Vietnam food lovers

We are spending our last hours on Vietnamese soil at the airport in Ho Chi Minh City. I’m using this time to write a post about the culinary experiences from our journey.

Vietnam, like all of Southeast Asia, is a foodie's paradise. Fresh ingredients, balanced flavors, plenty of herbs, fresh chili, and the combination of sweet, sour, salty, spicy, and umami make the region's cuisine one of our favorites. In particular, the street food offered is incredibly affordable, but the Vietnamese fine dining scene is also noteworthy.

So, where do I start?! The classics in Vietnam are surely the noodle soup Pho and the sandwich Banh Mi. Beyond that, there are many other dishes to explore.

During my explorations through the street food stalls of the country, I tried as much as I could. Often, I didn't really know what I was ordering. I simply pointed at the plates of the guests who were already there. Here and there, it resulted in some surprises. For example, in Hué, I was served beef cartilage with garlic, lemongrass, chili, and peanuts. It may not become my new favorite dish, but the peanuts were delicious.

There was seafood fried or dried, rice soup with eel or duck, fried rice with all sorts of additions, soups with thick, thin, or glass noodles along with beef and/or pork, noodles with egg, water spinach, and beef, snails with lemongrass, fried pork with green pepper, tofu in various variations, meat on skewers, and oxtail. A lot of delicious, fresh fruit, and also that not-so-tasty durian fruit. Drinks with fruit jelly and egg coffee, juices, shakes, and so on... I could go on for a while, but I don’t want to make this too lengthy.

The simpler the street food stand, the better the food, that’s the approach I took when selecting the dining places. The success rate has convinced me to stick with this principle in the future. Not everything that was offered made it into the best of the list, but much of it was really incredibly delicious.

On our last evening in the city, we tested the fine dining area once more. The restaurant 'A by TUNG' was our choice. It was a culinary experience of the highest order. A fusion of European and Vietnamese cuisine that was absolutely impressive. The 16 small courses were a delight throughout.

In the end, we really accomplished eating from the simplest street stall all the way to a top restaurant in Saigon. Therefore, I would describe our journey in this area as very successful.

We hope the pictures can give a small insight into our foodie experiences and I would like to conclude here.

Once again, many thanks to all the diligent readers. We really enjoyed our journey and recommend a visit to this beautiful country to everyone.

In this sense: Until next time!