One unique experience found at Quan An Ngon restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam, is the concept of having representation of street foods from various regions in one place. You can peruse the very extensive menu to order your meal, or you can walk around and look at the food stalls that were set up similar to how street vendors set up their makeshift restaurants. One thing nice for foreigners is that you can find the dish that looks interesting and delicious and order it from the menu without having to worry about the language barrier in ordering the food, and for locals, you can find good variety of dishes that could cater to everyone’s taste when you come in a large group.

You can also see how a typical street vendor sets up their stand. The set up has to be completely portable, and in many cases the vendor would come with a cart or in double-basket carriers with everything they need to operate the establishment for the day (or night). At Quan An Ngon this is obviously not the case, but they represent the set up quite well to demonstrate how that set up is done.

The photo below shows the stand for pho ga, the chicken noodle soup dish. You can see the stack of steam chickens on the right side, and other ingredients needed to make the dish on the left and front side. Imagine if your the vendor setting up the food stand and having to do the preparation, load up your double basket carrier, and carrying the whole thing on your shoulder to the location where you set up your stand.