There are many Doner Kebab stands around the city, but this on is different. It's the only one I've seen which has the kind of doner kebab you see back home (UK) or in Europe. By this I mean the kind of large spiced and processed cylinder of (lamb? beef?) meat which turns around the gas flame. The other elements (bread, salad, sauce) are the same as elsewhere, and all for 15,000VND.

Not somewhere I'd frequent as a rule, but it was a welcome sight and it was rather nice to eat one of these slight tastes of home.

This place is slightly hidden, but worth seeking out for Bun Cha in this area. You can spot the place from a distance as there's a metal chimney attached to the grill out front which billows delicious smelling smoke up the street.

The Bun Cha is pretty good (good meat, good patties, and nice sauce), but the nice thing about this place is that it's off the main street and has a kind of courtyard in the back where you can sit and eat.

Check it out if you are in the area.

A basic com binh dan and pho place with a few tables out on the pavement and a few more inside. The food is ok, a little pricier than normal, due to it's location, but still very cheap.

If I'm peckish in the neighbourhood and want a quick feed, I know I can rely on the Pho Xao here.

This is a little stall which sells the Vietnamese interpretation of Cantonese Roast Duck in the evening. It's not a restaurant, just a couple of ladies who sell tasty roast ducks. You buy by weight but you don't have to by a full bird. I was charged 130,000 per kilo the other day (Tet prices are clearly in full effect), which worked out at about 100,000 for half a bird.

The ducks are clearly well prepared, tasted very good, and there was a decent amount of meat there. There are a few roast duck stalls in the area closer to Chau Long market too, but this stall is always here and it's popularity seems to betray the the quality of the produce.

Having passed this little place and admired their ornate Thai pots many times, I finally tried their wares.

They serve Che (Thai style apparently), some Thai sticky rice based sweets, and Sticky Rice with ice cream (Kem Xoi). It seems to be this for which they are most popular, and I can understand why.

With the weather behaving like it's early summer (in February!) there were a lot of people here today tucking into a cooling bowl of this tasty treat. It consists of a small bowl of delicately flavoured sticky rice, topped with a plain ice cream and little slivers of toasted coconut. For 7000 VND a bowl, you can really go wrong - give it a try.

Pathfinder is an odd little magazine. There are often some interesting and well written articles on aspects of life in Vietnam, a few reviews of restaurants, and a lot of listings. The section in the back which lists places for street food, organised by the dish (with descriptions and the best times to go for each) is brilliant, and has been very useful.

However, I did once do some work for them and would never do so again as their office staff were about as unprofessional as you could get, and impose strange "taxes" on certain amounts of money but aren't willing to provide written proof of this. They reprinted one of my photos without permission too, long after they had used the original for another story.

A highly entertaining Vietnam based blog which has kept me entertained on many a dull day.

Sadly it seems not to be updated any more. If it doesn't return I shall mourn it's loss to the world of Hanoi based hilarity.

I went back here recently for the first time in well over a year and was pleasantly surprised by how good the food we had was. I'd eaten here on many occasions during my first year here and eventually got tired of it, though I can't remember exactly why.

Dishes that I remembered being good still are, which is always nice to find. The "bo la lot" and the tofu in tomato sauce are really very tasty and well prepared. Everything tasted freshly made and with some care too.

Service can be a little patchy here, depending on how busy it is, but it's the kind of place where it doesn't really matter that much (to me, anyway). There are a couple of tables too, if you you are bothered by sitting on the floor, though these are of the hard wooden variety and are probably only a touch more comfortable.

Chim Sao is forgiven for whatever it was that made me become bored with it - I've added it back on to my list of dinner options.

While it will become clear as soon as you enter that this isn't the greatest bookstore around, it's worth having a poke around it every once in a while.

Last time I bought something here I was looking for something to read without actually having a title in mind and found that they had all of Haruki Murakami's fiction titles. I bought a few of them (even some to re-read), and will continue to go back every now and again to see if they can surprise me with something other than their usual supply of pulp fiction.

While La Terrasse is not somewhere that I would go regularly, it is a joy to go for lunch here on occasion.

Yes, it's pretty pricey, but you get what you pay for. The menu veers heavily towards French cuisine (no surprise there), but there are also a number of more general standards to be had. I can recommend the soups, and the steak sandwich is great but I've never had a bad dish here. The Croque Monsieur is by far the best I've had since I've been living here. Portions are decent (they should be for the price) and it's clear that the ingredients are of top quality.

There's a good selection of wine and cocktails, and the mocktails are great (the mango limeade is a good thirst quencher).

On busy days service can be a tad slow, but when sitting outside next to the street and watching the world go by here it doesn't seem like a big issue.

If you're feeling a little flush and want a top quality lunch - this is definitely a good option.