Hanoi Street Food: What to Eat and Where the Locals Eat It

In Hanoi, the best restaurants have no menu, four dishes, plastic stools, and a queue of motorbikes outside. Eating here is not a break between sights — it is the sight.

Breakfast is pho bo, and the best bowls are gone by 9am. Look for the stalls where the broth has been simmering since 3am — clear, deep, and fragrant with charred ginger and star anise. Lunch belongs to bun cha: grilled pork patties in a sweet-sour broth with rice noodles and a mountain of herbs. Obama and Bourdain made one shop famous; every neighbourhood has its equal.

The rules are simple. If the stools are full of locals, sit down. If the menu is a single dish, order it. Pointing, smiling and a confident 'mot' (one) will feed you better than any translation app. Prices run 30,000 to 60,000 dong — one to two euros.

Finish with ca phe trung, egg coffee, invented in Hanoi in the 1940s when milk was scarce: a whipped yolk cream over strong robusta, somewhere between coffee and dessert. Order it at Cafe Giang, where it was born.