Eating in Hanoi

After a long night of sleep, and forcing ourselves to stay in bed until morning local time, we were ready to hit the streets in search of adventure and of course, food!

Our first discovery of the was the local coffee shop. Adults slurped up tooth-achingly sweet coffee on ice. Kids discovered "iced cocoa"! This little place was just around the corner from our hotel. It was the local hangout and we were a fun spectacle for sure. There were about ten, tiny, two foot high tables inside the shop. On our second visit there all the tables were filled so the young server/host simply grabbed a stack of plastic stools and whisked us out to the sidewalk and under a nearby awning (it was raining off and on) where he quickly set up a gaggle of stools to both sit on and use as tables. He brought us exactly what we ordered the day before, even though we tried to order something different, and we did not care. There was something not surreal, but extra real when we were out there holding fort on our flimsy plastic stools, smiling and pantomiming with people walking past us, or sitting on neighboring stools. It was not the caffeine or the sugar that woke us up, it was the energy of the street.

For lunch we sought out the city's best Bun Cha. This is probably the most ubiquitous dish in Hanoi, and we had a recommendation to eat at a very particular restaurant that only served this, and the often accompanying spring rolls. It was a crazy trek down windy back roads, but we found it, and we ate well. One great thing about this little local cafes and street side restaurants, is that the service is pretty instant. If all you serve is coffe, or noodles, or kebab, then that whole dance of welcoming guests with menus and waiting for them to decide what to eat is gone from the equation. Instead, just the act of walking into a place tells everyone that you choose to eat or drink what is served here, so hurry up and put it before us, or we will choose to go somewhere else!

 

Dessert ended up being a joke. There are hundreds of woman walking the streets carrying beautiful baskets filled with donuts. Anytime they spotted us the pitch was always the same:"Hello Madame, you like? For children very good!". Our standard reply was "kong, cam on" (no thank you), at which their script must read : Follow tourist family with basket of sweet for at least 20 feet while holding basket right in front of children. We resisted many times, but gave in once. They tasted just greasy and sweet, not much fun and ended up costing more than our perfectly wonderful lunch! You have to let yourself be a sucker every once in a while.

 

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