Yummy Vietnamese @ Indochine, Melbourne

When we were in Melbourne a couple of months ago, we met up with two of my friends from primary school (who moved to Melbourne the first chance they got). One of them suggested meeting at either a pizzeria or Vietnamese, and I voted for Vietnamese food without hesitation. Located in Box Hill, Indochine has been operating for many years, gaining a good reputation and building up a loyal customer base. Service was efficient and the food we ordered was delicious. Price was reasonable too, so I can see why Indochine is a popular choice.

Pad-Thai with chicken, as requested by the 8-year-old. Tasty:

Bun (rice vermicelli) with Char-grilled Lemongrass Pork. This was nice and brought back fond memories of eating bun cha in our 2015 trip to Hanoi:

Indochine's Banh Xeo (omelette/pancake) was also delicious:

And you can't go wrong with the Special Broken Rice - Com Tam, with pork chop, fried egg, steamed pork-egg pate and shredded pork:

Indochine
51 Carrington Rd
Box Hill VIC 3128
Australia
+61 3 9890 2966

Street food in Hanoi Part 3: xoi che, chao suon, banh bao

We are back home in Hong Kong now. That trip to Perth was so good but also so tiring; travelling with three kids (two under 3) is hard work. But it really was great to catch up with families and long-time friends. This is the final post from our trip to Hanoi last summer. I can't believe it already has been almost a year since we were in Hanoi, sampling all the delicious street food! Baby #3 was still in my belly, causing me awful morning sickness grief, but I somehow still managed to enjoy the foodie experience in Hanoi. Most of the following street stalls were marked on the map by our hotel guy who gave very good food recommendations. Nothing beats having a local's advice!

Xoi Che (sweet glutinous rice and treats)

The first stall we found was marked on our paper map by our hotel guy, but saw a similar stall across the road selling the same stuff, and we decided to check it out for comparison's sake. The first stall operated in front of a tailor's shop, which seem to be a common way for pop-up food stall businesses to run in Hanoi. The proprietress had some English ability, and she managed to understand what I was trying to buy.

Friendly partnership between the tailor shop and the xoi che stall:

The xoi che lady at work:

A simple dessert that was ready in a matter of seconds (though the ingredients would need to be pre-prepared):

Sticky rice with a simple syrup:

We also got a layered mixed beans dessert (quite possibly the Che Ba Mau, three-coloured dessert) which was refreshing and sweet and filling:

Across the road is a proper shop selling the same kinds of dessert, but with more varieties. I can't figure out if they're both owned by the same people because the signs of each shop state the same address, but we think the sweets taste better at the first stall. The dedicated seating space inside and in front of the second shop may be a bit more comfortable, though I'm sure you agree that there is not much that can be done to make sitting on low stools any more comfortable than it is (consider my poor hubby who had a big-for-her-age 21-month-old strapped on to him in a carrier - the bad pavements (and the lack of pavements altogether) plus the rain make Hanoi not very good for wheeled pedestrians).

Across the road at 93-95 Hang Bo:

There is a proper menu (in Vietnamese) on the wall, and google translate indicates that one side lists what is available in winter and the other is the summer menu:

The same bowl of sticky rice and layered mixed beans to compare. The other one is better:

93-95 Hang Bo Street
Old Quarter, Hoan Kiem District
Hanoi, Vietnam

Chao Suon (spare rib rice porridge)

I love congee, so I was pleased to see this marked on the map. The consistency of this congee is thick and super-smooth. Flavour is great, but not a big fan of the spare rib bones. Comes with a serving of quay which is essentially the Chinese you tiao, the great partner of all things congee. You can also request pork floss topping, if you know how to ask for it (we didn't - there was a lot of pointing and gesturing).

Open-air dining at this roadside stall:

Super smooth and thick congee with condiments:

16 Hang Giay
Old Quarter, Hoan Kiem District
Hanoi, Vietnam
Tel. +84 4 6684 9857

Banh Bao (steamed meat buns)

This is just like the Chinese bao. There were several stalls selling these steamed buns literally by the side of the road along the same street, and we chose the friendliest one (the other two didn't seem to care for our business). This is a meal-in-one deal, perfect for grabbing to have on the go.

Soft fluffy bao:

Glass noodle, vegetables, egg and meat inside:

Tiem Thanh Beo
8 Luong Van Can
Old Quarter, Hoan Kiem District
Hanoi, Vietnam

Fine dining Vietnamese @ Gia Ngu Restaurant, Hanoi (Vietnam)

When we were in Hanoi last year, we had the chance to eat an amazing variety of delicious street food. Though we could have easily avoided restaurant dining altogether, we could not resist enjoying a meal at Gia Ngu Restaurant, located inside the hotel we stayed at. Service was amazing - staff were smiling and friendly as always, and very helpful in explaining the menu items and then demonstrating how to eat one of the dishes we ordered. The menu contained a combination of Vietnamese dishes as well as Western food, so there is something for everyone! Prices were of course higher than on the street, but still cheaper when compared to the same quality of restaurant service and food in Hong Kong, Australia and the US. And it was worth dining in air-conditioned comfort sheltered from the rain!

Gia Ngu Restaurant was also where we had our daily breakfast that was included in our hotel rate:

Even when we were living in Australia, the Viets had a reputation of doing awesomely delicious drinks, and here we enjoyed a mango smoothie, a passionfruit smoothie and pineapple juice:

For the kids, we ordered the Stir-fried Noodles with Seafood (US$7.50). I loved how much veges there were, but the 7-year-old disagreed:

Grilled "Hoi An" Snakehead Fish (192000VND, US$9) - with lemongrass, galangal, spring onion, garlic, onion, dill, peanuts in banana leaf, served with rice noodle, fresh herb, rice paper with Vietnamese fish sauce:

This was how you're supposed to eat the fish - DIY spring roll!

Wrapped Chicken in Sugar Cane (195000VND, US$9.20) - "chicken in ginger taste are wrapped with a sugar cane then grilled, served with rice noodle, vegetable for rolling and fresh sugar cane sauce". This was also eaten in the same style as the fish. Delicious!

If there is only one restaurant to visit in Hanoi, make it Gia Ngu Restaurant! The hotel, the restaurant, the staff - everything about this location gets our thumbs-ups!

Gia Ngu Restaurant
Essence Palace Hotel
27 - 29 Gia Ngu Street
Old Quarter, Hoan Kiem District
Hanoi, Vietnam
Tel. +84 4 3926 2135

Street food in Hanoi Part 2: bun cha @ Bun Cha 34

There has been some buzz in the news about President Obama lunching on bun cha during his visit to Hanoi earlier this week. Obama was accompanied by Anthony Bourdain, who was filming an episode of his food travelogue Parts Unknown. It was also during our trip to Hanoi last year that we tried bun cha for the first time. I don't think we were prepared for how good this meal would be - it definitely was worth the trek on foot in the rain, manoeuvring the crazy road traffic with two kids in tow. Bun Cha 34 was one of the places recommended by our trusty hotel concierge (who had been thus far on point with all his street food suggestions).

For the uninitiated (like we were), bun cha comes in four components: the herbs, the noodles, the grilled meat and the dipping sauce. The meat is grilled on charcoal fire then dipped into the dipping sauce just prior to serving it. All the ingredients have their part to play, but the star of this show is no doubt the meat: sweet bite-sized pieces of pork belly and succulent pork patties wrapped in flavourful lolot leaves. The dipping sauce brings the whole dish together with its slightly sweet, salty and piquant flavour - a perfect mix of salty fish sauce, tangy vinegar, sugar and lime. Combined with the pillowy soft noodles, crunchy beansprouts and fragrant herbs, this is foodie heaven in a mouthful.

The shopfront. This is popular with the locals, and its location on the outer skirts of Old Quarter means less crowd and less tourists:

Be prepared to share a table. Don't worry, Vietnamese are courteous diners and will not bother you (though as an interracial family with two kids and one on the way, we attracted attention anywhere we go). An advantage to sharing a table is that you can easily watch how you're supposed to eat the food:

The noodles, grilled meat in dipping sauce and a mound of veggies and herbs that make up bun cha:

Yum!

This meal happened on our last day in Hanoi, and I sorely wished we had given ourselves more time to try bun cha in other shops to compare. Bun Cha 34 is definitely worth the visit!

Bun Cha 34
34 Hang Than
Ba Dinh
Hanoi, Vietnam
Tel. +84 94 836 19 71

Street food in Hanoi Part 1: banh cuon, xoi xeo and banh xeo

I believe that the best way to experience the culture and cuisine of a foreign place is to explore the streets. Our hotel concierge in Hanoi was a wealth of information on good street food in the Old Quarter and nearby, and we were not disappointed with any of his suggestions. Here are some of the eats we enjoyed during our short stay in Hanoi last summer.

Banh cuon

Banh cuon reminded me of the Malaysian chee cheong fun and the Hong Kong cheong fun - thin rolled rice crêpe-like sheet filled with pork, chicken or shrimps, and other ingredients. It is a light dish, usually eaten for breakfast in Vietnam, but we enjoyed it for a late supper. We liked banh cuon, and enjoyed both the chicken and pork versions (but we agreed the pork one was more tasty out of the two). Though this is traditionally a breakfast item, the banh cuon shop was doing a roaring business at 8pm.

The shop front:

The English menu:

Banh cuon with the dipping sauce:

Generous topping of fried shallots and leafy green herbs:

Banh Cuon Gia Truyen Thanh Van
14 Hang Ga
Hoan Kiem, Old Quarter
Hanoi, Vietnam
Tel. +84 4 38 28 01 68

Xoi xeo

Our hotel guy noted down 'sticky rice' on the map at this location, which had a large banner that said Xoi Cat Lam. I am familiar with many Asian glutinous rice dishes, both sweet and savoury, but this was unlike any I've encountered. We had no idea what or how to order, but a guy who could speak a bit of English understood when I said "sticky rice", and gave us a bowl of xoi xeo, a yellow dish made of glutinous rice cooked with turmeric and topped with yellow mung bean that had been steamed whole, ground, shaped into balls and then sliced. Fried shallots was the final garnish. The ingredients and flavour of xoi xeo may be simple, but it was a textural delight: soft sticky rice with the slightly gritty mung bean paste and crunchy shallots. Great on its own, or accompanied by one of the meat dishes also available at the shop.

Xoi xeo:

Xoi Cat Lam
24 Duong Thanh
Cua Dong, Hoan Kiem
Hanoi, Vietnam
Tel: +84 4 62 61 99 55

Banh xeo

Banh xeo is one of our favourite things to order at Vietnamese restaurants, so I was quite happy to see this recommendation on the map. I could finally try this dish in its homeland! The shop was tiny, and we could smell the delicious greasy aroma before we could see where it originated from. There's one cook hard at work in her tiny workspace at the front of the shop, doling out banh xeo after banh xeo to satisfy the hungry hordes of customers in her shop. Service was quick and efficient, and we got our crispy pancakes in no time at all.

This lady had 9 stoves going all at once!

The food served on our table, with rice paper, leafy herbs and a dipping sauce:

Delicious and hot, fresh from the pan:

Banh Xeo shop
22 Hang Bo
Hoan Kiem, Old Quarter
Hanoi, Vietnam

Miscellaneous snacks

This vendor operated out of a tiny shop space on the same street as our hotel. Plenty of colourful snacks to entice one particular pregnant lady in search for street snacks. They were amazingly cheap so I bought a few to bring back to the hotel room where hubby was keeping an energetic 6-year-old quiet while his toddler sister napped.

Clockwise from the green-topped layer cake on the left: banh chin tang may ('cloud 9 cake'), banh xu xe (tapioca and mung bean cake), che con ong (glutinous rice cooked with sugar), and banh xoai dua (coconut and black sesame dumpling). The coconut and black sesame ball that looked very similar to Japanese mochi was our favourite):

This was wrapped in banana leaf, likely to be banh tet - glutinous rice log with a mung bean filling. This was not sweet, but neither was it very savoury, quite bland flavour, so it was our least favourite out of the five:

This post covers only half of our street eats, so stay tuned for more.

Beef Pho @ Pho Suong and Pho 10, Hanoi (Vietnam)

To be completely honest, I have never been very big on pho (soup noodles with meat), the most well-known dish of the Vietnamese cuisine. When it comes to Vietnamese food, there are so many other goodies out there that we haven't really eaten much pho. However, since we were in Vietnam last summer, it would be a real shame to give pho a pass. Therefore, armed with a few recommendations for pho from our hotel's concierge (everything food-related that I write from this trip came from him), we braved the rain and took to the streets of Hanoi for an evening of pho-eating.

The first pho place we tried, Pho Suong, was on the same block as our hotel, a simple hole-in-the-wall kind of place, but popular with the locals. Our hotel's concierge guy says he often comes by this place for breakfast before work. It really is no-frills, but it was clean, and the simple menu made ordering easy. Only four options on the (Vietnamese) menu board: well-done beef, half-done with well-done beef, well-done brisket or flank, and half-done brisket. A bowl of noodles was very cheap, about US$2, and it was tasty even without using the condiments provided on the tables. Pho Suong is open daily from 5:30am to 11:30am, and from 4:30pm to 9:30pm.

We rocked up to Pho Suong at 4:30pm just after it opened for its evening service, so we had the whole place to ourselves for a few minutes:

Some pickled garlic, fresh lime, chilli, ground white pepper, hot sauce and fish sauce - all to add to your bowl of noodles to your liking:

The bowl of beef pho, served:

Stirred:

Pho Suong
24B Ngo Trung Yen,
Hang Bac, Hoan Kiem
Hanoi, Vietnam
Tel. +84 9 16 19 76 86

The second pho place we went to was in a busier area than Pho Suong, and catered for a larger number of patrons. The menu has a slightly larger choice of different cuts and combination of beef (flank, brisket, fillet). The two bowls we ordered were tasty, and given Pho 10's bustling popularity, it is a solid choice for good pho.

A large steaming kitchen greeted customers by the entrance to Pho 10:

Simple restaurant-style setting:

We got two different types of pho, but I forget what they were:

Pho 10
10 Ly Quoc Su Street
Hang Trong, Hoan Kiem
Hanoi, Vietnam
Tel. +84 4 38 28 44 55

Banh mi galore @ Banh My Ngo and Banh Mi 25, Hanoi (Vietnam)

Banh mi, the Vietnamese street sandwich with a French colonial past, is one of my favourite sandwiches in the world. What's not to love about a sandwich made with bread very similar to the French baguette, with a crispy crust and a soft chewy interior? A good baguette is delicious even on its own - something I happily indulged in everyday during our trip to France two years ago. Adding delicious protein, fresh herbs and vegetables only elevates the baguette experience, which is what the Vietnamese people have done. When we were in Hanoi a few months ago, I made sure to include banh mi on our eating itinerary. I would have us eating banh mi everyday, but I already had a lot on our foodie must-eat list. Banh mi was extremely cheap, costing under 25000VND (~US$1) each. The first place, Banh My Ngo was recommended by the affable chap at our hotel's front desk. He was a wealth of information for good street eats in Hanoi, and we enjoyed everything he recommended. The second banh mi stall we tried, Banh Mi 25, only opened earlier this year, but has already garnered a lot of attention and sits near the top on Tripadvisor. We prefer the banh mi experience at Banh Mi 25 - the atmosphere, the friendly owner (and his parents too) and the free banana were all awesome, but the sandwiches themselves were amazing.

Inside the small Banh My Ngo shop. The menu on the wall lists only five types of banh mi:

The three we tried on our first visit:

The Traditional:

Hoi An-style:

Chicken:

Banh My Ngo
65 Hang Bong Street
Hang Gai, Hoan Kiem,
Hanoi, Vietnam

At Banh Mi 25, only four types of banh mi were on the menu. The outdoor setting was a bit uncomfortable with two kids under rainy conditions, but the delicious banh mi more than made up for that. The free bananas on the table helped sweeten the experience more. The attention this humble stall has received is well-deserved.

Banh Mi 25 operates in front of the stall-owner's parents' shop:

The ingredients mise-en-place for quick assembling:

The Banh Mi Xa Xiu (barbecued pork, like the Chinese charsiu:

The Banh Mi Dan Du (barbecued pork, French ham, sausage):

Banh Mi 25
25 Hang Ca Street
Hang Dao, Hoan Kiem
Hanoi, Vietnam