pitting Phượng and the Madam against each other in some sort of perpetual bread battle. How dare they! They are both superb, though it appears the Madam’s daughter does the cooking these days. My personal favorite bánh mì of all time is Madam Khánh’s bánh mì trứng chiên. Pâté, slightly runny fried eggs, chili sauce and cucumber (on another great baguette) make this a breakfast favorite. I love it with their fresh blueberry juice.

The vibes in the seating area are way less hectic than at Phượng’s; it’s farther away from the tourist area, so there are more motorbike pickups than seated customers. Around 1pm is nap time and the lights go out, but you are welcome to sleep sitting up across two chairs with the fam if you need more time to digest.

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DON’T BOTHER:

Bale Well

45 Ngõ 51 Trần Hưng Đạo, old townish

Every other restaurant on this street is called Bá Lễ Well something or other, referring to the ancient well behind Bá Lễ’s house. Though there are 80+ wells in Hội An, this particular well is famous for a few reasons. First, it is truly ancient, constructed by the Champa in the 10th century. Also, it’s never run dry, and so has been the go-to well for locals, soldiers and sailors for hundreds of years; when you drink a cup of well water, you are presumably tasting a bit of history. Lastly, it’s mineral richness (particularly aluminum) gives the water a slightly sweet taste that is considered the make or break ingredient for the local specialty, cao lầu.

Bá Lễ is 90 odd years old, but still kicking around and locally famous. He maintains the well and that’s why it’s named after him. Another local elder, Nguyễn Dương, has delivered the well water to local restaurants and households since 1975, so people my age grew up on this well water. I’ve had tasteless cao lầu and very tasty cao lầu, and now I wonder if the well water really did make the difference!

At any rate, this particular restaurant is not known for its cao lầu, but for the local styles of bánh xèo and thịt nướng. Both are foods that are served nationally, but with distinct regional differences, so these are the central coast versions. I believe this place is popular because they have a set menu with displayed prices, provide all the sauce and veggie extras, and demonstrate to foreigners how to assemble the rolls properly. It was honestly nothing to write home about. I’ve had better bánh xèo from street vendors and found the thịt nướng slightly revolting, but that could be because I’m already not a pork person, and this I would barely call pork, it was more like strips of burnt pork fat.

For reference, bánh xèo are fermented rice pancakes colored yellow with turmeric. The Hội An version is relatively small; you get 3-4 pancakes where in Saigon you’d have the same amount of food in one giant pancake. The fillings also vary regionally and by taste; here there’s typically a lot of bean sprouts, a small square of bacon and a whole (shell, legs, and tail still on) grilled shrimp in each pancake. You can eat it as is, or open it up and pile on fresh and pickled veggies (usually lettuce, mint, cabbage, papaya, carrots, cassava, cucumbers), chili jam, fish sauce, mint, even peanuts, and re-roll in rice paper. Bale Well didn’t include the bacon, so despite all the fresh veg it was relatively bland, lacking the salty/sweet contrast of its competitors. It was also a bit spongy inside, not fried crispy at all, which again takes something away from the best versions of bánh xèo I’ve had.

Thịt nướng just means pork meat, and refers to grilled fatty pork. It’s assembled in much the same way, rolled in lettuce leaves and rice paper wrappers, having been dressed with veg and sauce. It’s the sibling of bún thịt nướng, which is the same thing over white rice vermicelli-like noodles, and the cousin of bún chả, the Hanoian iteration with minced pork meatballs and a soup base. Just the smell of this on people can make me feel nauseous, so for me it was a YOLO fail. Your mileage may vary!

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BEST Bánh Xèo & Thịt Nướng:

Sông Hoài

An Hội island

There are only four items on the menu here; all dishes are 35,000 dong and all are meant to be shared. I found the bánh xèo and thịt nướng here to be far superior. The bánh xèo was still a bit oily for my taste, but the least greasy out of all the places I tried. They also used the highest quality pork of any place so far, alternating between squares of melted bacon type cuts and tender, soft strips. The thịt nướng here was likewise the best I’ve eaten for the same reason: the pork was simply higher quality and cooked with more care, and therefore tastier. There’s also an incredibly cute bulldog here, whose presence is guaranteed to cheer you up!

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BEST Mì Quảng:

Mì Quảng Bích

272 Hùng Vương, outskirts

Mì Quảng is named for Quảng Nam province, so it’s a true local specialty (as opposed to a local take on a common food). Mì Quảng is composed of thick rice noodles in a savory broth made with garlic, shallots, black pepper, fish sauce and turmeric, in addition to the local herb infusion found in all Việt noodle soups.

The added protein varies, but in Hội An, if no request is made, you can expect thinly sliced pork or whole shrimp, topped with green onion and peanuts. A deluxe version will have both, and/or hard boiled quail eggs. Some places allow special orders for chicken, but it’s not really the best in this dish. As with all other Việt noodle soups, mint, lettuce, bean sprouts, limes, chilis, and fish sauce are served on the side and can be added to taste. It’s also served with bánh tráng mè (toasted sesame rice crackers) that you can break up and add for crunch. Growing up with Stella D’Oro breadsticks, that toasted sesame taste resonates with me!

Mì Quảng Bích’s recipe is absolutely delicious. Her place is very local yokel, the kind of place where you get the impression the young kids and ancient ladies staring at you may never have seen a foreigner up close and personal before. From the center of the old town, it’s a 40-50 minute walk along the river; it’s nice on a temperate day but I had trouble getting a Grab to drive me back. She only serves two dishes, mì quảng and cao lầu, and her mì quảng has shrimp, thinly sliced roasted pork and quail eggs, and tastes very fresh and slightly spicy. It’s super busy at breakfast and lunchtime, and I would happily go back any time I’m out that way.

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I WON’T BE BACK:

Mì Quảng Ông Hai

6A Trương Minh Lượng, old town

Locals and bloggers alike agree that Mì Quảng Ông Hai is the place in Hội An to have this dish. Unfortunately, I was refused service there. I’d like to believe it was a terrible misunderstanding, but it seemed to be xenophobia; they had recent reviews posted from Vietnamese people, and people eating outside, but turned me away one Wednesday night. I thought I just got there too late . . . a lot of mom and pop shops around here close at 8. So I went back early Friday evening, and again there looked to be people eating outside, and again I was told they were closed. I asked if they’d be open on Monday and was told no, they’re closed “because of coronavirus.” So . . . they’re open for Vietnamese people but closed to me, “because of coronavirus.”

To be clear, borders closed March 22nd and I was trying to eat on November 17th. One would assume I live here, not that I somehow illegally entered the country within the past nine months and have been spreading deadly, yet unreported disease ever since. No one in Vietnam has tested positive since September, and the last positive case was community transmission between Vietnamese people. The only people allowed in the country are Vietnamese nationals, so the only people importing coronavirus into the country are Vietnamese nationals. Brutal question: do they really think I’ll make them sick, because they are old/uninformed/don’t understand . . . or have they always loved tourism money while still resenting tourists, or white people, or Americans, or whatever I look like to them, and this is their rare opportunity to say no to someone like me, with fewer of us around lately?

More importantly, is their food worth all that? I’LL NEVER KNOW BECAUSE I WON’T BE BACK.

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BEST Hến Trộn with Bánh Đập
. . . BUT DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU:

Quán Ăn Bến Tre

Xuyên Trung, Cẩm Nam island

This place is known for three things: hến trộn, bánh đập, and scamming tourists. Yet it remains the go-to place, frequented by locals because it’s a third generation business that’s been serving the island’s signature dish for over 50 years. There are many google reviews mentioning the scam: first the proprietress hands you a professionally printed English menu where the price is double the prices on the Vietnamese sign; later, when she presents you the bill, it’s again somehow more than you were expecting. I believe I paid $12 for the clams, smashing rice paper and a single beer, which by local standards is absolutely ludicrous. I don’t always mind being scammed; for example,15,000 dong (65 cents) doesn’t matter much to me, but can really help out a street fruit seller..

This lady, on the other hand, has clearly inherited and expanded a longstanding family business, and had the audacity to debate me on Trump (her for and me against, obviously). I explained I disliked him for many reasons, but primarily the diabolical wealth transfer executed during the pandemic. FYI, the Fed printed exponentially more money than ever before in history, so billionaires could double and triple their net worths while the average American received a single $1200 check many months into the crisis, or never received one at all, because this type of relief is only available to people with permanent addresses and bank accounts in good standing, who also filed their taxes properly in 2019 . . . in other words, cruelly excluding those who need help the most.

This lady posited that according to her sister in Texas, the US government was sending weekly relief checks. I explained that only if you already qualified for unemployment payments, you got an extra $600 per week for a few months, but that ended 5 months ago. Also, due to lockdowns and backlogs at already poorly run state agencies, many people were unfairly denied, or made to wait for weeks or months for their first payment, or sent debit cards to old addresses and just never got paid. When filing my 2020 taxes I was informed by New York State that I had received relief funds that must be declared, when I never received a cent. And again, this method excludes the neediest people in the country, those who didn’t qualify for unemployment and were already struggling before the pandemic.

This is where the conversation went left, with the restaurant owner repeatedly insisting her sister told her it’s $1200 every month and they’re still getting it thanks to Trump. We went back and forth several times, with me responding that it’s just not the case (thinking that perhaps she didn’t understand me due to the language barrier, or that she had misunderstood her sister), and her suggesting I was either ignorant because I was not physically present in the US, or just not believing Trump was doing something good because I didn’t like him.

And this was all before I had touched the food! I found myself slightly hungry, more than a little annoyed, and wondering: why is she asking me questions when she clearly has answers she likes? Why does she need to “win” a casual chat with an American, also a paying customer, about America? Does Trump pay her bills as well as her sister’s? But of course, an argumentative scammer with no time for facts would like Trump.

Back to the food! Hến trộn is tiny river clams sautéed with mint, onion, peanuts, and perhaps some spices or fish sauce. It’s served with bánh đập, which is a super thin three layer rice cake: the outer layers are crisp, but the inner layer is left soft and translucent. You crack a stack of it into pieces with your palm before dipping it into an ultra concentrated local fish sauce, and scooping up the clams with it. The fish sauce is strong enough that it’s served to foreigners with soy sauce to dilute as necessary, because many people can’t stomach ít.

The rice crackers were fun, the fish sauce really was a bit putrid, and the clams were just OK. To be clear, I love clams. As a partially Sicilian New Yorker, clams are in my comfort zone: straight out of the shell in their own liquor; raw with a dab of ketchup; spaghetti alle vongole, oregenata at restaurants . . . we even had Clamato juice in the fridge growing up (which sounds gross until you learn anchovy paste exists). Maybe I need to try a different restaurant, maybe I just prefer my own way over the Vietnamese version, same as snails. I thought they could use a little garlic ;)

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BEST Cao Lầu:

Trung Bắc Restaurant

87 Trần Phú, old town

Cao lầu is Hội An‘s most iconic dish, and making it is quite involved. The water used to make the noodles must come from the Bá Lễ well; those noodles are then soaked in lye leached from the ashes of herbs grown on Cham Island. The complicated process of making the noodles gives them a slightly chewy texture, faintly smoky flavor, and yellow color. The typical topping is sliced char siu pork, bean sprouts, onions, lettuce, and various herbs, with just enough pork broth poured over top to wet the noodles, plus deep fried squares of the noodle dough.

This was unexpectedly delicious. We know I’m not a pork person and the first bite was hard for me, but this was melt-in-your mouth good. The noodles were delicious, the taste was simultaneously fresh, savory and warming. I truly enjoyed it. I also have no doubt that theirs is a wholly authentic version; the only people there were me and 4 really old local dudes taking a break from their card game on the stoop next door. We often hear the words subtle, fresh, and nuanced in reference to Vietnamese cuisine; when done poorly it’s painfully bland, but when done well, magic can happen, and this was it.

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THE LITERAL ONE AND ONLY White Rose Dumpling (Bánh Vạc Bông Hồng Trắng)
& Wonton (Hoành Thánh Chiên) PLACE:

White Rose Restaurant
(Nhà Hàng Bông Hồng Trắng)

533 Đ. Hai Bà Trưng, old townish

This restaurant only makes two dishes: bánh vạc bông hồng trắng and hoành thánh chiên.

Bánh vạc bông hồng trắng, or “white rose dumplings”, are more than a local dish, they are a recipe closely guarded by a single family that’s been manufacturing them for generations. They own this restaurant, and they supply all the other restaurants in town. So, no matter where you eat them, this is where they came from.

There are no roses in the dough; the name comes from their resembling a fully bloomed flower when cooked, and was supposedly bestowed by a French patron in the colonial era. The dough is prepared with water from the Bá Lễ well, and the filling is a proprietary shrimp paste. They also include a few with minced veggie filling for variety. Fried onions are sprinkled on top,and the dipping sauce is a bit sweet, made with lemon juice, sugar, chilis, and shrimp broth. These are subtle and delicious!

Hoành thánh chiên is often lumped into the “Hoi An pizza” category by bloggers, but it’s nothing like bánh tráng nướng. It’s actually the same white rose dumplings, but deep fried into wontons and topped with a sweetened ratatouille of tomatoes, oyster mushrooms, white onions, tiny bits of mango and grilled shrimp. In the restaurant it’s served opened faced and gets too soggy for my liking. I prefer to order it to go and put the ratatouille in a bowl, breaking up the wontons and dipping them in like chips.

Both dishes are simple and satisfying, as long as you don’t mind slightly sweet food.

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BEST Cơm Gà:

Cơm Gà Bà Buội

22 Phan Chu Trinh, old towN

The history of cơm gà is interesting: in the 17th and 18th centuries, Hội An was Vietnam’s largest trading port, and many Chinese (and a few Japanese) families moved to the town and province for business reasons. With them came their cuisine, and some of it stuck around. This dish hails from Hainan island, and uses their “white cutting” method for preparing chicken: first boiling it in herb and onion infused water, then shredding it and dressing it lightly in salt, pepper and lime juice. The rice is cooked in the resulting chicken broth, sometimes with garlic or shallots added. The meal is served with a small cup of the chicken broth, a small dish of shredded papaya and carrots, herbs on the side, and if requested, a small bowl of cooked innards.

With such a simple meal, the highest quality ingredients and the right blend of herbs is everything. Bad cơm gà is bland verging on inedible; great cơm gà is still quite boring in my opinion, but refreshing in its simplicity, the kind of food I would eat if I had a sick stomach and needed to cut sugar, spice and grease. That’s probably why Vietnamese people are usually thinner than Westerners, the mentality isn’t about seeing everyday food as an opportunity to overindulge, but as a tool to stay energized.

This restaurant has been the go-to place for the dish for over 50 years, and theirs is the best I had. They also serve corn milk and black sesame milk if you need an exotic hit of carbs.

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ALSO THE BEST Cơm Gà:

Cơm Gà Bà Hồ

16 phan chu trinh, old town

In business since 1969 (side note: wow what a tough year to hang out a shingle in Vietnam), this restaurant has their own well, and the cơm gà is cooked by a granny. Who could ask for more? It will never be my favorite dish (too boring) but the version served here is tasty and authentic. Of particularly good quality was the broth; it was incredibly familiar to me, tasting just like the chicken broth at old school Chinatown restaurants. It makes sense given the southern coastal Chinese diaspora of 200 years ago, and it was wonderful to discover that these dishes I’ve eaten literally across the world from each other are so true to the ancient original.

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BEST Bánh Bèo:

Bánh Bèo Bà Mỹ

Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai, old town

Bánh bèo hails from slightly further north in Huế, but the two cities were closely entwined as long as Hội An was a primary port, bringing in luxury imports for consumption at the royal court. The dish consists of glutinous rice and tapioca flour shells, topped with with a bit of dried shrimp and onions, pork skin or sliced cinnamon sausage, and topped with a sweet nước mắm pha dipping sauce. This is more of a snack than a meal; it’s best shared with friends and washed down with iced tea. It’s a bit bland for me; I find myself filling the cups with the sweet dipping sauce. However, this restaurant has been serving them up for over 20 years, so if you’d like to try them, it’s a great choice.

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BEST Bún Đậu Mắm Tôm:

Quán Dâu Bắc

71 Đào Duy Từ, old townish

Bún đậu mắm tôm is not for everyone! The central flavor of the dish comes from extremely pungent fermented shrimp paste, served with Vietnamese type salad greens, sliced cucumber, fried tofu, fried and boiled pork belly, fried spam, and fried new rice cakes. If you can’t tell from the preponderance of fried elements, this is kind of a late-night-drinking-with-friends food. The dish originated in Hanoi, but this is the wildly popular central coast version.

Run by two ancient ladies and an English fluent daughter, a cadre of elderly local women hang out here in the daytime, and invited me to snack on the tiniest snails ever with them. Fun!

Vinpearl Safari, Phú Quốc | Vietnam

VinPearl Safari Phú Quốc is wonderful! I wasn’t sure what the standards for a zoo would be like in Vietnam; I was concerned about dirty, small enclosures etc. and needn’t have been. VinPearl has two parks on the northeastern part of the island, this zoo and an amusement park, and you can buy either individual or combo tickets. I have no interest in amusement parks, so I didn’t buy the combo ticket; that said, the zoo takes up a full day so I recommend you buy individual tickets even if you plan on visiting both.

The tickets aren’t cheap; they’re the equivalent of $25- $35 depending on season. During big holidays and school vacation periods, the tickets are both more expensive AND they force you to buy a ticket with a meal coupon. In low season, you can buy a no-food ticket and the price is a bit lower.

As you can probably guess, the food here isn’t good; the required meal included:

• what my family used to call a ‘hockey puck’ of steak

• one of those terrible little hot dog sausages so popular in Vietnam

• a fried egg

• a small handful of french fries

• perhaps 2 slices each cucumber and tomato on the side

I much prefer to get the low season no-food ticket and just pay cash at a kiosk for a beer, ice cream, or ice coffee if I need a blood sugar boost. This is also my favorite option because it affords some quiet and privacy; the larger restaurants in the resort are clogged with families on group tours.

I keep calling it a zoo because safari is a bit of a misnomer.

The ‘safari’ is a 10 or 15 minute bus ride where you do get closer to the animals, assuming you can manage a view past many screeching children held up to the windows by their equally loud parents, who also jostle each other constantly rushing back and forth from one side of the bus to the other. The good news is you can go on the ride for free as many times as you want; I recommend sitting or standing on the left side of the bus for the best views.

If you prefer a serene experience, you won’t miss anything by skipping the safari ride. The same animals are displayed (at a distance, of course) in the zoo section.

Hàm Ninh Fishing Village, Phu Quốc | Vietnam

Hàm Ninh fishing village is on the east coast of Phu Quốc. True to its name, this is a ramshackle village where you can buy freshly caught live fish and shellfish in the market, or have it simply prepared at one of the many restaurants propped on jetties on the beach. There has been zero effort made to appeal to tourists, and no English is spoken. The pier is actually being demolished due to the local government’s concerns about overfishing and pollution.

You can’t walk along the beach to go restaurant to restaurant, you have to have to walk the side streets parallel to the beach to find the entrances. Some of the restaurants have prices listed as ‘market price’, which (if they’re handing you a menu saying that in English) is bullshit. You will be charged a different, premium price to the locals, and be told that you have to order a high minimum weight, or that you have to order a high weight to get anything other than a plain boil. I was told at one place the minimum order to have slipper lobsters fried with chili was 4 kilos, if I wanted to buy less than that they would be served boiled with no condiments. Just, why? I obviously can’t eat almost 9 pounds of shellfish, can’t we find a middle ground?

I recommend you find a place where the daily prices per kilo are clearly marked, and their weight minimum per type is one kilo. As a single person, many places will even agree to cook half a kilo each of different shellfish for you. For reference, that’s 3-4 large oysters, or 2-3 slipper lobsters. I was happy with the variety and freshness at Thuận Kiểu 2, but you can also check recent google reviews for other places. Even ordering the most exotic stuff, all you can eat, and a couple beers each, it’s really difficult to spend more than $30 per person at these places.

It may seem obvious, but Western seafood basics are not available here. There is no melted butter, corn, or bread, for example. The norm here for seafood is chili sauce, lime and salt; you can order typical Vietnamese accompaniments like white rice and water spinach.

Also, the preparations are not particularly skilled or nuanced. One of my favorite meals of all time was the conch I had at Café des Artistes in Key West twenty years ago now . . . I still remember it, it was that good. The conch I had here was inedible rubber. Likewise, it is tiny slices of processed American cheese melted over these oysters, hardly Oysters Rockefeller! Most things here are just served plain, boiled or grilled; the standard ‘seasoned’ preparation is a bit of garlic oil, lemongrass and peanuts.

Given the lack of sophisticated cooking, everything here is much more conveniently available at the night market. If you want to have a big variety for lunch, though, this is the spot. Likewise, if you are interested in trying all the local specialties in the shortest amount of time possible, this strip of restaurants is a great way to do it. I personally discovered a new love: sea urchins! They have a mellow, almost beefy taste. Highly recommend!

The Night Market, Phú Quốc | Vietnam

All tourist cities in Vietnam have night markets, and they become boring after a while. It’s typically sketchy merchandise, sketchy street food, really aggressive vendors, swarms of locals who don’t have the same cultural norms about personal space . . .

I’ve become so unimpressed by them that I considered skipping the Phú Quốc night market, and I am so happy I didn’t! It is small but excellent. Of course there is junk for sale and some seafood that looks more dead than alive, but the good stuff here is really really good.

I wouldn’t buy pearls here, but there are huge natural shells for just a few bucks, the type decorators pay $40+ each for in New York. There are also tons of seafood options, though scams are the norm (do NOT believe the 20k BBQ signs, your meals will magically come out to $10-$15 per person)! The atmosphere is obviously a loud open air party type atmosphere.

The market supposedly opens 4:00PM - 11:00PM daily; I think 4 is a bit early and it’s better to go for dinner or just after. Weekends are best if you really want to experience the scene.

On google maps you’ll see many locations listed as Chợ Đêm Phú Quốc, or “night market” in a couple other languages, and think, well which one is it? The answer is, all of them. The spots on google maps loosely mark the perimeter. I would say the main drag is along Đường Bạch Đằng, but it stretches down side streets and wraps around a few blocks, with the local restaurants in Dương Đông participating too. If you’re taking a cab and want to get as close as possible, ask the driver to take you to the Cao Đài Temple. That’s about one block away from the action, which you will be able to plainly see.

There’s also old info online and a google maps spot for the Dinh Cau night market. This is not what you want! That’s just a couple daytime fruit sellers and a taxi stand. Have fun!

Phú Quốc Specialties, Part 2: Honey, Pepper, Fish Sauce & Crocodiles | Vietnam

1. Honey

The Phú Quốc bee farm was fabulous! The employees there give incredibly detailed tours of the hives and gardens; I learned more about the life cycle and roles of honey bees than I ever knew. Like the dog kennels, the owner’s first attempt was apparently a homicidal failure, with the indigenous mountain wasps feasting on hundreds of thousands of imported honey bees. They also initially overstretched in their attempts to build large, diverse fruit and flower gardens; though there’s nothing alive in the greenhouse, they have managed to maintain durian, pineapple, coconut and banana trees here and there.

Their specialty is infused honeys; my favorite was cinnamon, but the durian, pepper, ginger, flowers, and turmeric were all absolutely delicious. All of the honey here is raw, which is to say straight out of the honeycomb. I hadn’t realized that I was accustomed to pasteurized and sweetened honeys; the taste of fresh raw honey really is superior. They have a small restaurant where you can order teas and cocktails built around the honeys, and I swear it was one of the best cocktails I’ve ever had! I can’t see myself bothering to head out that way again solo, but wouldn’t hesitate to revisit with a friend.

2. Pepper

Like honey, pepper is such an everyday food that I previously considered them more or less interchangeable. Not so! Again, this fresh pepper was by far the best I’ve ever tasted. Phú Quốc pepper is actually a huge export, famous for being the best in the world; apparently they have the same plants as in India but a superior climate.

All Anglo diaspora tables are set with white salt and black pepper; being partially Sicilian I’m also used to using white or red pepper in specific dishes. It’s something that’s always matched a certain way, like wine: arrabbiata only uses red pepper and besciamella only white; they simply aren’t made any other way.

Having never given this any thought, I was truly surprised to learn that the red pepper flakes I know are in fact dried chilis, and red peppercorn is a totally different flavor, ripened and sweet. It’s the rarest pepper because timing the picking has to be just right, and it’s harder to dry than black and white pepper. Green, black, white, and red pepper are all from the same plants, the difference in color and flavor is due to the method of drying:

• Green pepper is harvested and dried in the shade before ripening. It tastes tart, not fully peppery.

• Black pepper is harvested when green peppercorns are just beginning to ripen and turn red. After 3 days of drying in the sun, the peppercorns turn black. This is baseline pepper flavor.

• White pepper is black pepper with the blackened skin removed. It tastes more mild than black pepper. The difference between black and white pepper is the difference between red and white wine.

• Red pepper is the rarest and most expensive, it is left to become fully red and ripe before being dried in the shade.

There are many pepper farms on Phú Quốc, but the Phú Quốc Countryside pepper farm has a wonderful English speaking owner and a little restaurant where you can order a pepper tea, their totally modern concoction. I actually really enjoyed it, it is perfect for gently clearing the sinuses if you are sick, or closing the appetite after a meal! They also sell pepper salt, each of the different types of pepper, jars of mixed peppercorns, and a pepper sauce that mixes pepper salt and fish sauce and is great for marinating BBQ or dipping fruit (for a more local flavor).

3. Fish Sauce

Fish sauce is another iconic export of Phú Quốc; it is ubiquitous in Vietnamese households and the most desirable types are exported all around the world. It is Vietnam’s first export to achieve EU PDO (product of designated origin) status. So, just as Champagne is strictly made from 6 types of grape grown and bottled within 100 miles of the Champagne region outside Paris (everything else is crémant), Phú Quốc fish sauce is made strictly from a rare species of anchovy (called Rice Fish) indigenous to the 22 island Phú Quốc archipelago, and bottled on the island (everything else is just fish sauce).

There’s not much to see at the fish sauce factory; gigantic vats of anchovies are pumped with brine and left to ferment. The brine recipe is 1 part salt, 2 parts water. After the first week, the fermented liquid is drained from the vats and then recirculated into them daily, to create consistency in the sauce. The vats are loosely covered with tarps; the lack of an airtight environment means that local weather affects the quality of the sauce. The rattan vats also impart a certain flavor; like whisky barrels, ancient vats are prized, and some are 200 years old.

Generally speaking, the longer the fish ferments, the more nitrogen rich it becomes, the less “fishy” it tastes, and the more expensive the sauce. However, according to the owner I spoke with, even with the same fermentation time and vat position, sauces from different years will have different amounts of nitrogen due to unpredictable weather; therefore some vintages are unexpectedly better than others and you just never know! Lastly, the local anchovies are becoming endangered due to overfishing and damage to their habitats, so great vintages are becoming rarer and more exclusive.

There is a grading system; the first extraction is the best, and subsequent extractions are diluted with salt water. So, the best you can buy is a bottle of the first extraction of a great vintage straight from the factory; the worst you could encounter would be last extraction, much diluted with seawater, blended with sauce made from other fish, and diluted again in a restaurant. In other words, the difference between a great vintage of Champagne and a minimart white wine spritzer. As with olive oil, the highest quality is typically reserved for dipping and used in luxury cooking, and the least expensive is consumed by the barrel in cheap restaurant kitchens.

4. Crocodiles

The last local industry I had to witness was the crocodile farm! Crocodile skin goods are a luxury product everywhere, but more accessible in Vietnam due to the farms being local. Don’t misunderstand; a small handbag will still cost you $700 here, just not $7000 like in Italy or Hong Kong, or $30,000+ like at Gucci, Chanel and Hermès. I am not morally against consuming animals, but I don’t want the animals I consume to live in misery, die in fear or experience torturous pain. So, I was very curious to see what was happening here.

Hundreds of crocodiles live here, with perhaps 20 to 40 grouped together in a pen. Their holds have a large concrete area for sunning and a large pool for swimming; they are drained and refilled on a schedule, and the crocs are fed on a schedule. In my opinion the pools should be drained and cleaned more frequently because they smelled bad (that’s clearly where the crocs defecate) but I just don’t know enough about it. The owner didn’t speak English so I couldn’t ask any questions.

None were displaying aggression; none had obvious health problems; all seemed well fed. When I walked by the first time, they all jumped in the water; after that they ignored me. Crocs are silent, they open their mouths to regulate their body temperature. They are fast runners as well as fast swimmers, and, I was surprised to see, cuddlers! They like to drape themselves on top of one another even when there is open space available.

A little research tells me lifespan on a farm is typically a year or two, and in the PETA videos of other Vietnamese farms, they are first electrocuted and then their throats are slit. According to reptile experts, it takes approximately an hour for a reptile to die with this method, so skinning them during this time is very cruel. It seems the current goal is to incapacitate them enough that they don’t hurt the workers while being slaughtered; for me it is an ethical imperative to render them unconscious prior to slaughter.

That said, I believe methods could easily be updated to a humane standard (like the one maintained by Cape Croco in South Africa) without any reduction in profit. I also think the banning of exotic skins by luxury houses panders to a naïve customer base that can’t afford them anyway. Do people honestly think the chickens and cows they eat lived marvelous lives? Brands will bring exotics back when designers or trends change. The current moratorium is just an excuse to cut a far less profitable, older segment of clientele, and perhaps gain some social currency to boot.

Phú Quốc Specialties, Part 1: Pearls, Dogs & Wine | Vietnam

Phú Quốc is a dreamy holiday island; its primary pleasures are warm shallow waters, lavender and cantaloupe sunsets, and fresh shellfish. However, there are also several unique island exports I found interesting! In fact, there are enough to warrant more than one post, so today I’ll focus on the three most expensive specialties: pearls, dogs, and wine.

1. Pearls

Called “the pearl island,” pearl farming is big business here. Any of the really large pearl jewelry shops have an extensive educational tour about types of pearls, culturing pearls, and timelines to grow different pearls. Unfortunately, it’s all part of a medium/high pressure sales pitch for their incredibly overpriced merchandise! And I don’t say that thinking everything should be cheaper just because I’m in Vietnam. On the contrary, at home in New York City I can buy the same type, color and diameter pearls, of equal or better quality, with14k or 18k settings (as opposed to sterling silver), for one third to one half the price.

That’s right, on this little island in Vietnam they are charging double or triple what I would pay at an auction house, estate jeweler, or local jeweler at home in Manhattan. If you only know the latest retail prices at Cartier or Tiffany, local prices ~might~ seem fair, but the designs are generic and inferior enough to void any value comparison. Perhaps perceived value is different for tourists from other places; I have no idea what pearls go for in Japan or Russia, for example. Maybe there’s a cultural difference I’m unaware of . . . do they expect people to offer half the ticket price and bargain from there? For anyone from the Americas or Western Europe, buying here would just be silly, so window shopping is an interesting afternoon activity at the price of feeling guilty for not purchasing.

2. Dogs

Another Phú Quốc specialty that I just don’t comprehend is the breeding and sale of indigenous ridgeback dogs. There are only three ridgeback breeds (Rhodesian, Thai, and Phú Quốc) and Phú Quốc’s is the most recently appreciated and rarest. In Hanoi and Saigon, specialty breeders and trainers pay $5000- $15,000 for the finest specimens, so I expected the home of the breed to have some specialized facilities for them.

I was unfortunately terribly mistaken. The lead breeder of the dogs seems to make his money off of $2 entrance fees charged to tourists, and locals betting on weekly races around a sort of obstacle course. I don’t know if dogs are routinely purchased here or if it’s more of a rescue/adoption type facility, but there didn’t seem to be high conformation standards. Also, while the obstacle course isn’t a harsh racetrack (it’s more of an agility course) the dogs I saw were not maintained well. They were all living outdoors, flea ridden, and I saw two with serious untreated conditions that I didn’t photograph for fear of getting kicked out (one with very advanced mange covering its entire body; the other limping with what seemed to be a broken lower leg bone).

When I did a bit more research on the owner, I found that his first attempt at a kennel ended in literally all of his dogs dying, which he attributed to his ignorance of how to maintain their health in a forest facility. Needless to say, he isn’t well respected. The dogs seem well fed and genuinely loved, and I do appreciate that just a generation ago many of them might have been a birthday dinner, so they’re doing relatively well . . . but it was still tough to witness. They really need a vet.

3. Wine

The last luxury specialty I want to mention today is wine. At the Simson factory, you can visit the gardens and see how sim, noni, myrtle, and seahorse wines are made. Before visiting I didn’t even know what sim and noni fruits were, I had never seen either before. And of course I know what a seahorse is, but never dreamed people would make wine with them. It’s all impossibly exotic! Their “wine” is what we would consider liquor (with 30%+ alcohol content), but they also sell nonalcoholic syrups; you can also buy sim and noni slushies, ice cream, and candies.

As for taste, it’s all sort of a lark over ice cream or frozen yogurt or mixed with tonic water. They tasted fine but I wouldn’t seek them out for repurchase. Though I didn’t fall in love with anything, I can understand how a local would nostalgically relish them; they certainly taste as good as Campari or Pastis.

Cội Nguồn Museum, Phú Quốc | Vietnam

There are few places I enjoy more than a musty dusty old museum! One of the joys of Vietnam is that every reasonably sized city seems to have one. They invariably feature prehistoric artifacts, local fauna preserved in formaldehyde, antique porcelain, some wartime paraphernalia, a gallery of portraits of the local Communist Party chairmen over the past 20+ years, and a display on local industries.

Phú Quốc’s “local museum” seems to be owned/run by the owner of the hotel next door, and has obviously been invested with so much care from the community. It is incredibly thorough, with jars of sand from every beach on the island, slices of wood from every type of tree in the forest, skeletons and skulls of rare and extinct local species, etc.

The artful displays and layouts wind you upstairs chronologically, from the natural history and wonders of Phú Quốc on the first floor, to Stone Age tools and artifacts, a thousand years of ceramic examples, and the history of local rule and religion during the various dynasties on the second floor, to community displays on locally prominent families, current commercial specialties and government leadership on the third floor. Tucked away in a corner case are the traditional procession costumes used for the holidays.

The big, airy, quiet building provides respite from the heat and sun; the entry ticket is less than $1. There’s also an extensive gift shop of handmade local products. It’s a wonderful place to spend an hour or so!

Coconut Prison, Phú Quốc| Vietnam

Some places make you want to scream and cry, and the “Coconut Prison” is one of them. As an American, my concept of serving time is: of course you better watch your mouth and watch your back, and you may endure abuse anyway; but you are assured of medical care, a roof over your head, a pillow, clean clothes, two meals a day, a flushing toilet, a regular shower, visiting days, perhaps even a library or cable TV. It’s a lot more than free, poor, non-criminal Americans get treated to by our government.

Coconut Prison, built by the French halfway into the first Indochina War, was purportedly a POW camp run by a signatory of very recently updated Geneva Conventions. In other words, conditions here should have been equal to or better than those in present day America. In fact, this place can only be described as a torture camp, where every prisoner was horrifically and systematically abused in body and mind, with the explicit goal of preventing their ever again serving as an enemy combatant. Both incidental and prescribed deaths were common; out of over 40,000 prisoners, approximately 10% died here.

After the French left, the prison was run by ARVN and US troops until Vietnamese reunification was achieved in 1975. I was aware that POWs and political dissidents were tortured by both sides, but not even my visit to the Hỏa Lò Prison in Hanoi prepared me to learn about the heinous tortures used here. They have displays on: electrocution; clubbing out teeth and breaking jaws; nailing limbs and hacking off limbs; tiger cages; katso boxes (which I’d never heard before; “hot box” was the WW2 term my grandfather used); boiling and roasting prisoners; an awful torture involving somersaulting on a jagged metal plate . . . there were undoubtedly more that I didn’t notice or don’t recall; one can only process so much. Of course, this was all in addition to the requisite beatings and starvation.

There’s also a display on how a few prisoners managed to escape, a miracle given how heavily patrolled the camp, beaches and island were. Also, this island is not close to the mainland; even if an escapee managed to travel on foot, undetected, to the north end of the island (a 2-3 day walk), no rowboat or raft could get them to Cambodia. Escaping here meant surviving in the mountainous jungle, possibly alone, for years.

As terrible as this place is, it’s so essential that a piece of it is preserved for posterity. I cannot understand how anyone can be OK with torture, or even war more generally. Unless you are necessarily defending yourself (not your friends, economic interests or ideologies), there is no justification for war. A visit to Vietnam today reveals the toothlessness of the Communist boogeyman Americans battled for over 20 years. People and politics change all the time, and life is short! I think of my father: he was lucky enough to draw 365 in the draft for Vietnam, but still died before I was eight years old. As far as I know, he never saw the world beyond the East Coast of the US. How many young people lost their lives, or were irretrievably broken, before they had a chance to live at all? For what?

Hội An Street Food | Vietnam

I typically shy away from street food. Of course the hygiene is questionable relative to a restaurant . . . Where does the server wash their hands, particularly after using the restroom? How are they washing utensils? Also, as a Westerner, any stand without posted prices will charge me much more than a local: walking in Hội An Old Town with my Vietnamese friends, a serving of anything is 15,000 dong; on my own, it’s 30,000 or 40,000. For reference, a sit down meal can be bought at a non-tourist restaurant for 35,000.

Even when I’m willing to risk my health and accept being scammed in the name of experiencing local culture, the element that typically makes me skip street food is the street itself: squatting at exhaust pipe height amongst chainsmoking locals, trash bags piled around every tree and sometimes burning in the street, is enough to make me feel ill before eating at all. The setting makes it pretty difficult to appreciate good flavors, and anything aggressively pungent can quickly become nauseating.

I was recently willing to give street food a chance in Hội An, because this discomfort factor has been mitigated by the Covid pandemic. Nine months after borders closed, and less than a month after several severe floods, this extremely tourist reliant town is dead, hands down the quietest of any I’ve visited in the country. There is no crowding and very little traffic; I could easily take my street food, walk a block and eat quietly in front of a boarded up museum, without aggressive scooter drivers or souvenir hawkers bothering me.

Hội An is also particularly well known for its local specialties, and with no tourists the street food is currently in its totally authentic state (sometimes food served to white people in tourist areas is prepared extra bland, extra sweet, or drowned in soy sauce, which obviously doesn’t appeal).

Spoiler alert: I still greatly prefer restaurants, and I’ll cover the best restaurants and must-try local dishes of Hội An in a separate post. Still, there is such vlogger/blogger/foodie fervor over Vietnamese street food that I’m glad I tried a lot of it.

I have 4 ‘ratings’:

• Yuck

• Meh

• Would Eat Again

• Wow

Here are my thoughts!

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Bánh Bột Lọc

MEH.

These tiny dumplings have stretchy, tasteless rice wrappers and are filled with either a tiny, unshelled shrimp (you eat the head, tail and all, for a crunchy effect) or a lump of meat paste that I later learned was pork but was honestly indiscernible to me by taste alone. These were boring and made edible solely by the generous topping of fish sauce, chili jam and fried onions.

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Bánh Xoài

MEH.

These are the infamous mango-free “mango cakes”: thick, glutinous rice balls dusted in powdered sugar or flour (very mochi-like) and filled with roughly ground peanuts, granulated sugar, and a bit of cinnamon if you’re lucky. If Bánh Mì is the Việt equivalent of a breakfast sandwich, these are Việt donuts: you snag one or two and eat them standing up on the corner, coffee (or tea) in the other hand, regretting it more with every bite. The sugar is so rough that I was genuinely concerned about cracking a tooth! And dare I say they don’t look like mangoes either?

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Chè Bắp

would eat again.

There are about a trillion kinds of chè; the wikipedia page is quite illustrative if you are curious. The most common is definitely Chè Bắp, a corn and tapioca starch pudding drizzled with coconut cream. It’s served hot and cold, and is tasty both ways. It’s sweet, but not too sweet, and was good enough for me to experiment with some other types of chè . . .

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Chè Thịt Quay

WOULD EAT AGAIN.

These are small glutinous rice balls filled with tiny bits of roasted pork, floating in a hot sugary broth seasoned with sesame, ginger and sometimes cinnamon. The contrast of sweet and salty is great; this reminds me of the flavors in a traditional moon cake.

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Chè Hạt Sen

Would eat again.

To me, the least interesting types of chè are those served with jellies over ice. However, I approach my food listicles as a completionist, and these were clearly the most popular versions. I heard somewhere that lotus seed chè was trendy cuisine in the 19th c. Imperial City, which is almost correct: the imperial chè was actually lotus seed stuffed longans in vanilla and jasmine flower soup (needless to say, too expensive and time consuming for street vendors to bother with). I still really enjoyed my poor man’s version, which was a nice balance of sweet and starchy. As the ice melted into the syrup, it became a really refreshing drink. It opened my mind to the various bean iterations on offer . . .

It’s official: I’m a chè convert.

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Đậu Hũ 

Meh.

Đậu Hũ, Đậu Phũ, Tào phớ and Tàu phớ are all transliterations of “tofu”, and refer to the same dish. The dessert features a slightly sweet soy custard topped with oversweet runny caramel syrup, miscellaneous jellies, and occasionally a spoonful of chè (the above pictured has chè đậu xanh, or mung bean pudding) or shaved coconut. It’s served either hot or over ice. It’s so pretty that I really wanted to like it. It also tasted so familiar, so nostalgic, that I bought it from three different vendors despite not really liking it, trying to place it . . .

Flan. It’s the mediocre flan your second generation Puerto Rican aunt would bring to your birthday party and everyone ate because she tried and she’s an RN and no one is good at everything so be nice! A forgettable prelude to the Carvel cake. My favorite was Fudgie the Whale. Also, this could be a lot better with half-frozen berries on top instead of almost flavorless jellies. Anyway . . .

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Bánh Tráng Nướng

Wow.

Your choice of seasoned dried beef, shrimp or chicken (I chose shrimp and chicken) are layered with green onions atop a thin fermented rice shell. The heat is turned on, a quail egg is cracked on top and cooks as it flows into and blends the other ingredients, and the whole thing is finished with a drizzle each of mayo and chili sauce. If you’re sitting down to eat it’s served open faced; if you get it to go it will be folded over, quickly flipped and handed to you in a paper pocket. Yet another Việt street food with a hmmm . .. kinda I guess? English nickname, this is commonly referred to as ‘Vietnamese pizza”. It’s much closer to a tostada, in my opinion. Delicious!

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Bánh Khọt

Wow.

Dung is the place in town to go for bánh khọt, with foodies and locals packing her stand all day. She also has two employees frying and packing the shells for wholesale to restaurants. The shells are made of rice flour, corn starch, and coconut milk, tinged yellow with turmeric, and fried in a griddle. The filling is typically fried egg, and deluxe versions can include a shrimp or shredded chicken. The whole thing is topped off with fresh veggies, and enough nước mắm pha to make a soup at the bottom of the bowl. This meal gives the satisfaction of fried food, but I find it much less heavy and oily than bánh xèo. Dung doesn’t serve shrimp or chicken, but tops her dish off with a generous slice of fried pork, for a salty/sweet contrast and a really filling meal.

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Xí Mà

Would eat again.

This sweet black soup is surprisingly elusive. It’s served by one family only; they grow sesame plants in their garden and make the soup with water from the Bá Lễ well, which is only a few steps from their home. It’s served to tourists as part of a cooking demonstration in their kitchen, and to locals on the sidewalk across from the Catholic Church.

It’s considered a special occasion when the octogenarians (who started selling the soup 50 years ago) get out on the sidewalk and sell themselves; it’s usually the younger generation who will do it now. The simplicity of this soup and it’s low price (10,000 dong/bowl) have made it a popular local breakfast for many years. I like it enough to buy if the family is out that day and I happen past, but not enough to look and look for it on different days, at different times, many days in a row, as I had to.

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Trái Cây

Wow.

Probably the healthiest street food ever, fruit cups are simple: pick your fruit (mango, guava, watermelon, avocado, dragonfruit, pineapple, etc.) then choose sweet or spicy. Sweet is dressed with a drizzle of chocolate or caramel syrup; spicy is dressed with a red pepper or chili based syrup, then shaken. My favorite (pictured here) is spicy mango.

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Bánh Dừa Nướng

Would eat again.

These are French crèpes in a different shape; it’s the exact same taste and texture, but instead of the folded envelope/cone I’m used to, the dough was artfully shaped into a sort of clamshell. The filling is shaved coconut, toasted peanuts and a bit of chocolate syrup; nothing special, but satisfying nonetheless if you like sweets.

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Kem Khói Hàn Quốc

Yuck.

Hàn Quốc means Korean, and this dessert is definitely as flashy and trendy as everything else that seems to filter down to Vietnam from Kpop culture. I had to look up what exactly this is, because it wasn’t ice cream as advertised! Truly light as air, fried yet completely flavorless, the brightly dyed balls are drizzled with chocolate syrup and disgustingly sweet strawberry flavored syrup. Then, the whole thing is sprayed with liquid nitrogen, instantly freezing it and creating the smoke effect.

If you eat it before the smoke dissipates, the smoke will come out of your nose and mouth while you eat and breathe, so this is marketed as ‘dragon’s breath ice cream.’ It looks cool, but could look a lot better with more sophisticated shapes and colors. It tastes awful; all I could taste was the saccharine over-sweetness of the fake strawberry syrup. I was done after 3 or 4 balls, but it still left my mouth feeling numb and coated. This is more an edible toy for children and Instagrammers than food.

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Khoai Tây

Meh.

These seemed to be the least popular option in the tourist area and the most common option in the non-tourist area, so I was curious. They’re grilled cakes of mashed sweet potatoes mixed with a few small bits of banana, coconut, or green beans. They don’t taste great and they don’t taste bad; they really don’t taste much different than the rinsed and grilled whole sweet potatoes you can buy for the same price three feet away.

They would taste a lot better deep fried, or at least buttered before they were grilled; they could really take off with both bigger bits of fruit and more creative choices, like pineapple, or caramelized peppers and onions, or blueberries. However, these are an old-fashioned subsistence food for locals who need to eat on $1-2/day, not an experimental foodie culture item.

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Where to Buy Street Food

Street food is truly ubiquitous in Hội An; I genuinely don’t think you could walk down a single block without passing a vendor. If you have as little as 20,000 dong (less than $1) you will not go hungry here. It’s sometimes difficult to find the same vendor twice because most will rotate within the same couple blocks just for variety, and others get shuffled off their corners every now and then by police officers cracking down on unlicensed sellers. However, if you are looking to try a large variety of foods without walking too far, these are the hubs:

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All Hours:

Châu Thượng Văn, for the whole block north of the Bridge of Lights, is packed with sellers at all hours; they spread out heading towards the Japanese covered bridge along the river, and stretch west along Trần Phú for a few blocks before turning northwards on Lê Lợi for a block or two.

Early Morning Only:

Chợ Hội An (the Hoi An market) has a really large indoor food court where local specialties are sold to locals (so extremely authentic foods and a lot of variety). However, it empties out after 10 AM, with 3/4 of the sellers going home, and by noon it’s just a few local businessmen eating lunch. On the north front of the market, and for a couple blocks of Trần Phú on either side of the entrance, are many more sellers.

Evening Only:

On An Hội island (across the Thu Bồn river from the old town) there is a nightly evening market on 2-3 blocks of Nguyễn Hoàng. They sell the local classics as well as more modern sweet treats like Nutella pancakes. There are also a couple bars here with live music and a nice evening scene. Things start up around 7:00 PM.