Hanoi

Foods, Bia Hoi, and Nightscapes

After hearing that Hanoi was a hectic as Ho Chi Minh, I thought I would be over it, but it had a whole different charm. Yes, it is also another densely populated city with a buzzing chaotic motorbike/traffic scene, but the old town also has this quality which almost felt….European (?). It may have also been that we were 2 weeks into our stay in Vietnam I had become less intimidated by walking in the street and crossing intersections frogger-style.

We flew in from Da Nang and took a quick stroll around Hoan Kiem Lake before visiting the Hoa Lo Prison museum. I didn’t take any pictures here, but it was interesting although a bit depressing. The former prison was used first by French colonists for political prisoners, and later by North Vietnam for US POWs (including where John McCain was kept). The museum depicted pretty terrible conditions for prisoners kept there, and had a guillotine used while under French rule.

After resting up we met up with our travel agent that had booked our Ha Long Bay Cruise — he has created a “Taste of Hanoi” food tour and is working to promote it. We were lucky to have him to ourselves to show us around the old city, tasting various dishes and answering our cultural questions. It was definitely a highlight — I snapped pictures of some of the dishes to trigger my memory but I’ve forgotten most of the names! A particular feature was the Weasel Coffee (see caption below!)

We’ve done pretty well on this trip eating native/local food consistently — not only is it delicious and fun to try everything, but it is also cheaper and (obviously) easier to find than other cuisines. We’ve noticed a big difference from home where the cultural trend to find food that is “fast and cheap” is going to X fast food chain where the nutrition value suffers. Throughout our trip, we have been able to easily find local dishes at street stalls for little more than $1 (and sometimes less)! Fingers crossed, we’ve been fortunate with our choice of restaurants/street stalls so far and have avoided getting sick— my general rule is to look for a place that has sufficient amount of food appearing freshly prepared and a local person eating there.

However, after a few weeks of clean and local eats, our curiosity got the best of us and we popped into a McDonalds. We were excited to see that a soft serve cone cost about $0.20! SOLD. Then — when in Hanoi, we saw Burger King advertising soft serve cones for 3000 dong ($0.13) and a chocolate dipped soft serve cone for 5000 dong ($0.22). Soooo, yes — we had severeal ice creams for lunch. This is where our rule of eating local food ends. You can’t argue with ice cream for such a good price! But, aside from that find, there’s little that beats eating street food or at small restaurants.

Our second night in Hanoi was after returning from Ha Long Bay, we walked around the lake again to see it light up at night and then decided to try some Bia Hois. Bia Hoi is a Vietnam specialty (and most common in Hanoi) — draft beer that is produced daily in small batches and distributed to small corner bars. It’s not meant to keep more than a day and is served out of plastic bottles or kegs. It’s definitely cheap (about $0.13-$0.35), and a light lager with low ABV and variable taste! We found a few street side stools, and put back a few Bia Hois, Meanwhile, I tried some garlic stir-fried morning glory (I needed to up my vegetable game!) and watched the tiny street get busier as rows and rows of stools filled with others doing the same. By the peak of the night, there was only a narrow lane for motorbikes to slowly roll by.

The next morning, after a 5 AM alarm — we were headed back to Thailand! I’d say it was a great way to finish off our time in Vietnam.