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By Root 1287 0

traditionally breakfast on pho or some other noodle soup. Alternatively, you might find early-morning hawkers peddling xoi, a wholesome mix of steamed sticky rice with soya bean, sweet corn or peanuts. Simple Western breakfasts (such as bread with jam, cheese or eggs and coffee) are usually available in the backpacker cafés or hotels. More upmarket places increasingly stretch to cereals and fresh milk, while some top-class hotels lay on the full works in their breakfast buffets. In towns, you could always buy jam and bread or croissants for a do-it-yourself breakfast; however, things get more difficult out in the sticks, where you may even develop a taste for starting the day on a pho.

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Eating and drinking | Vietnamese food |

Soups and noodles

Though it originated in the north, another dish you’ll find throughout Vietnam is pho (pronounced fur”), a noodle soup eaten at any time of day but primarily at breakfast. The basic bowl of pho consists of a light beef broth, flavoured with ginger, coriander and sometimes cinnamon, to which are added broad, flat rice-noodles, spring onions and slivers of chicken, pork or beef. At the table you add a squeeze of lime and a sprinkling of chilli flakes or a spoonful of chilli sauce.

Countless other types of soup are dished up at street restaurants. Bun bo is another substantial beef and noodle soup eaten countrywide, though most famous in Hué, while in the south, hu tieu, a soup of vermicelli, pork and seafood noodles, is best taken in My Tho. Chao (or xhao), on the other hand, is a thick rice gruel served piping hot, usually with shredded chicken or filleted fish, flavoured with dill and with perhaps a raw egg cooking at the bottom; it’s often served with fried breadsticks (quay). Sour soups are a popular accompaniment for fish, while lau, a standard of most restaurant menus, is more of a main meal than a soup, where the vegetable broth arrives at the table in a steamboat (a ring-shaped metal dish on live coals or, nowadays, often electrically heated). You cook slivers of beef, prawns or similar in the simmering soup, and then drink the flavourful liquid that’s left in the cooking pot.

Eating and drinking | Vietnamese food |

Fish and meat

Among the highlights of Vietnamese cuisine are its succulent seafood and freshwater fish. Cha ca is a famous fish dish (sautéed in butter at the table with dill and spring onions, then served with rice noodles and a sprinkling of peanuts) invented in Hanoi but now found in most upmarket restaurants, while ca kho to, fish stew cooked in a clay pot, is a southern speciality. Another dish found in more expensive restaurants is chao tom (or tom bao mia), consisting of savoury shrimp pâté wrapped round sweet sugar cane and fried.

Every conceivable type of meat and part of the animal anatomy finds itself on the Vietnamese dining table, though the staples are straightforward beef, chicken and pork. Ground meat, especially pork, is a common constituent of stuffings, for example in spring rolls or the similar banh cuon, a steamed, rice-flour “ravioli” filled with minced pork, black mushrooms and bean sprouts; a popular variation uses prawns instead of meat. Pork is also used, with plenty of herbs, to make Hanoi’s bun cha, small hamburgers barbecued on an open charcoal brazier and served on a bed of cold rice-noodles with greens and a slightly sweetish sauce. One famous southern dish is bo bay mon (often written bo 7 mon), meaning literally beef seven ways, consisting of a platter of beef cooked in different styles.

Roving gourmets may want to try some of the more unusual meats on offer. Dog meat (thit cay or thit cho) is a particular delicacy in the north, where “yellow dog” (sandy-haired varieties) is considered the tastiest. Winter is the season to eat dog meat – it’s said to give extra body heat, and is also supposed to remove bad luck if consumed at the end of the lunar month. Snake (thit con ran), like dog, is supposed to improve male virility. Dining on snake is surrounded by a ritual, which, if you’re guest of honour, requires