Given its location and climate, the Southeast Asian region is blessed with abundance of fruits; some are unique to the area. As such, fruits make popular snacks among the locals. They are cheap and easily available year long, healthy, and can be refreshing treats especially in the middle of the day in a hot, tropical weather.

You can get the fruits either at a traditional market, the more modern supermarket or convenient stores, or from streetside vendors. Just like buying fruits or other fresh produce anywhere else, you should pay attention and make your selection carefully to make sure you get the fruit at the right level of ripeness. This can be tricky, especially if you’re getting some fruits that are unique to the region and you had never seen or tried before. In that case, you may want to get assistance from locals who know better about the fruits to help you pick the right ones.

When you’re getting fruit from street vendors, chances are they’ve already selected the fruits that are at the right level of ripeness to be enjoyed immediately. You do want to pay attention to the hygiene level of the vendor and how he/she handles the fruit before serve them to the customers. When we were in Bangkok, Thailand, we got some fruit snacks at a vendor in a night market. There she actually cut the fruit to pieces to order, and the utensils she used seemed clean. Also, the fruits served were the ones familiar to foreigners (like pineapple, mango, and watermelon). When we were in Cambodia, Kristi got some pineapple from a vendor at a market. There, the whole pineapple had been cut up in large pieces and put inside a plastic bag.

Yet in some other places, the fruits have been cut up, and in some cases, are mixed with some local spices or flavor enhancers. That you may need to be careful with, not so much because those are bad, but because your body may not be used to the spices or even the taste of the fruit itself that you can get bad reaction from it. I’ve heard of stories of adventurous traveler who ended up spending several days of his trip with gastrointestinal problems after eating what seemed to be delicious local fruits.

When we were in Hanoi, on the way back to the hotel after watching the water puppet show, we passed the night market area again and Kristi spotted a fruit vendor. She was curious looking at some fruits that the vendor had on display, as those didn’t look familiar to us. So she did get a bag full of little fruits that were similar to plums or cherries. The fruits were served with a typical condiment in Southeast Asia, a mix of salt and chili powder. When we tasted the fruit, it was sweet and sour. It tasted even better when we added the salty and spicy condiment. It was good, but I could only have them in small quantity as I think I would get stomach upset from having too much of the very acidic fruit.

On the photo below you can see the vendor and her fruit selection at the night market in Hanoi. The ones that we had were the reddish fruit in front of the lady in the middle.

One thing we looked forward to experiencing and tasting in Vietnam was its wide variety of food. Coming to Hanoi, we knew that many considered it as one the best cities in Asia if not in the world to find street food. It’s a concept that may not be common in the US, though in bigger cities we’re now seeing the idea of food truck that’s somewhat similar in its portable nature gaining popularity.

Growing up in Jakarta, Indonesia, I’m very familiar with the concept of street food. In fact, some of the best places to eat that I look forward to visit when I come home to Jakarta are simply known as ‘the place that sells [dish / cuisine name] on [street name].’ No official street address or contact information. You just have to know where it is, or go to the area and ask the people around to point you to the place.

That presented a challenge to us as we visited Hanoi for the first time. I did my research on the Internet to find out what locals or expats had to say about their favorite places to eat. The first place we went to was a big restaurant called Quan An Ngon that was easy enough to find even on Google map. Then we did find some ‘mom and pop’ places that had been in the same location for a long time, and only selling a small variety (if not just one) dishes. Again, since there was an address, we could locate them on Google map of Hanoi as well.

The last set of places was the most challenging one, as these are places that are somewhat ‘nomadic’ or portable. The vendors typically set up their food stands and some folding/stackable tables and stools on the sidewalk of a street. They would tear down the ‘restaurant’ at closing time, so sometimes if you have a vendor that is only open at night, you could pass the same location during the day and you wouldn’t know where the restaurant was as it looks different during the day. For these kind of places, the only direction we had was to go to a particular street roughly between two street intersections, and look for the place on the side of the road.

We went to one location that had many rave reviews as one of the best places for bún chả (grilled pork with vermicelli noodles). We passed the place a couple of times during our first day in Hanoi, but decided to save that for our last night in Hanoi to visit. When we arrived at the place, unfortunately they were only open during the daytime, not for dinner. Bummer…

We continued then to find another place. This one was a street vendor that was known for selling bún (vermicelli / rice noodle soup), particularly bún ốc (with snails). The food stand was set up on the sidewalk in front of a store that’s already closed for the day. There was a lady sitting near a portable kitchen where she prepared the noodle soup to order. Around her portable kitchen, there were several small tables with little stools around them for the patrons to sit and eat, and there was an area not far from there for the patrons to park their motorcycles.

We weren’t sure if the lady understood English, but a young lady who helped her there seemed to understand English a little. With some words and hand gestures, we ordered our food. She knew we’re tourists, so she asked ‘noodles?’ When we said yes, she followed up and asked, ‘beef?’ assuming the safe choice for foreigners. We should’ve said no and ask for what seemed to be the local favorite, snails, but I already nodded. So we had to settle with the beef version.

The noodle soup was delicious, and it was a perfect warm dish to have in a cool night (about 50 F outside). The table where we were seated was very small; just enough for the two of us. We sat on small stools that were only around one foot above the ground, so I was practically squatting while eating there. It was a good experience to finally ate like locals.

I took the photo below from our table. We were seated not far from the lady who prepared our noodle soups. Here she was in her portable kitchen preparing the food.

After a couple of days ‘off the grid’ on the cruise in Ha Long Bay, we were ready to be back to Hanoi. We only had one night left to explore the city, but we were looking forward to this part of the trip since we had a ‘date’ to meet someone from a group called Hanoi Kids who will be our local guide to explore the Old Quarter area of the city in a weekend night.

I came across the Hanoi Kids when I looked for information on things to do in Hanoi during the trip planning. It’s quite a unique organization, as it’s basically a club comprised of local university students who are interested in the hospitality industry, or simply would like to share their culture and learn about other cultures through interaction with foreigners.

So if you’re coming to Hanoi and you’re interested in getting one of the Hanoi Kids to show you around the town, you just have to arrange for a guide via email. They will assign a Hanoi Kid or two who are available on the desired date and time to meet you at your hotel and take you around to places that you want to see. It’s completely a voluntary and non-profit group, so there is no cost for the tour guide, but you are expected to pay their transportation and meal cost during the tour. Since the purpose is a cultural exchange, some guests suggested that you would bring a souvenir from your home country to give to your tour guide.

I contacted the group a couple of months before our trip once we solidified the travel dates. We only had an evening when we could do the trip, but I was quite excited when I heard back from them that it would work out. We would have a Hanoi Kid come and meet us at our hotel after we get back from Ha Long Bay to help show us around the Old Quarter area. Our interest was particularly to check out the street-side food vendors, so we would like to have the Hanoi Kid to take us to places that he/she personally likes to go.

After checking in to our room at the Hanoi Serenity Hotel again, I checked my email to find out about the meeting time with the Hanoi Kid. I did get an email from the group, but unfortunately it was a cancellation of the tour, because apparently thry had been trying to contact me in the last couple of days to confirm the tour, but since we were ‘off the grid’ in Ha Long Bay, we didn’t get their message until it’s too late.

So no Hanoi Kids experience for this trip. We decided to still explore the Old Quarter Hanoi on our own anyway that night. Below is the front store display of a restaurant in Old Quarter Hanoi that we passed. It had many dishes that looked appetizing, but we were not sure if we could communicate with the store owner, so we decided to pass. I’ll try again coordinating a Hanoi Kids experience on my next visit to Hanoi.