What Do Travellers Eat In Vietnam? – A Food Map Is Here

Vietnam is a destination every traveller who loves natural and antique beauty wants to visit due to its breathtaking landscape and delicious cuisine. Yet, what do travellers eat in Vietnam when there are several unique dishes in each region?  If this matter concerns you, do not miss out on our instructions below. We are willing to guide you on a memorable food tour. Let’s get started!   

What Do Travellers Eat In Vietnam?

Vietnam is not a large country, but the abundance of food here can fill both your appetite and your eyes. Each region in Vietnam has a special dish you will never get bored with. We will show what to eat and how to order food in Vietnam from the South area. 

Motorbike Tours In Mekong Delta

Pork Noodle Soup (Hu Tieu Nam Vang)

Have you ever heard of Hu Tieu Nam Vang? This tasty pork noodle soup has roots in Cambodia and China and has gained popularity in the Southern areas.  A Hu Tieu Nam Vang bowl will include shrimp, sliced pork, and quail eggs. What makes it special is the rich yet delightful sauce that you want to try again and again.  View more Mekong Delta Motorbike Trips 2022-2023

Goby Hotpot (Lau Ca Keo)

Hotpot is a familiar food of Vietnamese, but its toppings change in different areas. In the Southern area, they will be a goby hotpot, or Lau Ca Keo in Vietnamese.  Goby fish has a similar look to an eel but with a length of two fingers. Goby hotpot combines some vegetables, some special herbs, and live goby fish. Enjoy it to see how tangy the fish tastes and how rich the soup flavour is.  

Field Mouse (Thit Chuot)

It must be strange to eat field mouse when travelling to Vietnam by motorbike, but its flavour can surprise you a lot. Grilled field mouse is not a popular food you can eat whenever you want, so grab the chance to try it once in your lifetime.  Of course, the mouse’s taste is not as terrible as you imagine, like that of the rats in city sewers. These mice are from rice paddies and taste like chicken.  

Vegetables With Caramelised Fish Sauce (Mam Kho Quet)

Another traditional food of the Mekong Delta calls for Mam Kho Quet. The main character of this dish is the fish sauce, including caramelised pork and shrimp. People often serve it in a small clay pot and eat it with vegetables and rice. 

Motorbike Tours In Ho Chi Minh City 

Broken Rice (Com Tam Saigon)

Broken rice, or Com Tam, is a popular dish that every person in Ho Chi Minh City and other visitors like. A plate of Com Tam consists of rice, baked pork chop, cucumber, tomato, and fish sauce. If you want more, they can give you steamed egg cake, fried egg, soup, and shredded pork skin. 

Vietnamese Baguette with Pork/Egg

No matter where you live, you must hear about Banh Mi – the iconic Vietnamese food. Ho Chi Minh City is the ideal place to enjoy this food available on any street or storefront.  Let’s buy a fresh baguette with full toppings of pork/egg, pate, cucumber, and some other fresh vegetables, fresh chilli, chilli sauce or soy sauce for more flavour.  

Beef Luk Lak

Vietnamese food is famous for its rich taste, and beef luk lak is a typical example. The chef will serve you a set of sauteed beef, tomato, cucumber, and lettuce, along with chips, rice, and a dipping sauce. 

Rice Paper Rolls

The fresh rice spring rolls are another popular Vietnamese food that you easily find at the roadside restaurant. All the ingredients like cold noodles, a thin slice of pork meat, shrimp, and herbs are folded in rice paper and dipped in a creamy peanut sauce. 

Beef Offal Stew (Pha Lau Bo)

If you like eating animals’ internal organs, the beef offal stew is for you. This colourful and mouth-watering dish is the combination of stomach and intestines cooked in a thick sauce, matching well with a piece of crispy bread.  

In Dalat

Rice Cooked in Bamboo (Com Lam)

Moving to Dalat, you should consider Com Lam first. The locals use bamboo for cooking rice and serving this flavoursome dish with a juicy, tender grilled chicken meat. 

Vietnamese Baguette And Pork Balls (Banh Mi Xiu Mai)

Banh mi in Dalat is different from that in Ho Chi Minh city. Instead of eating a loaf of bread with full toppings, you will dip each fresh piece of baguette in a steaming bowl of spicy and juicy pork balls.

Rice Paper Pizza ( Banh Xeo )

Rice paper pizza is not the type of pizza you are imagining; it’s all because of the base. People put butter, sausage, pork floss, or mince, dried shrimp, egg, spring onions, mayonnaise, and chilli sauce in turn on rice paper and grill it over charcoal.  What is better than enjoying a warm rice paper pizza in the cold weather at the night market in Dalat?

Rice Flour Pancakes and Chicken Innards (Banh Uot Long Ga)

Banh uot long ga is tasty enough for any traveller to eat once they step on Dalat. You can enjoy a mouth-watering bowl of soft rice flour pancake and seasoned chicken innards. Its unique flavoursome dipping sauce enhances the flavour of this food more.   

Grilled Pork Sausage (Nem Nuong)

Do not forget to try the appetising grilled pork sausage in Dalat. Its pork taste is unbelievable as the local has infused it carefully with fish sauce and garlic sugar before grilling. And it will be best to roll it with cucumber, leafy greens, starfruit, and herbs in a rice paper layer. 

In Hoi An & Da Nang

BBQ Pork Noodles (Cao Lau)

BBQ pork noodles, or Cao Lau, is the traditional dish of Hoi An. A full bowl of Cao Lau includes chewy noodles, which are like udon, croutons, beansprouts, pork slices, herbs, and a BBQ sauce. 

Tumeric Noodles (Mi Quang)

Another dish that has the same look as Cao Lau calls for Mi Quang. However,  its main noodle is yellow rice with many different toppings like beef, chicken, frog, or snails. People add some sesame crackers, a sliced banana flower, and peanuts to a bowl of Mi Quang with a flavoursome broth. View more Motorbike Tours in Hoian 2022-2023

Fishcake Noodle Soup (Bun Cha Ca)

Next, you should move to fish cake noodle soup that every seafood lover wants to try. Marinated grilled fishcakes, which can be barracuda, lizardfish, or mackerel type, go well with the rich and nutritious broth, thin vermicelli noodles, onions, mint, and bean sprout.

Jellyfish Salad (Goi Sua)

Jellyfish salad is worth a try on your Vietnam motorbike trips to Da Nang and Hoi An. Herbs, papaya, and some other vegetables will be mixed with jellyfish to create a plate of crunchy salad. 

Motorbike Tours In Hue City

Rice & Basket Clams (Com Hen)

Hue food is an amazing dish, and basket clams and rice, or Com Hen, is among them. The locals serve rice mainly with tiny clams and other toppings like banana leaf, starfruit, and green mango. There is also a bowl of delightful warm broth for you to enjoy.

Beef Noodle Soup (Bun Bo Hue)

Bun Bo Hue is undoubtedly what you must eat apart from Com Hen. The highlight of this food is the rich yet spicy soup with plenty of local herbs, lime, and chilli sauce for enhancing flavour.

Sour Shrimp Paste (Mam Tom Chua)

Sour shrimp paste is the soul of the Hue region, which is spicy and sour enough to stimulate your taste. The shrimp in this sauce is still intact and soft, and you can eat it with hot rice, bamboo shoots, garlic, chilli, and galangal. 

Steamed Rice & Lotus Leaf (Com Hap La Sen)

There are a lot of tasty dishes from rice in Vietnam, and we are mentioning steamed rice with lotus leaf as an example. People will fry rice with lotus seeds, carrots, peas, and small shrimp before wrapping the mixture in a leaf of lotus and steaming it. The fragrance of this dish definitely satisfies your taste, we bet. 

Motorbike Tours In Ninh Binh

Mountain Goat Meat (Thit De Nui)

When travelling to Ninh Binh, visitors often think of mountain goats. The special thing here is that this meat has several ways to cook, such as steamed, stir-fried, grilled, or boiled. 

Vermicelli Noodle Soup With Eel (Mien Luon)

Vermicelli noodle soup with eel, or Mien luon, sounds strange to foreign travellers, but it does taste delicious. This type of meat is basically like a fish. An eel bowl with vermicelli noodles cannot lack sliced banana flower, lemon juice, and a piece of ginger.

Raw Goat with Lemon (De Tai Chanh)

We have previously mentioned ways to cook Ninh Binh goat, but not raw meat with lemon. Raw goat meat will be the most delicious, thanks to its sweetness. You will serve it with herbs, lemon, and a unique dipping sauce.    

Fermented Pork Roll (Nem Chua Yen Mac)

It is not an exaggeration to say that Ninh Binh is the heaven of unique food. Have you ever heard of fermented pork rolls? It is inside guava or fig leaves, with spices and other ingredients to create a combined taste of sour, sweet, garlicky, and salty. 

Sticky Rice With Ants’ Eggs (Xoi Trung Kien)

Using ants’ eggs to cook sticky rice is a special way of cooking that you only find in mountainous regions. After collecting the black ant’s eggs on the tree, people will wash them carefully and mix them with onion to fry. Then, they pour the fragrant mixture onto the top of the sticky rice and mix well. 

Nhech Fish Salad (Kim Son salad)

Last but not least, let’s move to a plate of salad from raw fish called Nhech fish salad. This type of fish is like the eel, which has a lot of meat without any bones. This salad consists of chilli, ginger, lemongrass, and Nhech fish. However, not every traveller can enjoy this food as the flavour is quite strong. 

Motorbike Tours In Hanoi

Pho Noodle Soup (Pho Ha Noi)

It will be a big mistake if you do not eat Pho Ha Noi while travelling to Vietnam. You can find this dish in every national area, but Hanoi is still its root. The broth is extremely rich, combined with soft and flat noodles and tender meat to become a masterpiece.

Grilled Pork and Noodles (Bun Cha)

We are pretty sure that you must have heard about Bun Cha Obama. That’s also why you should not miss out on this food. There are two bowls served to you. One includes a salty broth, grilled meatballs, and pickled vegetables. The other will be rice noodles as well well as fresh leafy vegetables. 

Mixed Noodle Soup (Bun Thang)

Bun Thang is different from other noodle soups that we have introduced before. You will be surprised by a great number of ingredients this dish needs. They are rice noodles, chicken, shrimp, scrambled eggs, ham, mushrooms, and pickles. Despite several toppings, the broth is still delightful enough for you to eat.

Fish-ball Noodle Soup (Cha Ca La Vong)

Another special dish from Hanoi that you must try once is Cha ca La Vong. The locals use catfish under the rivers in the northern alps to marinate with turmeric and galangal. They grill and fry it before serving it with coriander, rice noodels, peanuts, and a side dipping sauce.  Recommend Hanoi Street Food Tours By Motorbike 2022-2023

Ragworm Cake (Cha Ruoi)

Ragworm cake, called Cha ruoi, starts from Hai Duong. Its main ingredients are ragworms, which sounds strange and disgusting to many people. However, these worms are added to a bowl of pork, egg, lemon rind, and dill and mixed together, so you cannot see the worm on the plate. Cha Ruoi is suitable to eat with leafy herbs and rice noodles. 

Motorbike Tours In Sapa & The Northern Highlands

Free-range Pig (Thit Lon Cap Nach)

Now, you are moving to the traditional food of Sapa, and the first one is a free-range pig. Pigs in this region are free to run around, so their meat seems to be better and leaner, especially when you roast it.

Seven-colour Sticky Rice (Xoi Ngu Sac)

Treat yourself to another sticky rice dish, but with more colours, such as yellow, yellow-green, green, pink, indigo, light red, and dark red. The texture is also softer than regular food.  View more Sapa By Motorbike 2022-2023

Mustard Greens (Cai meo)

You often get used to using raw vegetables to make a salad or boil them in a hot pot, but you can fry them as well. Mustard greens are delicious, especially when you add mushrooms or carrots to this dish. Or else, you can cook a soup from this vegetable and ginger. 

Rice And Pork Congee (Chao Au Ta)

Let’s move to rice and pork congee, or Chao au ta. The taste of this dish is more special than other foods thanks to its extra ingredients. In more details, pork trotters are combined with aromatic herbs, eggs, and the root of the wolfsbane plant. 

Corn Cake Soup (Banh Duc Ngo)

People often make the corn cake bland to serve with a sour broth for higher flavour enhancement. Moreover, pork mince, peanuts, and fresh herbs play an important role in making the dish better. 

Horse Meat Soup (Thang co)

The H’mong people have a special dish for tourists that you had better enjoy, which is called Thang Co. It is a soup from simmered horse meat and organs along with some spices and herbs. Its smell is so strong that you can smell it from far away. However, you will fall in love with this food if you can eat it. 

Goat Intestine Stew (Nam Pia)

Nam Pia, a strange dish with an extremely unique smell, is suitable for those travellers who are brave enough to eat it. The reason is that its smell is somehow weird because of goat or beef intestines.  View more Ha Giang Motorbike Adventures 2022-2023

Grilled Moss (Reu Nuong)

The final dish today is Reu nuong. Rest assured that it is not as challenging to eat as other above food. The main ingredient is natural moss, which is dried or fried and served as a side order in your meal. 

In Conclusion 

Needless to say, Vietnam is the heaven of delicious food that any traveller wants to visit again and again. So, what do travellers eat in Vietnam?  You will never get hungry once setting foot in any region of this country. We do hope that our plentiful food list can satisfy you, so let’s figure out how amazing Vietnamese cuisine is without hesitation.   What riders have said about Vietnam Street Food Tours On Tripadvisor!