Deep Eats Volume 3

Vietnam Travel Special

I returned home from a trip to Vietnam, bookended by short stops in Singapore and Seoul, in late March. After eating almost exclusively Vietnamese food for more than two weeks, I needed a refractory period of burgers and salads before diving back into the Bay Area’s Vietnamese food scene. Here’s a writeup of my culinary adventures, a few solid options in Oakland (unfortunately one of my favorites in Oakland, Da Nang Quan, recently closed), and a list of restaurant recommendations in Hanoi, Hue, Hoi An, and Seoul. Next month we’ll be back to our usual rhythm.

Eating in Vietnam

The best food in Vietnam is usually eaten on short plastic stools, sometimes with another stool as a table. Fine dining is relatively hard to find, and what I found was universally disappointing. Some of my favorite meals were street food in a literal sense, eaten on sidewalks, but similarly humble setups in brick and mortar locations were just as common. 

Other countries I’ve visited with rich street food traditions, like Thailand or Mexico, usually have excellent fine dining as well. Why not Vietnam? I imagine the biggest driving force is that it’s still a relatively poor country. Most locals can’t afford expensive meals. Though the country’s economic reforms in the late-80s were quite successful, the average monthly salary is still less than $300 usd. Tourism may be booming, but it’s a far cry from Thailand.

Vietnamese culture is effusively nice, but cares little for the Western concept of good service. The customer is not always right, and even at nicer restaurants the wait staff does not do the performative song and dance Americans tend to expect. Courses arrive at whatever pace they come out of the kitchen, and no one is standing by to refill your drink. Vietnam does not seem to be a particularly aesthetically-driven culture, so plating, interior decor, and the like are less prized. 

However, perhaps the most salient reason for a lack of fancy restaurants is the strong competition from street food. Vietnam is chock-full of street food vendors and simple open-air restaurants that serve a single dish, with recipes that have been perfected over decades — sometimes generations. Vietnam’s culinary scene is more steeped in tradition than innovation. Oftentimes a city’s specialty dish is impossible to find even 45 minutes away in the neighboring town. This is not a country to travel to for innovative modern cuisine and Michelin stars, but it’s nonetheless a world-class culinary destination.