No stop, no running, keep walking… these are the first advise given by our local tour guide the night we arrived in Hanoi and this is how you cross road in Hanoi! Absolutely culture shock plus heart attack if you are seating in the front seat in the cab like I did :(.
The first night we are there, we headed to the local night market near Dong Xuan market (N21 02.231 E105 50.960), we are a bit late and its already closing, it was about 11pm then. Every junction you passed at the market, there ought to be 1 or 2 stalls selling fried corns, seems to be a popular thing there. The corn are fried in oil with topping of these very small dried shrimps. The dried shrimps are different from those we are used to. It cost 10,000 dong (RM2.30) for it, not sure are we overcharge as for everything else here, tourist pays more. Its not that good to me, corn is very plain and stale.
The stall next to it sells grilled chicken satay, this is not bad, chicken chunks marinated and grilled on charcoal. Tasted like chicken teriyaki and usually these kind of things should not go wrong ;). Hygiene is worry here, so if you want, just order and eat, don’t look and think too much.
At Dong Xuan market, I spotted a few stalls selling Kem Trang Tien aka their local ice cream. The problem here is language is a problem, she don’t understand me and I don’t understand her. Basic English don’t work and we rely on basic sign language. There is no telling what flavour is the ice cream we picked, she keep saying “com com” and I saw com is 5,000 dong. So, we picked the safest color white, its a milky ice cream with like tiny glutinous like rice stuff inside. It quite nice actually and would be better if I know what flavour was it!
Next to Dong Xuan market are a row of stalls selling steamboat and some other food. We settled for Hai San steamboat (N21 02.301 E105 50.972) and they hurried to setup a row of tables for us outdoor. I had my first much heard Hanoi beer here. It cost about USD$1 per bottle (RM3.50) or 15,000 dong, its quite watered down to me but cheap. I found out later that it only cost 8,300 dong (RM1.95) per can in the supermarket or you can have their locally brewed beer at the local beer house at 6,000 dong (RM1.40) per cup but I heard the surrounding is awfully dirty!
Anyhow, we ordered the steamboat, the base soup smells tomyam-ish to me, then it reminds me of instant tomyam soup… hahaha.. but I don’t think it is… I found some big onions in it too, quite nice the soup. We got the seafood set, so we got a plate of fishes, squids, tofu, clams, veges, etc. The highlight was some live prawns that went into our steamboat pot while boiling ;). The portion is quite little but the noodles at the end helps to fill us up ;). It cost about RM10-11 per person at the end of the meal.
Taxi is another experience here, typically they don’t give change or pretend not too, hoping for tips, so small change comes handy. Every taxi I took, the meter is different, some starts at 15,000 dong, some 9,000, some 10,000 and all the meters tick at different speed! The smaller taxis are the worst, try to take the bigger one and MPV from reputable companies.
The next day we went for a tour to Halong Bay, on the way there we got introduced to some mini pineapples selling along the way. For 10,000 dong you get 3 to 4 small pineapples in a packet. Its quite sweet and they are all peeled and easy to consume because of its size.
Halong Bay (N20 57.506 E107 04.670) is really over populated with tourists, the moment you reach there, every corner are tourists waiting to board their junk (boat). The tour guide told us there are more than 400 junks there catering to tourist, imagine the amount of pollution… I wonder how long this beauty will can last at this rate. Anyhow, the whole landscape are surrounded by hills in the ocean plus junks everywhere. The place is quite beautiful and big, I could just imagine how much nicer it would have been before this tourist craze came about.
The tour guide told us that Halong Bay actually stands for “ha” which means going downwards and “long” is dragon. In the ancient times, the Chinese were invading Vietnam and they prayed for help. Down came a dragon hitting the ocean creating all the hills. The Chinese boats were destroyed when they hit the sudden hills and they are were wash ashore by the strong wave to China. Hehe… sounds like something my nephew like to hear.
Our junk took us out one of the valley inside the hills where you see plenty of kelong rearing fishes and meals are served on board the junk. Surprisingly lunch wasn’t that bad, we had boiled prawns, stuffed crabs, fried spring rolls, fried fish, fried squid with big onions, mix vegetables, french fries and rice (yup, fries with rice, weird but the fries are nice).
Ok, enough about Halong Bay… more on Hanoi food… the next morning, we went to a park near our hotel, I must say one thing nice about Hanoi as a city, there are plenty of nice park to go but again, it cost you 4,000 dong to go in. Anyway, we were a bit late but we still managed to get some baguette with the infamous Vietnamese coffee.
The baguette cost 10,000 dong each, again, can anyone confirm if this is tourist rate or the local pays the same? Coffee, we have no idea how to argue with them but everywhere is different, some places 14,000 dong, some 20,000, some 25,000… so again, tourist rate?
The baguette is good, thanks to the french influence during the colonial years. They basically cut the baguette into half and filled it with ham and minced pork. You will see a lot of people selling baguette basically everywhere, even by the road side or highway, its like roadside stalls selling nasi lemak here.
Don’t be surprise if your ice coffee comes in a class full of ice but only half of it is filled with coffee and milk. That’s how it’s being taken here, if you get the hot one, it comes in a slightly bigger than espresso kind of cup. The coffee are thick and very “kau” in flavour, absolutely great and nice to me. We even bought the vietnamese coffee filter home!
During lunch time, we went to Quan An Ngon (N21 01.565 E105 50.601), which was recommended by my friend SL who travels a lot to Hanoi. This restaurant serve all sorts of local food, technically come here and you get to sample everything Vietnamese. It may be a bit more pricey than eating on the street or local shops but at least the price are fixed and its clean. Based on Joe’s advise, I got the waitress to walk around with us and we just pointed and what we wanted.
Some of the good one we ordered were grilled beef, grilled cuttlefish, this “mua chee” like thing but its hot with a bit of soup (no idea what is it called), grilled pork with noodles, etc. Most of the stuff were ok but we did had some nasty one, especially these noodle in a stinky soup with roast pork and shrimp inside, we almost died eating that. It cost about 100,000 dong per person (RM23) makan here.
At night, we decided that we should try Cha Ca La Vong (N21 02.144 E105 50.948) , which is said to be a must go in Vietnam in the book 1,000 places to see before you die. This places look pretty old and famous as we see a number of locals plus foreigners dining here as well. Basically after climbing up the old wooden staircase upstairs, the only question asked is “how many person?”. Next, they put a placecard on the table, “we only have 1 dish here” and it cost 90,000 dong per person excluding drinks!
So what is this dish all about? Its basically snakehead fish being fried then serve on a hot pan with turmeric infused oil on top of hot charcoal fire. The idea is to keep frying the chunks of fishes with dills and spring onions. While that is happening, filled up your bowl with noodles topped with peanuts, mints, fish sauce. Then scope fishes with turmeric oil over the noodles and serve.
Portion is small, so basically I filled myself up with noodles but I heard snakehead fish are expensive but 90,000 is a bit too costly to me. Try it once is ok, no second time for me. Its quite an experience but not much wow factor in taste and yummi-ness to me.
On the last day in Hanoi, we visited Dong Xuan market (N21 02.231 E105 50.960) again in the morning and explored some its alley and KC found a stall that sells the snail, tofu & banana noodles. They basically cooked all those stuff with a thick soup and noodles together, pretty good I must say. We also tried the local pho of beef and chicken choices. The chicken on is a bit scary as it also comes with this funny shape meat. It tasted like chicken balls to me, but no one believes me… haha… its cost 20,000 dong per bowl, expensive!!!
In the afternoon, we went to Ngoai O (N21 01.228 E105 50.716) near our hotel, its a bit costly but at least the food is good here. Its basically Vietnamese style village food. The decor is nice and some of the good stuff we had here includes roasted bacon, fried frog with bamboo (that’s what it said in the menu but the frog looks like pig’s intestines to me!), simmered snail with banana and tofu (the banana comes with skin), roast chicken with fried sticky rice, soup with starfruits, etc. It cost 100,000 dong again per person but the decor and service here is good although we don’t understand anything they saying and vice-versa!
In conclusion, food was ok to me but nothing wow me other than their coffee. Food are also more expensive than I thought it should be and the ambiance is really poor. Somehow for once, I can’t wait to get home while on holiday and I think many in the group felt the same way. Will I go back again to Hanoi? If I have a choice, probably not for now, for me anyway ;).
Cupnoodles | 
11 20th, 2008| 
