Vietnamese food varies dramatically by region, from Hanoi’s egg coffee and bun cha to Ho Chi Minh City’s com tam and banh mi stalls. These guides cover what to eat, where to find it, and what a fair local price looks like, so you’re not guessing at a menu or overpaying as a visitor. Coverage currently spans Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, with more cities being added as the site expands.
Phuket’s food scene is more distinctive than most visitors expect: the island’s long history as a tin-mining hub for Chinese immigrants gave it its own Peranakan (Baba) cuisine, a blend of Hokkien-Chinese cooking and Malay influence found nowhere else in Thailand in quite the same form. Old Phuket Town, not the beach resorts, is where…
Chiang Mai’s food is distinctly northern Thai, or Lanna cuisine: milder and more herb-forward than the dishes most visitors already know from Bangkok, built around sticky rice instead of jasmine rice, and shaped by real Burmese and Shan influence. The one dish to try first is khao soi, a curried coconut noodle soup that is…
Bangkok’s food scene runs from one-dollar noodle carts to Michelin-listed street stalls, and the best meals in the city are almost never in a restaurant with a menu in English. The dishes worth prioritizing are Pad Thai, Pad Kra Pao, Som Tam, Tom Yum Goong, Moo Ping, and Mango Sticky Rice, and the best place…
Vietnamese coffee culture is built around a small metal drip filter called a phin, strong dark-roast robusta beans, and a habit of pairing bitter coffee with sweetened condensed milk rather than fresh milk or sugar. It shows up as ca phe sua da (iced milk coffee) on nearly every street corner, as the richer, dessert-like…
Bun rieu is a tomato-red Vietnamese noodle soup built around a light, tangy broth made with freshwater crab paste, and it’s one of the country’s most comforting everyday noodle dishes without being as internationally famous as pho. Thin rice vermicelli sits under a broth studded with tomato, a crab-and-egg cake called rieu, tofu, and sometimes…
Mi quang is a turmeric-tinted noodle dish from Quang Nam province, the region around Da Nang and Hoi An, and it’s one of the most distinctive bowls of noodles in Vietnam precisely because it isn’t really a soup. Wide rice noodles are tossed in a small pool of intensely flavored broth rather than swimming in…
Banh xeo is a crispy, turmeric-yellow rice-flour pancake, folded in half like an omelet and filled with pork, shrimp, and bean sprouts, then wrapped in lettuce and herbs and dipped in a sweet-savory fish sauce dip. Its name literally translates to “sizzling cake,” a reference to the loud sizzle the batter makes hitting a hot…
Vietnamese food changes dramatically as you move down the map. Northern cooking is subtle and restrained, central cooking is the spiciest and most intricate, and southern cooking is the sweetest and most tropical, shaped by climate, history, and what actually grows in each region. Here’s what defines each region’s food and how to taste the…
Mu Cang Chai’s food reflects its H’mong and Thai highland communities: sticky rice cooked in bamboo, grilled stream fish, smoked meats, and hearty stews built for cold mountain nights. Expect simpler, more rustic cooking than in Hanoi or Hoi An — most meals here are eaten at your homestay or a small family-run restaurant rather…
Ba Be Lake’s food centers on freshwater fish pulled straight from the lake and the Nang River, alongside Tay and Nung ethnic minority specialties you will rarely find outside Bac Kan Province. Expect sour fish soup, grilled river fish, five-color sticky rice, and fermented pork served with wild herbs — heartier and more herb-forward than…
