Discovering Hanoi means discovering its street food. Fresh ingredients, refined traditions, and secret family recipes are hallmarks of Hanoian cooking, and Hanoians don’t mess around when it comes to good food. Get your chopsticks ready: Here are five iconic dishes in Hanoi you don’t want to miss!
1- Cha Ca (fish cooked with turmeric and dill)
Hanoians consider Cha Ca to be so exceptional that there is a road in the capital dedicated to these fried morsels of fish – Cha Ca Street.
Along the busy road, where spiderwebs of exposed electric wires hang overhead, dozens of specialists compete to sell the best cha ca — crispy turmeric-marinated fish that’s fried tableside in a pan with herbs.
The most famous restaurant on this strip is Ca La Vong – one of the oldest eateries in Hanoi – and the first to set up shop on Cha Ca Street, over a century ago.
The dish itself dates back more than 130 years. It was first invented by the local Doan family, who served the special meal to troops during French colonial rule.
2- Banh Tom (shrimp cake)
Deceptively time-intensive, Hanoi-style banh tom, or shrimp cakes, have just a few main ingredients: freshwater crayfish or shrimp from West Lake, flour and sweet potato.
Instead of grinding the shrimp into a paste (like a fish ball), the fried seafood is usually left whole — sitting atop the crunchy cakes. It’s typically served with lettuce leaves for wrapping, plus chili, lime juice and fish sauce for dipping.
Many tourists when coming to Hanoi have fallen in love with Ho Tay shrimp cakes because of the sour and sweet taste from the fish sauce, the crunchiness from the fried flour and the rich sweetness of the shrimp meat.
3- Bun Ca (fish noodle soup)
Fresh and light, bun ca combines fried fishcakes, dill, tomatoes, green onions, and perilla — a mint-like herb.
A lunchtime staple in Hanoi, you can find bun ca (fish noodle soup) just about anywhere.
For Mark Lowerson, founder of Hanoi Street Tours, his favorite fish noodle shop is in the Old Quarter, with a vendor named Van. “This place has the best fish noodle soup. You can order steamed fish or fried fish,” Mark said.
According to Mark, if in foreign countries, adding more spices to a dish is considered an insult to the chef, this is not the case in Vietnam. “You can add more spices right at the table. A little lemon juice, vinegar and chili helps the dish balance the sour, salty, spicy and sweet flavors to your taste.”
4- Bun Rieu Cua (crab noodle soup)
Bun rieu is a meat or seafood vermicelli soup with a distinctive crimson color. The broth gets its appearance from tomato paste and annatto oil, made from achiote tree seeds.
Freshwater crabmeat and blanched tomatoes are the soup’s star players. Tamarind paste lends sourness to the broth, while airy bits of fried tofu contribute crunch.
Depending on the region, bun rieu might also come topped with beef, pork, snails or fish.
Vermicelli noodles swim in the soup, adding balance to a dish that’s both colorful and light. Add to that the requisite plateful of lime wedges, chili and greens — like banana blossoms and mint — and you have a perfect meal.
5- Ca Phe Trung (egg coffee)
Vietnamese “egg coffee” — or Ca Phe Trung — is a Hanoi specialty in which a creamy soft, meringue-like egg white foam is perched on dense Vietnamese coffee.
While destinations across the city now serve it, Hanoi’s humble Cafe Giang cafe claims to have invented it.
There are hot and cold versions. The former is served as a yellow concoction in a small glass. It’s consumed with a spoon and tastes almost like a coffee flavoured ice cream — more like a dessert than coffee.
The hot version comes resting in a small dish of hot water to maintain its temperature. The strong coffee taste at the bottom of the cup seeps through the egg — the yellow layer on top — and is quite thick and sweet, though not sickly.
