I’ve been a bit negligent in sharing much on our blog about our time here in Vietnam. It’s been quite a great experience and I’m sure that we’ll be back to see more some day. This trip to Vietnam was spent almost entirely in one place — the city of Hoi An. Hoi An is a small city of about 300,000 people located about 45 minutes outside of the much larger city of Da Nang, which has a population of three million.
Most people come to Hoi An and stay a short time, mostly to see the old town and the lanterns. With the help of Chat GPT, I decided that Hoi An sounded like it could be a better fit for slow travelers like us who were looking for something a bit more laid back than a big city. So we decided to just spend a full month here.
Coming from the US, the genuine smiles and friendliness of the local people in Vietnam will catch you off guard. I promise. I’ve been here for weeks and the warmth shared by the people instantly puts you in a good mood. The Ban Mi lady down the street, the waitress at the nearby pizza joint which has Salsa/Bachata/Kizomba dances every Tuesday and Saturday night. The Grab driver who you’d expect to be way more focused on his next fare than getting out of the car to open the door for you. Combine that with how perfectly safe it feels walking everywhere no matter the time of night… It really is a special place.
Something else that has surprised me is how different Vietnam feels from Thailand. I mean, they both share this level of feeling very safe, all the time and the people seem similarly, genuinely warm and friendly. But the French influence here and the much lower prominence of Buddhism (and religion in general) is quite a contrast from Thailand. In Thailand, they say nearly 90% of the country is Buddhist, here less than 20% claim a religion at all. That said, the Vietnamese people do by in large seem to have an active legacy influenced by ancestor worship which I don’t think that they consider a religion. It’s more like, you ask your ancestors for good things to happen for you. And since we’ve been here for Tết (Vietnamese new year) the practice of burning paper to clear bad luck and bribe spirits to stay away for the coming year is everywhere. The day before the new year, Tết Eve, there were burning pots, buckets and cans everywhere. It smelled like the whole city was on fire. Is it religious? I don’t think so? But it does seem quite superstitious. As a foreigner, I could be misreading everything… so take my American impression for what it’s worth.
Being English speakers who really only know a handful of words in Vietnamese has not been a problem here at all. Just about everyone in the tourism industry here speaks enough English to handle most transactions. And many people that we’ve encountered are nearly fluent. We had a great chat with the sister-in-law of our Airbnb host when we were invited to come and share a Tết Eve meal with them. Her English was impressive. She was fluent enough to have a conversation about abstract topics and to talk about what happened back in October when they had some of the worst flooding in 60 years here. I asked her where she learned English and she said, YouTube!
I started this post to give a quick summary of the tours that we did while staying in Hoi An with the hope that it could help someone else when deciding their own future travel plans, then realized what I really wanted to write about was the food!
Restaurants
As with Thailand, the restaurants are so inexpensive here that rather than cook, we ate out at a number of places. Instead of listing them all, I’ll just mention the low and high lights.
Mango Rooms – Over priced, and not nearly as good as other places. I had shrimp tacos as a starter and something completely forgettable as an entree. We went here as a fairly large group and it seemed that no one was particularly impressed by the food or the prices. So, stay clear. You can do better.
Com Linh – Duck is the specialty of the house and they are packed during dinner rush. The food was reasonably priced but I wasn’t impressed by the food. Once you’ve had Peking duck in Beijing, maybe nothing else will ever do?
Hiên Sushi Bar – Solid choice. Prices were a little higher here, but the Sushi and Sake were excellent. I also had about the best tasting bowl of Miso Soup I’ve ever had here.
Spice Route – Absolutely excellent. Everything we tried there was outstanding. Their cocktails are fantastic and their food was some of the best we ate in Vietnam. Shockingly, they seem cheaper than the far inferior places on the new side of the river. Top recommendation from me.
Le Petit Bistro Hội An – Excellent french food. I had roasted lamb both times we went, and Chrissy had duck confit. It was so, so good. It’s a nice open air place with a laid back vibe but with a bit of a European posh. I really liked this place. Prices were reasonable for how good it was. Some of our pricier meals were here because we’d usually get a bottle of wine. But an 80 dollar meal at a top quality eatery with wine, appetizers and desert for two people is pretty good in my book.
Hoi An Steak House – I had a 12 oz filet mignon and paired that with some Argentinian Malbec. It was fantastic. Expertly prepared. Whoever cooked that steak deserves the highest praise. The medium rare was dead on. Again, this was a pricey place. Steak is not common with locals, so a steak place is very much a specialty thing. But if you’re here and are craving some beef, Hoi An Steak House is a solid choice. It’s also the perfect spot to grab dinner if you’re planning to see the Memories Show. The foot bridge to the island is right next to it.
La Riva – Ok, in fairness we went to La Riva more than any other place else in Hoi An, not counting our home stay restaurant. The reason for going was for dancing (salsa, bachata, and kizomba every Tues and Sat). But when we got there we were pleasantly surprised to see a giant wood fired pizza oven in the back. They have excellent pizza. Highly recommended for the food alone. It’s a very short walk from the beach, but it is pretty far from the old town so you’d probably want to go by Grab/Taxi unless you’re staying near the beach.
Soul Kitchen – Excellent version of the banana leaf roasted fish. I don’t know if they have it every day, but the two times we went there they had live bands playing. It’s mostly an open air place and is right on the beach (just a short walk from La Riva).
The Deck Hoi An – Hotel roof top bar. Excellent drinks. Not cheap, but they are good. And the views from the roof of the city were outstanding for viewing the Tet fireworks. It’s the highest roof top bar in the city. And there’s a pool!
Cung Dinh – Cafe & Restaurant – The owner is our Airbnb host and she is absolutely delightful. We ate more meals here than anywhere else. In fairness, the restaurant is in the front yard of our apartment, and breakfast at the restaurant was included in our stay. We ate dinner here a number of times, and probably will again tonight. My favorite dish here is a Hoi An specialty called Hoành thánh chiên (Hoi An Fried Wontons). She serves them as an appetizer. You get 3 huge wantons loaded like nachos. The topping is a sweet and savory mix of tomato, onions, pineapple, shrimp and pork. They are a regional specialty and absolutely wonderful.
Nhà Của Lam bia chill – Disclaimer, this place is in Da Nang, not Hoi An! Ok, we ended up going here because we were looking for a spot near to where we’d planned to go Zouk dancing. We looked at reviews and photos online and this place seemed like the right vibe. We were thrilled by the food. It’s primarily a seafood place and very much a local spot. No English menus and really not a lot of pictures of the food either. There were a large number of very foreign sounding things on the menu. Jelly fish, pork tongue, Thai style frog… Diem pig burnt to a crisp, Three pigs hugging.. Yeah, the translation app was having a field day. We ended up ordering garlic spinach (very similar to Thai Morning Glory, but without the spice) fried fish and bbq pork. The fried fish was amazing. And I still have no idea how they served fried fish with the head and some of the skin on it but it had no bones!? The BBQ pork was good, but it was really… strange. It was their take on Texas barbecue. The meat was tasty and tender. The BBQ sauce that they had was more sweet than anything I’ve had in the US and not quite as tangy. The restaurant was great, and I loved the vibe. It was a good place to chill. I wish that we weren’t going dancing after because I was really curious about their house rice wine.
MAAZI Hoi An – We had seen a couple of Indian food restaurants around old town and decided to have dinner at this one early in our stay in Hoi An. It was delicious. The lamb biryani was flavorful, the saag paneer was great. The spice level was probably about right, but as usual I would have turned up the knob a bit more, especially on the saag paneer. The starter of tandoori shrimp was excellent, as it should be since seafood here is very fresh. The only miss, in my opinion, was Naan. It was bland and the texture was lacking.
Bánh mì Phượng Mập (AKA Banh Mi Big Mom) – By pure coincidence at the corner of the street where our apartment is and the main road that connects the old town with coconut beach is a Ban Mi stand that locals love. There are always folks stopping by on their scooters to get one of the cheap sandwiches for lunch. We ate there pretty much every day if we were home around lunchtime. Their Chinese BBQ pork was our favorite. What made it even better is that the sandwiches cost only 20,000 VDN (about 75 cents). I’m going to miss that place and the friendly ladies that work there. I assume that it’s a family run operation. They have three different stands that are all selling the same thing. Tasty ban mi on fresh baked baguettes. And if you want the full experience, they have the tiny plastic chairs and tables to eat at, too. We did that the first time but more often we’d just grab the sandwiches and bring them home since we were less than a block away.
I’ve enjoyed our time in Hoi An. Vietnam is a great place to visit. Food and rent are very affordable, by western standards. People are friendly and it’s incredibly safe.
I’ll create another post soon to talk about the activities we did, but for now you can drool over some tasty food pics.
