Hanoi Part 2: A Sidewalk Story

The amount of activity that occurred on the street and sidewalks of Hanoi really resonated with me on this trip. Little plastic stools and tables are ubiquitous.  People just pull up on their motorbike or bicycle, plop down, and get down to eating, buying, drinking, selling their fruits or vegetables or [name your business here].

Entrepreneurial women carry stoves and food slung across their shoulders or bikes.  My favorite was seeing a one-woman portable pho shop: she had her stove in one basket, her ingredients in the other, and she would move around the city, cooking on the sidewalk for anyone that wanted a bowl: 

 Hanoi's story is played out on the sidewalk more than any other city that I've visited.  The people watching here is divine.

The food in Hanoi is inextricably linked with the street.  (I mainly wanted to go to Vietnam to eat.)  I already knew it contained some of the best and cheapest street food in the world. And I was right -- upon my return, I told my mom that I may have been Vietnamese in a former life, because amidst the spicy chili peppers, Thai basil, mint, cilantro, juicy limes, grilled pork, fish sauce and jars of white vinegar provided for liberal dunking... I was in heaven.

Pho with pork knuckles and pig's blood

Plump, juicy grilled oysters, a plate at $5.50

Pho ga, or pho with strips of chicken, Hanoi's speciality

Bun cha - grilled pork and a variety of wild herbs with rice noodles.  Fried spring rolls.

Chili peppers and crushed garlic

Doner kebab banh mi - a brilliant fusion of juicy grilled pork mixed with red cabbage, lettuce, cucumbers, tomato and topped with red and white pickled onions, stuffed into a toasted sesame bread, slathered with mayo and hot sauce

SUGAR CANE JUICE.  They serve it with a spritz of mandarin orange here. Be still my heart.

Fruit and condensed milk dessert stand.  The plastic blue tables and stools found everywhere. 

Not to be missed is a visit to the Bia Hoi corner, or a corner on Ta Hien and Luong Ngoc Quyen streets where bia hoi (fresh beer) is served out of kegs on all corners of the street.  The beer is brewed every night and delivered every day to bars and shops around the city, to be drunk that very day / night.  There are no preservatives in it so apparently the shelf life of the beer is just around 24 hours.  Each beer (and they are sizable glasses as you will see) costs on average 5,000 dong -- which translates at the current exchange rate to U.S. 24 cents.

What's particularly interesting is that different establishments source their beers from different breweries (if we can even call them that) so they have slightly different tastes.  We sampled a few establishments over the course of two nights to get a sense of the flavor varieties.  The beers were very light, very carbonated and somewhat hoppy, but still surprisingly tasty.  Sitting at a little red table with my bia hoi, watching the motorbikes zoom by, listening to the excited chatter of tourists and locals, was truly one of the highlights of the trip.

Cheapest beer we've ever drunk

Serving the beer from the keg and peanuts in a bucket.

Our favorite of the night

Simple pleasures.  Is there anything better?

Action shot.  Nonstop stream of motorbikes galore.

Discarded bamboo leaves from bang chung as people eat and drink their way through the establishment

Chatting and hanging out

I leave you with some snaps of the architecture of the city:

How cool/cute is this building?  Many buildings in Hanoi are incredibly narrow.

Balconies and remnants of French architecture abound

Haphazard building

Cha Ca La Vong is one of the oldest establishments on Cha Ca street (the street was named after it!) and it is famous for the one dish it serves - you guessed it.  Cha Ca, or grilled fish.

Bamboo purveyor of some sort

The beautiful opera house