For many, Hanoi is a restaurant lover’s dream come true. The variety and affordability of eating out in Hanoi allows one to survey a full culinary landscape.

Were there no international cuisine in the city, Hanoi would still be a memorable place to dine. The diversity of Vietnamese food and the inherently social nature of the meals keep one interested in exploring the local fare. Eating local can take a variety of forms. There’s street food which can be either a mobile food vendor, or a relatively stationary setup that has been carved out of the sidewalk. Street food is a mixed blessing that many of us have come to accept as a standard part of our lives. It is often delicious and unique. The men and women who run the spots become important entries in our index of neighborhood characters. However, there are sanitation issues to be considered. While some claim to have eaten street food for years without incident, people do get sick. It will be up to you to deem that risk worthy or not.

The next step up is the small specialty shop. These hole-in-the-wall joints have the barest of accommodations and only serve one dish…or a couple variations on a single dish. It wasn’t long ago that the average Hanoian had this and street food to choose from. People rarely had money to eat out on, and food shortages made it nearly impossible to provide a full menu. Furthermore, opulent restaurants with gratuitously diverse selections of delicacies were a bourgeois extravagance not likely to be in vogue during such a hardscrabble communist era. As a substitute, we see the hundreds of mom-and-pop operations that throw all their energy into one thing. Just about any modern Hanoian has a mental list at the ready of the best of these little spots.

The increasing affluence of Hanoi has led to places incorporating larger and larger menus into their operations. Often, these “restaurants” have the same feel and accommodations as the former specialty shops they may have once been. The space may be a bit larger, but there’s still the same peeling, cracking paint on the walls and rubbish under foot. Happily, the prices are still quite cheap and the quality of the food wide ranging.

Even more recently, the city has experienced an explosion in the number of Vietnamese restaurants with a scope of accommodation and cuisine that would not be out of place in any developed country. These can consist of more formal interpretations of dishes typically available, modern innovations and fusions with non-indigenous cuisine, or even attempts to cultivate elements of traditional flair that saw little expression in the difficult years.

Add to this a broad international restaurant scene (of both Eastern and Western influences), and you have a dining experience that belies Hanoi’s modest economic presence in the region. As the cultural and political heart of the country, Hanoi has always had a disproportionately high number of diverse international residents. While this initially spawned a scattering of spots tucked away to comfort the homesick, it has developed into a rich tapestry of good taste. The areas of heavy tourist traffic have more than their share of western menus on hand, but they are not always the best representation of what is available. Scout them out. You may be settling for a lackluster meal when something truly stellar is right across the street. Also, some of the true gems of the city are in out-of-the-way neighborhoods near embassies or business centers with large numbers of foreign staff. Don’t assume the tourist traps are the only places to get a decent foreign meal. It’s far from true.

Have a peek at what’s around, and it’s tough to run out of options in Hanoi. Enjoy your meal!

Written by alpha

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