Eating well in Vietnam, from Hanoi to the Mekong

Vietnamese food is not one cuisine. It changes a lot as you travel south, and crossing the country from north to south is one of the easiest food journeys in Asia to follow. Here is what to order in each region and how to find your way around stalls, plastic stools and markets.

The north: Hanoi and clear broths

In the north the flavours are restrained, the broths are clear and chilli is yours to add, if you want it.

• Phở: beef-bone broth with star anise, flat rice noodles and meat. In Hanoi it is eaten mostly at breakfast. On the table you will find garlic vinegar and chilli, not the basket of herbs you will see in the south.
• Bún chả: grilled pork, sliced and in small patties, served in a sweet and sour sauce based on nước mắm (fish sauce), with cold rice noodles and herbs. It is a lunch dish: the street grills are lit at around eleven.
• Chả cá: fish marinated with turmeric and cooked with dill and spring onion, served with rice noodles and peanuts. It is one of Hanoi's historic specialities.
• Bánh cuốn: paper-thin steamed rice sheets filled with minced pork and wood ear mushrooms, topped with fried shallots and served with a dipping sauce. A light breakfast.

The centre: Huế and Hội An

Huế was the capital of the Nguyễn dynasty from 1802 to 1945, and its cooking still shows the mark of the court: many small dishes, such as bánh bèo, steamed rice cakes, or crispy bánh khoái. It is also the spiciest cooking in the country. The dish to try on the street, ideally in the morning, is bún bò Huế: beef soup with thick round rice noodles, lemongrass and fermented shrimp paste. If you are wary of the heat, ask for "ít cay", less spicy.

Hội An has dishes that barely exist elsewhere. Cao lầu has thick, chewy noodles, sliced roast pork, herbs and crunchy croutons. Tradition says the dough is made with water from the Bá Lễ well, an old well in the town, and with wood ash. Mì Quảng, from Quảng Nam province, has wide rice noodles and just a finger of turmeric broth, with peanuts and sesame rice crackers. Then there is bánh mì, the Vietnamese sandwich born from the French baguette: you find it all over the country, but Hội An's has a special reputation. Pâté, meat, pickled vegetables and coriander: a quick lunch.

The south: Saigon and the Mekong Delta

In the south the cooking turns sweeter, more tropical and more generous with herbs.

• Bánh xèo: the name echoes the sizzle of the batter in the pan. It is a crispy pancake of rice flour and turmeric, in the south often with coconut milk too, filled with pork, prawns and bean sprouts. You eat it in pieces, wrapped in lettuce leaves and herbs and dipped in nước chấm.
• Hủ tiếu: a slightly sweet rice noodle soup with prawns and pork, served in broth or dry with the broth on the side.
• Cơm tấm: broken rice with grilled pork chop, egg, pickled vegetables and fish sauce. In Saigon people say they eat it the way Hanoi eats phở.
• Cá kho tộ: fish, often catfish, cooked in a clay pot with caramel and fish sauce. It goes with plain rice.

In the Mekong Delta, stop at the markets and taste the fruit: rambutan, longan, mangosteen and dragon fruit, picked a few kilometres away.

How to order on the street

• Many stalls make a single dish: sitting down is ordering. Just show how many of you there are.
• If there is no menu, look at what the next table is eating and point.
• On the table you will find fresh herbs, lime, chilli, fish sauce and sometimes garlic vinegar. Adjusting the dish to your taste is normal.
• You pay at the end, almost always in cash, in dong.

Coffee

Vietnam is the world's largest producer of robusta coffee, and coffee is taken seriously. Order a cà phê sữa đá: the coffee drips slowly from the phin, a small metal filter, onto condensed milk, then ice is added. Strong and sweet. In Hanoi, try cà phê trứng, egg coffee: a cream of whipped egg yolk and condensed milk on top of the coffee. It was created in 1946, when fresh milk was scarce.

Food safety and vegetarian options

• Eat where there is a queue of locals and a quick turnover.
• Choose stalls that cook to order and dishes served hot.
• Drink sealed bottled or filtered water.
• Wash or sanitise your hands before eating.
• For health advice, talk to your doctor and check viaggiaresicuri.it before you leave.

If you are vegetarian, the key word is chay. Quán chay, vegetarian restaurants rooted in the Buddhist tradition, exist in almost every town, and some pagodas run vegetarian canteens. The problem is fish sauce, which goes into almost everything: say "tôi ăn chay, không nước mắm", I am vegetarian, no fish sauce. On the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month many Vietnamese eat vegetarian, and the options increase.

The cooking class

A cooking class is well worth a morning, especially in Hội An and Hanoi. Choose one that starts with a market visit: that is where you learn to recognise herbs, sauces and vegetables, and you often learn more there than at the stove.

In short

• North: phở for breakfast, bún chả for lunch, chả cá and bánh cuốn in Hanoi.
• Centre: bún bò Huế in Huế, cao lầu and mì Quảng in Hội An.
• South: bánh xèo, cơm tấm, cá kho tộ and Mekong fruit.
• Who it suits: travellers happy to eat on plastic stools as well as in restaurants, and anyone looking for a clear thread to follow on a north-to-south trip.