Vietnam’s Lesser Known Delicacy - Xôi - An Adventure In Sticky Rice
Sticky rice may not be as internationally famous as pho or banh mi but is an iconic delicious dish of Vietnam. Read our guide for our top recommendations of where to find the best Xôi including the famous street side stall of Xôi Yến in Hanoi’s Old Quarter as well as the Michelin Guide recommended of Xôi Bát in Ho Chi Minh / Saigon.
Wherever you are in Vietnam you’ll never go hungry. Food is available 24/7. From the pavement of the bustling scooter filled streets, to high-end, Michelin Guide restaurants. Vietnam is famous the worldover for its delicate pho broths, its flat rice noodles, punchy herbs and of-course the ubiquitous banh mi, but what if we told you about another delicacy? A Vietnamese speciality that’s not as well known to travellers as pho or bun bo hue, but a hearty, comforting dish, full of flavour. Let us introduce you to xôi.
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What is Xôi?
Xôi in Vietnamese, literally translates to ‘sticky rice’. Although completely accurate in naming the ingredient of the dish, it feels a bit flat. Yes the rice is sticky, but there’s so much more to it than that!
Xôi in Vietnam can come in two different forms, the savoury (which we will talk about in more detail below), or sweet. In either form, the base ingredient is the same with glutinous rice either being steamed or cooked to create a sticky base layer to soak up and carry other flavours.
For the sweet versions, the rice is usually cooked in sugar and served with mung bean paste and coconut. There’s a celebratory sweet xôi called Xôi Chè which is eaten during Tet celebrations, or when a baby is born, a bit like wetting the babies head in the UK. This type of xôi is a sweet version, made up of glutinous rice, ginger and sugar!
If you’re visiting Hanoi during the autumn there’s also another sweet xôi called Xôi Com. A bright green xôi that is only available for a small window of the year. Similar to traditional sweet xôi, the xôi com is cooked with sugar, mung beans and coconut strips, however the colour of the xôi is completely different. Xôi com is bright green due to the mature green rice grains used. Once cooked the xôi com is then topped with lotus seeds, strips of white coconut and a sprinkling of sugar. The taste is supposed to be silky and sweet. Let us know in the comments if you try it!
For savoury versions of xôi, the rice grains are steamed in a meaty stock and topped with any combination of; rich pâté, slices of meat, eggs, meat floss or beans. Rice is one of those great carriers of flavour. On its own, rice is quite plain with only a subtle hint of nuttiness but pair it with stock, meat or sauces and the flavours just leach into the grains. Savoury xôi is just one big flavour bomb, full of different layers of taste making each mouthful a unique and interesting bite.
Whether you’re more of a sweet or savoury person, a vegetarian or a meat eater, there’s a bowl of xôi for you!
There are so many different variations of xôi available in Vietnam, it would take us too long to list them all (it is believed that almost every city within the country has their own variation). If you want to learn more about the different xôi’s types available throughout Vietnam, check out this guide by the Vietnam Nomad.
Where to eat Xôi?
As we mentioned above, xôi can be found all over Vietnam, from the highlands of Ha Giang and Cao Bang all the way to the waterways of the Mekong Delta. Served in modern, air conditioned restaurants, to small, roadside stalls with only a few plastic chairs, a serving of xôi can be found all over the country. It’s a Vietnamese staple, and popular amongst the locals for a reason!
In the bigger cities, during the day you will often see local Vietnamese ladies carrying large baskets of xôi on their shoulders. To order, just hail them down and they’ll stop on the street to make a parcel of xôi right there and then for you. Some ladies will have plastic stools for you to sit on after you’ve ordered, but a lot of the time the xôi is made for take away.
If you are ever unsure just look for the word xôi on menus, signs or posters. Many restaurants are named after their most famous dish, so if the restaurant has xôi in the title you will be in good hands!
Although xôi is available throughout the whole day, the dish is an extremely popular breakfast item, especially for those working in or around one of the fresh markets. If you’re after a really local experience, we’d recommend heading over to your nearest market (chợ in Vietnamese) and dining with the locals as dawn breaks with a banana leaf package of xôi. In fact we did just this on our early morning tour of Long Bien Market in Hanoi where we sampled four different types of savoury xôi, coated with purple beans, pork floss, roasted garlic, shallots and crushed peanuts. It was delicious with a salty, nutty undertone from the toppings. After trying it that morning, we can see why it's such a popular ‘go to’ breakfast in the market as its tasty carby-ness and would keep you full all morning!
Read on to find out about two restaurants we recommend you seeking out on your Vietnamese travels; one up north in the capital of Hanoi and the other down south in the bustling city of Ho Chi Minh
Eating Xôi in Hanoi - Xôi Yến restaurant
Hanoi’s Old Quarter is a rabbit warren of old streets full to the brim with different eateries, street food stalls and restaurants. We were leaving Hanoi to head north to the town of Ha Giang. Before catching our bus we wanted a hearty lunch and so headed to Xôi Yến (location) to try our first bowl of savoury xôi.
Set in a narrow street of Hanoi’s Old Quarter, Xôi Yến is an institution famous throughout Hanoi and beyond. There are tables inside the restaurant, but the best seats are the small chairs that crowd the pavement, right next to the parked scooters.
When we visited it was extremely busy with locals with a seemingly never ending queue of Grab drivers picking up plates of xôi for take away. Ordering from the restaurant is simple, just wait in line, head up to the server, place your order and take a seat.
The restaurant serves three types of xôi. Xôi xéo, a bright yellow sticky rice cooked in turmeric to give its golden colour, xôi trắng, the traditional white rice and xôi ngô, sticky rice cooked with corn. We both chose to stay traditional and so opted for the xôi trắng.
Our toppings however were where things got interesting. John kept it classic and went for the Chinese stewed roast pork and egg. Simple, but roast pork is always a crowd pleaser. I, the princess, who can never just have one topping, decided that as I’m special, I wanted a bit of everything and chose the mixed meat with egg.
After ordering, we navigated our way through the scooters, stored our backpacks as out of the way as they could be (always an embarrassing issue when backpacking), and took our seats.
John’s bowl of xôi came to the table first. It looked amazing! The roast pork looked incredible. Small squares of delicious meat, with alternating layers of sweet meat and fat and topped by a crispy square of crackling. It looked divine. To say I was jealous is an understatement. As is always the case whenever John chooses something different to me, I was overwhelmed with jealousy. Thinking that he had made the better choice, I had to resist the urge not to stomp my foot in frustration! This jealousy ended rather quickly however, when my bowl came out. I didn’t have the crisp roast pork like John, instead I had a bit of meat from everything they had on the menu. On top of my xôi sat strips of stewed pork meat, a wedge of peppery Vietnamese sausage, a spoonful of rich dark pâté, slithers of thin, almost translucent Chinese sausage and pork floss. Now feeling rather smug with my decision, we dove in.
There’s something special about the ‘first’ time you have a dish. The anticipation and excitement of trying something new, is something that can never be recreated. The first mouthful is always one you’ll remember, with the new tastes and flavour zinging all across your tongue. As travellers who love their food, seeking out new food to try is just one of the many pleasures of exploring. Tasting the xôi for the first time was just one of those times.
The xôi at Xôi Yến was incredible. Nutty and meaty, with a soft snap from the glutinous rice. It was everything we had hoped it would be. To counteract the rich xôi, we added pickled cucumbers soaked in a tangy vinegar and chilli to our bowls which gave a needed sourness to the decadent bowl of rice.
We finished our bowls with not even a grain of rice grain left, and headed to our bus. If you’re in Hanoi, Xôi Yến is great. We can’t say if it’s the best xôi restaurant in the city, but for our first try of this Vietnamese delicacy it really didn’t disappoint!
Eating Xôi in Ho Chi Minh City - Xôi Bát restaurant
We arrived in Ho Chi Minh city, after three incredible months travelling north to south through Vietnam. Despite having eaten our weight in noodles and rice, we were still craving another bowl of some delicious savoury xôi.
Throughout our travels in the country, we had stumbled upon it numerous times on the streets and in the local markets, but still we wanted more!
Back in our favourite neighbourhood of Saigon (a small enclave far to the north of District 1) we started googling around to find some xôi and this led us to - Xôi Bát (location).
Already excited by the prospect of more xôi, our interest was piqued by a certain review mentioning that the restaurant had been featured in the Michelin 2023 guide. To anyone who is a foodie, this is like being fed catnip! It was possible we may even get a better bowl of xôi than we had eaten in Hanoi!
The restaurant is located off a side road off of Hoàng Hoa Thám. From the outside the restaurant doesn’t look like much, and if you weren’t looking for it specifically, you could easily just walk past without noticing it.
Inside, the restaurant is very small with only a handful of tables. We visited late on a Monday lunchtime and easily grabbed a table, but if it was the weekend we can imagine we might have had to wait a little.
Xôi Bát translates to bowl of sticky rice and the restaurant's small menu offers just that. With about ten different bowls on offer, each topped with a variety of meaty toppings. It was a hard decision, both the pork options were strong contenders, but in the end we both opted for the xôi thịt kho tàu, a bowl of sticky rice served with caramelised pork and eggs.
Shortly after ordering out came our ricey feast! A small bowl of sticky rice was topped with a large chunk of caramelised pork, a whole boiled egg, crispy shallots and coriander. Next came out small bowls of a clear soup and carrots, and finally two small dishes of pickled vegetables.
It was time to dig in, and boy were we in for a treat! The pork was sweet and tender. It was so soft you could easily cut it with a spoon and when you put it in your mouth it literally melted away. The deep fried shallots and garlic were sweet and crunchy and were a great texture against the soft meat and egg.
The toppings were delicious, but the xôi itself was ‘star of the show’. The grains had been cooked in a rich meaty stock with a taste of coconut studded through. The rice was chewy, snappy and hearty with a sweet undertone from the coconut. On top of this sweet, meaty, rice layer sat a thin covering of salty pâté. It was the perfect, savoury counterpoint to the sticky sweetness of the rice.
The bowl of xôi had the perfect balance of sweet and salty, but pair this with the pickled vegetables and suddenly you have the perfect mouthful. Tangy and sour, the vinegary cabbage and carrots gave a sharp kick to the rich rice and meat. The clear soup on the side was delicately flavoured with pepper and a subtle vegetable notes. It was a perfect refresher for the xôi flavour bomb.
We can see why this restaurant was recommended in the Michelin guide for 2023. Everything seemed to pair perfectly well with each other, in a wonderful harmony. It was an incredible lunch!
If you’re in Ho Chi Minh City we’d recommend hailing a taxi and heading here. Not only is the food amazing at Xôi Bát, but if you’re still hungry after, the whole area is packed full of local eateries, street food stalls and coffee shops. We’ve stayed in the area for nearly a month in total now and haven’t even gotten close to eating everywhere. There’s just so much choice!
If you’re short on time, and Xôi Bát is a bit far from your accommodation, then you can always get a bowl delivered straight to your door via Grab. Something we’ve already earmarked for a few days' time when we head to the airport. A bowl of xôi from Xôi Bát will certainly be cheaper and will almost certainly beat the usual drab airport food offerings!
To order food via the Grab app, you will need a Vietnamese SIM card. To arrange this in advance of landing in Vietnam, why not order a Vietnamese eSIM from Airalo.
We cannot stress how good a bowl of xôi is. It’s hearty, filling and packs a huge punch of flavour. Whatever time of day, it’ll keep you full for a very long time, and will set you up for a full day of exploring. If you’re in Vietnam, Xôi is a must try dish. Trust us, you won’t be disappointed!
Thanks for reading,
John & Ellie x
#adventuresofjellie
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Food of Ho Chi Minh City - A Guide for Experts and First-Timers!
Ho Chi Minh is a food lovers wonderland. An endless menu of street food, famous plates and incredible flavours awaits those willing to get off the beaten path. Check out our blog for some of the cities most delicious food beyond the well trodden lanes of District One.
Disclosure: This article may contain affiliate links. We will earn a small commission from any purchases made through these links.
Ho Chi Minh city, is usually the first or last place you'll visit when coming to Vietnam. The city’s chaotic streets are a food lovers paradise, with seemingly every centimetre of the city offering a different delicious plate. The streets are lined with restaurants, street food stalls, push carts and vendors, when you can get anything and everything often for very little money.
Many travellers will stick to the well worn streets of District One, with Vietnam's Khao San equivalent of Bui Vien and the handy English translations on the street side menus. But for those willing to venture further, and leave the comfort blanket of easy translation behind, this city is an absolute treasure chest of delicious delights!
Read on for some of the must try dishes and our top recommendations for dining beyond district one - okay there is a couple of recommendations from District One but as you'll see these are special cases! Make sure you read onto the end for our recommendations if you’re nervous about new foods or going off piste and exploring the big city.
From our two week stay in Ho Chi Minh city, these are our top food choices:
Cơm Tấm - Broken Rice
Cơm Tấm, literally broken rice, is a ubiquitous dish throughout Ho Chi Minh. Originally a peasant farmers dish made from the rice that was unable to be sold, this dish is now rightly an urban favourite.
There are infinite varieties of Cơm Tấm, however our favourite and most commonly found, is broken rice topped with sweet marinated barbequed pork, spring onion oil (scallion oil for our American friends), topped with fried egg and served with pickled vegetables and fresh tomato and cucumber. This is a hearty breakfast which will keep you full all through the morning and ready for a late lunch.
The unique texture of the broken rice grains is amazing with the sweet pork. Soft but with body and cut through by the spring onion oil and pickles, Cơm Tấm, like so much Vietnamese food, is a perfect blend of sweet, sour and salty. This is especially true when paired, and this is essential, with fish sauce and freshly minced chilli.
We are from England and have the mighty Full English Breakfast as our traditional start to the day, but Cơm Tấm is right up there with it. We can also report that it may even be better at curing hangovers!
Cơm Tấm is available literally everywhere. We ate repeatedly at the excellent store (no google presence) near our Airbnb. One plate of Cơm Tấm cost 50,000 VND (£1.65 or $2.05).
In the morning time just look out for the sweet smoke of street side barbecuing pork and you'll be in for a treat.
Pho - Noodle Soup
It should come as no surprise that we indulged ourselves with several bowls of Pho during our time in Ho Chi Minh. In case you’ve been living under a rock, Pho is possibly Vietnam’s most famous dish.
A bowl of rice noodles is served in a delicate yet rich and fragrant broth which is then topped with beef or chicken in various forms.
With Pho, the broth is the star of the show. Made of bones, fire roasted shallots and other aromats, the broth is boiled and intensified over a lengthy cooking (usually overnight) process. Beef Pho (Phở Bò) and Chicken Pho (Phở Gà) broths are cooked separately, with their stocks being made from the bones from the respective animals. Either way, the result is a clear, light broth with an unbelievably complex, intense and harmonious flavour. This wonderous broth is then poured over flat rice noodles. The broth's flavour will be different at every stall or restaurant, with every chef, grandma and street hawker having their own secret recipes.
After the broth comes the meat. If you’ve gone traditional and are dining at a beef joint (Phở Bò) the toppings start with sliced boiled beef. Depending how much you’ve paid and where you’ve ordered from, thinly sliced raw beef can be added to the bowl and cooked with the heat of the broth, braised beef, tendons and fatty cuts may also be added. The contrast in textures between the different cuts of meat and the richness of beef fat melting into the snap of the tendons, make for a unique and delicious mouthful.
For those who’ve gone for chicken (Phở Gà) it's a similar, but more poultry story. Strips of white and dark meat from poached chicken are added to the bowl, making for an even lighter taste than the beef, but with no less impact.
Whether you went for beef or chicken, your bowl will be topped with spring onions and a few herbs and served alongside a basket of greenery. This bouquet of leaves is one of our favourite things about Vietnamese cuisine. Many of the items in this article come with a tray full of herbs, green leaves, lettuce and beansprouts, all allowing you to tweak and customise your bowl according to your own tastes. Our favourite leaves were sawtooth coriander, Vietnamese basil and mint but honestly half the fun is trying out different combinations of mysterious green leaves.
Watch out though, in every bundle there is fish mint - Fish mint is delicious but not for everybody. Also there is another herb, we never did found out the name, which fills your mouth with a bitter chalky taste.
If the green bouquet wasn’t enough customisation for you, the table will almost certainly be laden with yet more options. Fresh chillies, lime wedges and fish sauce are staples, but you’ll also see bottles and jars of sweet soy sauce, chilli oils, garlic vinegar and the ubiquitous nuclear orange sweet chilli sauce. Again: experiment, customise and enjoy!
Ho Chi Minh’s Pho scene is fantastic and differs from northern Vietnam. Southern Pho broths tend to be more in ‘your face’ with more intense flavours and sometimes a little more sweetness than their calmer, cleaner northern brethren. We’re not going to open the can of worms and try and tell you which is better, just know they are different and therefore you have an excuse to try multiple bowls up and down the country.
There is no shortage of Pho restaurants, mobile street stalls and market place hawkers selling both beef and chicken Pho, we even saw some vegetarian Pho on sale just look for Pho Chay on the signs.
We thoroughly enjoyed our bowls at Phở 76 with its classic flavours as well as a delicious bowl full of beef tendon and offcuts from Phở Lề Đường. Our final recommendation is for Phở Hiền which sold beef Pho with an amazing variety of cuts for toppings. We went for the braised beef and were not disappointed.
A bowl of Pho can range in price but it’ll typically set you back around 50,000 VND (£1.65 or $2.05) or a little more with more toppings.
Banh Mi - Vietnamese Sandwich
Again, you don't need us to tell you this is good. Often voted the “best sandwich in the world”, an accolade we can certainly get behind (although being British, the humble bacon sarnie puts up a good fight), Banh Mi is nearly as famous as Pho.
There are endless varieties of Banh Mi but the basics are universal. Stage one is the bread. One of the few nice things the French left behind in Vietnam was the baguette. This crispy, crunchy white bread roll is split in half and becomes the perfect vessel for yummy fillings.
Smothered in pate and mayonnaise the baguette is then filled with pretty much anything you can think of. The traditional filling is various cuts of pork, Vietnamese sausage along with chilli, chilli sauce and pickled vegetables. The mix of meaty pork, pepper laden sausage, hot chilli, sharp pickles and rich pate is divine. A true symphony of sweet, salt and savoury goodness.
You can find endless varieties of Banh Mi on pretty much any street. Bakeries are an especially good place to grab a Banh Mi, as are butchers for obvious reasons. Banh Mi also makes a great pre-drink stomach liner as well as a lovely brunch!
A Banh Mi is very inexpensive and should cost you around 20,000 VND (£0.66 or $0.82).
For those feeling lazy there are many excellent choices of Banh Mi available for Grab / GoJek delivery. We recommend ordering a couple alongside a Vietnamese milk coffee, speaking of which…
Cà Phê Sữa - Vietnamese Iced Milk Coffee
For those who haven’t tried Vietnamese Iced Milk Coffee or Cà Phê Sữa you’re in for an absolute treat. This rocket fuel disguised as coffee is sweet, rich and delicious and makes for a fantastic caffeine pick me up whatever time of day!
The beans used are a medium to dark roast giving off a luxurious buttery, almost dark chocolate taste with unmistakable underlying bitter coffee notes. Cà Phê Sữa is served either hot or cold (but we prefer the iced version in hot and humid Ho Chi Minh city), with a generous dollop of thick sweet condensed milk sitting at the bottom of the cup. Mix away and recharge with this sweet, caffeinated thunderbolt of a coffee.
Cà Phê Sữa is available literally everywhere from morning to night and we never had a bad one. Our favourite is a hard choice but if we had to pick we would have to say Hoas The Coffee (great name we know) takes 1st place. It is a lovely courtyard coffee shop hidden away from the main street and made delicious Cà Phê Sữa and iced teas.
Just a note: in a lot of the cafes coffee is often served along with a small glass of unsweetened iced tea. This serves as a welcome relief from the sweet coffee and is part of the package and does not cost extra.
One iced Cà Phê Sữa should set you back around 25,000 VND (£0.83 or $1.03) for a posh one in a seated cafe. For a cheap takeaway market stall you are looking at around 15,000 VND (£0.50 or $0.62).
Bò Lá Lốt - Grilled Beef and Betel Leaves
Bò Lá Lốt translates to beef and betel leaves, it doesn't sound like much, but trust us it is fantastic! Throughout the city you can see small charcoal grills lined with little green tubes. This is Bò Lá Lốt. Juicy beef is wrapped in the irony betel leaf and expertly grilled before being sprinkled in roasted peanuts and brought to the table. The beef arrives at your table accompanied by a dizzying array of condiments, accompaniments and wrappers. Colourful pickles, chillies, rice paper, rice noodles and a tray of fresh green leafs, vegetables and herbs crowd the table. Lastly small bowls full of potent fish sauce, chilli and garlic are laid down.
For the full Bò Lá Lốt experience: dampen a circle of rice paper and layer it up with lettuce, your choice of herbs, pickles, as much chilli as your bravery/sanity permits and a clump of rice noodles. On top of this place you cigar of freshly grillet beef and betel. Now the more difficult part. Unless you had a misspent youth you will now have the difficult task of attempting to roll all of the above into a tube. Honestly it doesn't really matter how clumsy the attempted roll is as long as you get some kind of portable parcel.
Fish sauce is a Vietnamese staple, although It is hard to describe without being off putting. It is deeply savoury and brings a sledgehammer of umami to anything it is used in. In Bò Lá Lốt you take your wrapped roll (or bodged mess in our cases) and dip it in a fish sauce / sugar / chilli dip. The contrasting iron leaf, juicy beef and salty, spicy sweet dip is incredible. The bite with all its vegetables, pickles and wrapping layers is an explosion of texture and taste. Bò Lá Lốt is an essential Vietnamese dish, like nothing we had tried in South East Asia or anywhere else before.
As with every food on this list, Bò Lá Lốt is available throughout the city, just look for the smoking grills. We can highly recommend Bò Lá Lốt 18 Lam Sơn , not just as it was near our AirBnB but because the lovely lady running it was hilarious and helpful to two clueless Brits and grilled us up some delicious beef. We came here three times in two weeks, in a city with so many amazing eating opportunities this is high praise!
We paid 67,000 VND per portion plus a can of beer (£2.21 or $2.75).
Bún Riêu - Crab and Tomato Noodle Soup
Although not as famous or well known outside of Vietnam, Bún Riêu was one of our favourite noodle dishes we ate in the city.
The Bún of Bún Riêu refers to bun noodles. Small, spaghetti like rice noodles, with a satisfying chew and snap. Bun is found in many noodle soup and Vietnamese dishes, it feels almost more of a staple than the flat pho noodles of the country's most famous culinary export.
The bun noodles of Bún Riêu are served in a steaming broth of decadent crab and umami rich tomato. Like so much of Vietnamese food, the broth of Bún Riêu manages to pack a serious flavour punch, whilst somehow remaining light and delicate on the tongue. On top of the noodles and soup, all manner of delicious things are added.
In the incredible bowls we ate at Bún Riêu Tôm Lan the toppings included giant prawns, minced pork and crab cakes, Vietnamese pork sausage, blood cake and chewy, snappy swirls of pig skin. Chewy pig skin might not sound that appetising, but trust us they were delicious, the restaurant even has won awards for them.
The sweet yet acidic tomato and crab broth of Bún Riêu is a perfect partner to the sweet prawns and rich blood cake toppings. There’s so much going on in a bowl of Bún Riêu, every bite is a different adventure of textures and flavour.
At Bún Riêu Tôm Lan, make sure you order the special Bún Riêu (Bún Riêu Dac Biet) which comes with all the toppings listed above, as well as limes, chilli, bitter green leaves and crunchy banana blossom to add to the top. For those with an adventurous palette, Bún Riêu Tôm Lan has jars of the infamous Mam Tom.
Mam Tom is a fermented shrimp paste and smells exactly as that sounds. If you can get past the smell, it has a unique flavour that excels in drawing out the tastes of other ingredients. For Bún Riêu (we’re not sure if this is how you’re meant to do it), we mixed Mam Tom, lime juice and chilli together in a dipping bowl until it started to foam and dipped various of the bowls toppings into this pungent condiment. It’s not for everyone, but once you learn to like it, there’s no going back!
A bowl of Bún Riêu and iced tea will set you back 47,000 VND (£1.55 or $1.93).
Bún Nước Tôm Bò Trứng
Bún Nước Tôm Bò Trứng is a hearty noodle soup full of beef, noodles, sliced spring onions and topped with a still runny poached egg. In fact it’s name literally translates to all its ingredients, with Bún meaning noodle, Nước meaning soup, Tôm meaning shrimp, Bò meaning beef and Trứng meaning egg.
The broth is completely different to the more delicate pho broths with a massive punch of pepper and a sweetness from the prawn ball. As soon as the bowl hits your little table, make sure to break the egg and mix the runny yolk in with the broth to make a creamy, peppery, rich soup.
We stumbled upon these two bowls, down a small alleyway off a busy thoroughfare in the heart of Ho Chi Minh. Busy with locals, school children and university students, this was a cheap (45,000k a bowl) delicious and filling start to the day. If you’re the adventurous sort we’d recommend tracking down a bowl from Bún Nước Cô Dung. The bowls are so good we’ve been back multiple times!
Vietnamese Summer Rolls
You can find these everywhere in Ho Chi Minh city, from the most high class restaurants to the aunty pushing her humble street cart. These rice paper wrapped goodies are perfect, cheap street snacks.
Like Banh Mi, summer rolls can be stuffed with a wide variety of fillings but the most common is fresh vegetables and herbs, slices of pork and prawn which are then rolled in a tight wrapper of gummy rice paper. The summer rolls are then dipped in a spicy, peanut sauce and devoured.
If you see them, just buy them! They cost practically nothing and are delicious.
We brought four summer rolls from a street seller for 10,000 VND (£0.33 or $0.41).
Bún Chả - Grilled Pork and Noodles
Bún Chả holds a special place in our hearts. Seven and a bit years ago (as of writing), we visited Vietnam for the very first time. We hadn’t spent much time in South East Asia and Vietnam was blowing our minds. During a torrential downpour that flooded Bui Vien Walking Street (Bui Vien Wading Street? I’m so sorry) with ankle deep water, we waded into Bún Chả 145 . There are seminal moments when travelling and eating, and seven years ago this was one of our big ones. We come from London and have eaten many dishes from many cuisines from all over the world, but we had never tasted the sweet, savoury soup, cold noodle, grilled pork and crunchy herb combination that was Bún Chả. The second we had our first mouthful we knew we were somewhere completely different, with a culinary tradition unlike anything we had eaten before.
Okay, at this point we should back up and actually tell you what Bún Chả is.
Bún Chả is traditionally a north Vietnamese dish, but can be found throughout Ho Chi Minh city. The table starts with a familiar array of herbs and white rice noodles. This is shortly joined by small pucks of sweet grilled pork patties, diced garlic and chillies and a bowl of dipping sauce. Mixing in the diced garlic and chilli to your tastes, you then take your chopsticks and dip in the grilled pork, noodles or any of the green accompaniments and munch away.
This dipping sauce is where the magic happens. Sweet, yet garlicky, salty and spicy, this is a completely unique flavour. The sauce clings to whatever you dip in it and makes it ten times more delicious. We’re pretty sure you could dip cardboard into this sauce and it would still be yummy, so just imagine how good perfectly grilled pork patties are when dipped in this delightful sauce.
For the true expert level of enjoyment, we recommend ordering a set of fried Vietnamese Spring Rolls. These bring an extra crunch and also pair wonderfully with the dipping sauce. We thought it might be nostalgia, so on this trip we went back to Bún Chả 145 and can happily report that the restaurant is still there and still excellent. As it is located on Bui Vien Walking Street in District 1, it is more expensive than other Bún Chả outlets, but it is still well worth the money.
One plate of Bun Cha, a portion of Spring Rolls and a Beer Saigon Special set us back 128,000 VND (£4.22 or $5.25).
Ben Nghe Street Food Market - A Beginner Friendly Exploration of Vietnamese Food
Ho Chi Minh is a chaotic city and can be intimidating for a newcomer, especially if it is the first Vietnamese city you fly into. If you are not quite ready to order blindly in unnamed back alleys or just wander off into far flung districts, we do actually recommend the tourist street food market in District One. We do not normally love these tourist specific food things, but the Ben Nghe Street Food Market really is good fun. It is a great way to sample foods from across Vietnam without being overwhelmed by scooters, crowds and menus in Vietnamese. It is also, coincidentally to our enjoyment, one of the cheaper places to buy beer in the city (one bottle of Saigon Green costs 20000VND or £0.66 / $0.82)!
We are not gatekeepers for food and although we would definitely recommend moving outside of the tourist areas of District One, Ben Nghe Street Food Market allows the wary to dip their toes before taking the dive! That all being said, we have found Ho Chi Minh/Saigon to be incredibly friendly, safe and fun to explore.
Vietnamese food is famous for a reason. Cheap, delicious and with endless variety, Ho Chi Minh provides an amazing grazing playground for the culinary explorer! We ate so much more than this list can contain. From pork noodles with a poached egg floating in the broth, to steaming bowls of beef and carrot stew sat on the street as well as a very memorable night of eating frog, mouse and rabbits with the locals at a barbeque drinking restaurant. Open your mind and mouth and Ho Chi Minh city will provide!
For those short on time or those who just want to cram as much food as possible into one evening, we'd recommend taking a street food tour in the city.
Check out some of the options below:
We had an amazing time a few years ago zipping around the city on the back of a scooter enjoying some lesser known treats of Ho Chi Minh.
Thanks for reading,
John & Ellie x
#adventuresofjellie
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