Food Tour in Hanoi

On my first full day in Hanoi I met a really nice German woman, Meli.  I was sitting around Hoan Kiem lake writing some postcards and this man came up to me trying to fix my shoes. It's not uncommon to see men doing this is tourist areas. They carry a little bottle of glue around, inspect your shoes, and then try to repair them for a fee.  The man was pretty aggressive in getting me to engage in his services and even pulled my flip flops off my feet and glued the frayed parts back together despite my protestations.  I started to get pretty uncomfortable so I made a typical move and looked for anyone who looked like me. I saw a blonde, white woman sitting along not too far from me, so I grabbed my belongings, and pretended like I was meeting up with a friend. Thankfully, Meli understood and helped me be more forceful with the man. 

Meli was very nice, and, like me, was traveling alone until she met up with her boyfriend a few days later.  We seemed to get along pretty easily and she liked the idea of spending some of the day together. She suggested that we try a food tour that could be scheduled through her hotel that evening. It sounded like fun, so I committed to a food tour of Hanoi for US$25.  For the fee we got a tour guide who would tailor the tour to our liking (we refrained from trying dog, but were disappointed to hear that crickets were out of season) and all the food and drink included. This tour ended up being a great investment because it helped me feel much more confident in approaching food stalls, street food, and restaurants in Vietnam. 

One of our first stops was at a street vendor selling kabobs. I can't remember if these were pork or chicken kabobs, but they were awesome. We also put some chili sauce on them to give them a little extra punch. I've really enjoyed the food in Vietnam, which I can credit in part to the chili sauce. Yummy!

This is Mr. Ha, our food tour guide.  

We had a very small tour group, which was great. Mr. Ha is on the left, Lea (who is French, but lives in London) is in the middle, and then Meli is on the right.  

Me gingerly eating really hot meat off of a stick - One thing I really appreciate about Vietnamese food is that it is all cooked incredibly hot. It's steaming through almost the whole meal time. In all my time here I've only had one meal where the meat seemed a bit cool, and it was at an Australian pub. 

Meli trying her kabob

We did not give this one a go, but obviously tongue is an option here. The Vietnamese use every part of the animal. Every. Part. I completely understand why and know that if were raised in a culture where we did the same this would not bother me at all. I still can't be excited about feet, brains, tongues, and more.   

We were curious about those long things hanging. Penis. Pig penis. They eat everything. We were not curious enough to try it.  

Pho - which at this point I had a fair amount of already, but it's still great. This is beef pho, which comes with some steak pieces, but also a few small beef patties. I don't know what's in the beef patties, but I love it.

There are a little dogs here and there around Hanoi. Based on what we know of dogs being a special cuisine here I was surprised to see some as pets. I didn't assume that everyone here would like to eat dog, but I didn't imagine them being pets that much. Late in my travels I spoke with my bike tour guide in Hoi An. He spoke of an experience when he was a kid where a strange man came around his neighborhood and then his dog disappeared. When I asked what happened he responded by saying, "Well, you don't see dog farms around here, do you? Where do you think the cooks get the dog they cook?" We worry about small dogs being ravaged by coyotes, but in Vietnam the threat is humans looking for food.

Duck butchering

Duck - I'm not nuts about it. One thing that's worth noting about food is Asia is that there are no real knives. Because food is eaten with chop sticks all of the meat comes cut into smaller pieces when it's served. Basically, cleavers are the only cutting implements used. Everything is chopped - bones and all. It's not uncommon at that table then to put the whole piece of food in one's mouth and then pull the cleaned bones out.  

Mr. Ha and Lea at my favorite - table top bbq! 

Fantastic!

No, we didn't eat this dragonfly. This one was chilling on the side of the restaurant wall and I thought it was beautiful, so I took a picture.