Hanoi Food Tours - 1 day

The Old Quarter of Hanoi is a bubbling gold-mine for anything, but above all, food. Follow your guide on a walking tour, or pilgrimage of sorts, to some temples of Hanoian food. Discover different cuisines, experience various atmospheres and have fun!

You start walking from the Northern edge of the Hoan Kiem Lake, where we have “nom” (a kind of local salad) as a starter. Then stroll around the former Cau Go street market and reach a very narrow alley where we sample our second treat. Few people, even Hanoians, actually know about this well-kept secret of Hanoi’s gastronomy: a delicious fish-roll filled with pork and mushroom.

Continue walking, you will spot along lots of street food stalls including one of the most popular “pho” noodle soup shops in the Old Quarter (people generally queue up for ages in front of the shop), and stop for a refreshment break at a sidewalk “bia hoi”. Bia hoi is an institution of Hanoi, sort of local pub serving fresh beer from the keg to the glass. Sit for a little while, and enjoy a beer as you watch the passers-by.

You continue the walk to a rice wine tavern, also serving traditional ethnic dishes from the mountains of North Vietnam, an iconic name on the food scene in Hanoi.

The French and their gastronomy have been marking Vietnam for more than 60 years. If the baguette bread remains today a noticeable icon of this influence, other unsuspected elements of the contemporary Vietnamese food scene find their roots in the pots and pans of the colonial era.

Let’s take a walk across History and unveil some of them. As an iconic symbol in Hanoi, your walk starts from the front of the Cathedral. You pass by a tiny shop that started making French-style cold cuts in 1942. Buy an assortment of ham and paté samples together with bread and take away to enjoy a little later. The walks continue from Ly Quoc Su onto Hang Thiec Street to a small, but famous, corner “bia hoi”. Bia was brought into Indochina by the French with the first brewery created in the early 20th Century. You’ll enjoy a draft beer Hanoi style and freshly bought cold cuts as starters.

Across the street, we sit in a Pho noodle soup shop on Hang Dong Street. Surprisingly another dish inspired from French cuisine. We continue walking towards Hanoi’s water tower, built by the French in 1894. The tour ends on Hang Than Street, where you will have the chance to taste one of the only sweet desserts of the Vietnamese gastronomy, a caramel flan à-la-française.

Pho – Vietnam Cuisine

Vietnam is definitely a noodles-country with no less than 6 different types of them. Trying all 6 in a single meal would be too much. So we have selected three noodle-based dishes, leaving aside the classic bun cha, bun bo or pho soup that one can very easily try on your own at just about every corner of the city centre, rather we are going to take you on a nice urban walk to sample some other popular dishes.

You start from the covered market of Dong Xuan, passing the “under-the-railway zone” and reaching the charming little Hong Phuc Street, where you will try some “banh da” with crunchy fish. Banh Da is a flat brown noodle made from rice and often served with seafood.

You continue your digestive walk to Phan Dinh Phung – one of the most beautiful street in Hanoi, then turn to Truc Bach peninsula which is full of specialised noodle food shops. We will try the famous pho noodles, the same ones used in the iconic soup of the same name. You will discover different ways to prepare these noodles, sautéed or rolled with beef and veggies.

Last but not least, you walk to another little street called Yen Ninh where we have some mien with eels. Mien are called glass noodles, translucent and made from starch.

After the trip, we are 100% sure that you deserve a Certificate for Noodle Sampling Champion.

If you want to know how Vietnamese people celebrate friendship and happy events, it is often around a table and it is called “nhau” – |Nhậu|. “Nhau” is a bit to the slang side and Let’s Nhậu could be roughly translated as “Let’s get wasted”.

But it’s not Sens attention to get wasted, we just want to spend a good evening taking you to what is certainly the best nhau restaurants in the whole city where the setup is welcoming, food is great and the atmosphere… wow!

But before that, let’s get high, literally. From your hotel, we transfer to the Lotte Tower and up to the 65th floor to have a drink at the rooftop terrace of a stylish lounge. Sip your beer or glass of wine as you admire the beautifully illuminated city. We then transfer to the “nhau” restaurant nearby, where you find out Vietnamese really go extra miles to find the best dishes to go with rice wine perfectly.

2 places, 2 totally different atmospheres – and that is what Hanoi is all about, striking paradoxes.