Vietnam food and culture: 13 days, three kitchens
Vietnamese food is not one cuisine. A bowl of pho in Hanoi is clear, restrained and served with almost nothing on it. The same dish in Saigon arrives sweeter, cloudier and buried in herbs, hoisin and chilli, and northerners will tell you it is not pho at all. Between them sits Hue, where the imperia
- Duration
- 13 days
- Pace
- Moderate
- Hotel changes
- 3
- Best months
- Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Nov
- From
- $2,600 per person
This Vietnam food itinerary runs thirteen days, three cities and three completely different kitchens, with only three hotel changes so that you can eat in each place long enough to notice the pattern.
Who it suits: people who plan holidays around meals, and anyone who wants a cultural trip with something to do in it rather than a list of temples.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive in Hanoi. Transfer, and a first dinner of bun cha at a place with plastic stools and one dish on the menu.
Day 2: Hanoi, the early shift. Out at five for the wholesale market at Long Bien, where the food for the whole city arrives by motorbike in the dark. Breakfast of pho at a stall that has been open since 1949, then back for a rest. Late morning: coffee, properly explained. Vietnam is the world’s second-largest coffee producer and almost none of it is the arabica you know. Egg coffee, coconut coffee, ca phe sua da. Afternoon free, then bia hoi on a corner at five, when the fresh beer is poured from a keg that arrived that morning.
Day 3: Hanoi, hands on. A morning in a private kitchen with a Hanoi cook: banh cuon steamed on cloth over a pot, cha ca with turmeric and dill, and nuoc cham mixed until it is right. Afternoon at the Museum of Ethnology to put the food in the context of a country with 54 ethnic groups. Evening free.
Day 4: Hanoi, out of the city. A day at Duong Lam, a village of laterite houses forty miles west that has been farming and making soy sauce in the same courtyards for four hundred years. Lunch with a family. Bat Trang ceramic village on the way back for the bowls you will now want to buy.
Day 5: Hanoi to Hue. Morning flight, an hour and a quarter. Afternoon at Dong Ba market with a guide who will explain the twenty things on a Hue table you have never seen, then a dinner of banh beo, banh nam and banh khoai, which are small, fiddly and the point.
Day 6: Hue, the royal kitchen. The Imperial Citadel in the morning, then an afternoon cooking with a family who cook in the court style: carved vegetables, tiny portions, dishes designed to be looked at. Bun bo Hue for breakfast the next morning is compulsory.
Day 7: Hue, the other side. Two royal tombs in the morning, Minh Mang and Khai Dinh, then lunch at a Buddhist monastery where the vegetarian cooking is some of the best food in Vietnam and costs almost nothing. Afternoon free. Com hen, rice with baby clams, for dinner at a street stall on the island.
Day 8: Hue to Hoi An by train. The coastal line over the Hai Van Pass, two and a half hours on the seaward side, then a car to Hoi An. Evening walk through the Ancient Town, and a bowl of cao lau, a noodle that is only made here.
Day 9: Hoi An, garden to table. Morning at Tra Que herb village planting, watering and cutting the herbs that go into everything on the central coast, then a boat to a cooking school on the river. Afternoon free. Banh mi in the evening, and yes, we will take you to both of the famous places and let you decide.
Day 10: Hoi An, free. The Cham ruins at My Son at opening, a bicycle to An Bang beach, a tailor, or nothing. Our document sets out all of it.
Day 11: Hoi An to Ho Chi Minh City. Late morning flight. Evening food tour of District 4 and Cholon on the back of scooters with local riders, which covers more ground in three hours than you could walk in two days: com tam, banh xeo, hu tieu, snails.
Day 12: The Mekong for the day. Two hours to Ben Tre, where the coconut goes into candy, oil, wine and the boats themselves. A sampan through the small canals, rice paper drying on bamboo screens, and lunch cooked at a canal house. Back to the city in the evening.
Day 13: Departure. A last banh mi on the way to the airport.
What is included
Accommodation with breakfast throughout, both domestic flights, the Hue to Danang train in reserved seats, private car and English-speaking driver on all transfer days, three cooking sessions in private kitchens rather than in hotel demonstration rooms, the Long Bien market walk, the Duong Lam and Bat Trang day, the Cholon scooter food tour, the Ben Tre delta day with lunch, guides on five days, all entrance fees on guided days, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant in Tel Aviv and our Hanoi office throughout.
Honest notes
Street food is where the good eating is. It is also where the stomach trouble is, if you are unlucky. The rule that works: a busy stall with high turnover, food cooked in front of you, and a queue of local people. Our guides take you to places they eat at themselves. We do not pretend the risk is zero.
Vegetarian is harder here than it looks. Fish sauce is in almost everything, including dishes that appear to be vegetables. It is entirely workable, and Buddhist vegetarian cooking in Hue and Saigon is excellent, but it has to be arranged in advance in Vietnamese. Tell us at the enquiry stage, not at the airport.
The 5am market is at 5am. Two of the best hours of the trip, and we will move it if you would rather sleep. Most people who ask us to move it regret it.
What we would skip. The dinner cruises on the Perfume River in Hue and the Saigon river, which are about the boat rather than the food. And any cooking class attached to a large hotel.
Built by Osnat Angerman, our Southeast Asia specialist, with our Hanoi office, which chose every stall on it.
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