Night Market

Posted on August 13, 2012 by setiawanphoto

Following recommendation from our hotel concierge, we went to the night market in the Old Quarter Hanoi after we finished our streetside dinner. The night market was set up only on weekend nights (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday). Apparently it’s an extension of a daytime market with the same name, Đồng Xuân market, except with the night market they extended the market to the street by closing a street and make it a pedestrian only street lined up with stalls. Finding the night market in the Old Quarter was pretty easy, as it was located on a street called Hang Dao that started on its south side near the northwest corner of Hoan Kiem Lake. From there, the market went along the street for about 600 m until it reached the Đồng Xuân Market.

The market was quite crowded at night, mostly with the locals. I don’t know if people went there specifically to shop, or it was more of a social activity to hang out at the market. When I looked at tourists’ comments on the market, one comment that frequently came up was to beware of pickpockets. Apparently such incidents frequently happened there among the tourists. Fortunately we didn’t have such experience during our visit there.

We walked around the market for quite some time to see what we could find there. The market was a mixed of stalls selling anything from clothes to souvenirs, crafts, toys, etc. There were also many vendors selling snacks and drinks. We looked for things that might be interesting to get as souvenirs, and Kristi was also looking to find wooden sandals for her mom. But we didn’t really find anything that we would like to buy or even enter a bargaining session with the seller for. It was an interesting place to people watch, however, so as long as you’re careful to protect yourself against pickpockets, it might be an interesting place to check out if you happen to be in Hanoi during the weekend.

The photo below was taken at the south end of the night market. You can see the sign indicating the two ends of the night market, and the street divided into two pedestrian walking aisles with stalls lining up on both sides.

Roadside Noodles

Posted on August 12, 2012 by setiawanphoto

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.

Streetside Groceries

Posted on August 11, 2012 by setiawanphoto

After finishing our bún cá and paying for the delicious dish, we continued our walking tour in the Old Quarter Hanoi. We decided to play it by ear and just turned on the next block to see what’s on the next street. The Old Quarter Hanoi consists of around 36 small streets, each street was named after a particular item that was sold at the stores on that street (e.g. Hàng Gà means Chicken Street, that’s where you could find people selling chickens, Hàng Giầy means Shoes Street, where you can find stores selling shoes, etc.). Today you can still find some of the specializations on the streets, though they may not necessarily match the original street name.

It was a weekend night, so all the stores were open. In front of the stores, there were many street vendors setting up their stands. This made the narrow streets felt even narrower. We pretty much walked close to the middle of the street as there was no sidewalk to walk on. Pedestrians shared the street with motorcycles. During the day, there were cars also going through these streets. At night, it’s pretty much impossible for the cars to go through there.

On one of the streets we noticed something that we didn’t expect to see. We were getting used to see streetside vendors selling snacks or some hot dishes. However, on one street, we saw vendors selling (fresh?) produce: vegetables, meat, etc. It’s kind of odd and out of place to see these on the side of a busy commercial street. I wonder who would be going out on a weekend night and while at it also buy fresh produce to take home… I also thought of contrasting this to how we buy produce in the grocery store in the US. In the US, we would watch for ‘sell by’ date to make sure we’re getting fresh items. In Hanoi, well, you have to know how to select your produce from the market and being able to determine if something is fresh; there is no such thing as ‘sell by’ or expiration date.

I took the photo below as we walked through one of the streets. Here you can see a lady selling (fresh) meat, right in front of a store that sells household goods, and next to the motorcycle parking. Does that look like a place you would get the meat for your dinner from? It was around 50 F temperature that night, so it’s almost like having natural refrigeration for the meat. Though I wasn’t sure how clean it was to have it out there with exhaus from traffic passing by in the air…

The Old Man and the Fish Noodle Soup

Posted on August 10, 2012 by setiawanphoto

Since our planned excursion with the Hanoi Kids was cancelled, Kristi and I had to figure out what to do instead. We decided to still go ahead and explore the Old Quarter Hanoi at night, even though we had to ‘play it by ear’ without a tour guide. We stopped by at the front desk of our hotel, and once again the helpful front desk lady provided us with a map of the Old Quarter streets, and told us that since it was Friday night, there was a street market that we should check out.

During the planning for the trip, I did some Internet research to find out what people had to say about the best street foods you can find in Hanoi. Of course each individual has his/her preference on the best place to go for a certain dish, so I decided to just gather a list of the places many people mentioned about ‘the best place to get …’ Most of the places are addresses in the Old Quarter Hanoi where you can find the street vendors. Many of these places didn’t necessary have name; so you pretty much treat it as ‘going to the place at the particular address where they serve a specific dish.’

Since we didn’t really have any particular plan for the night, we decided to look at the list of the street vendors and tried to locate the street name on our map. Once we found the street, we started to plot our walking route from the hotel to the streets, and we came up with a route that should pass several of these food vendors. We decided to make this our own ‘Vietnamese street food walking tour.’

The first place we located on the map was very close from our hotel; it was around the block, only about two minute walk. It’s a little food stand selling bún cá, a rice noodle soup dish with fried fish fillet and vegetables. When we got to the place, there were three tables and enough seating for less than eight people. There were a couple of people eating, and an old gentleman at the front preparing the dish. I don’t know if he understood English, I just use hand gesture to ask for one bowl of the bun ca (the only item on the menu). While the food itself was pretty cheap (about 15000 VND, around USD $0.75), we only ordered one to share so we could save some room for more things to try out later on that night. It was pretty tasty; a good way to start the night. At the end, again with hand gestures I asked the old man how much it was, and he used his hand gestures to indicate that it was 15,000 VND.

The photo below was taken from across the street of the small noodle store. You can see the kitchen set up in the front of the store with the old man working on the food behind the counter. The little table for two where we sat was the one on the front right near the bicycle.

Hanoi Kids

Posted on August 9, 2012 by setiawanphoto

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.