Footloose in Hanoi: Celebrate city’s charm, street food and relics from past

Hanoi’s Old Quarter is a vibrant hub of history and culture – and a popular destination for tourists. (All photos by Zinara Rathnayake)

ZINARA RATHNAYAKE – March 1, 2025 08:17 JST

HANOI – It is 6 a.m. on a chilly December morning, but Hanoi is already alive, breathing and buzzing. Female street vendors with bicycles are peddling colorful roses, chrysanthemums and tulips. Groups of older women dance to loud, upbeat music around Hoan Kiem Lake, one of the city’s natural freshwater bodies. Nearby, office workers in suits sit on plastic stools on the sidewalk, chatting over bowls of steaming pho (rice noodle soup with bone broth, meat and herbs).

Vietnam’s capital has come a long way since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. The city now brims with specialty coffee shops, thrift stores, restaurants and craft workshops. Hanoi welcomed 4 million foreign tourists in 2023, according to the city’s tourism department, most of whom bedded down in the 36 tightly packed streets in the city’s vibrant Old Quarter.

Many stores here once produced goods for Vietnam’s royal rulers, the last of whom abdicated in 1945. On Hang Bac Street, silversmiths still craft engraved jewelry, while Hang Ma Street is known for specialty paper and stationery. This street also turns into a Christmas wonderland in December with stores displaying white and red festive decorations.

This is where I meet my guide Hoan Nguyen, who is eager to show off the city’s best food spots. In the next few hours, Nguyen guides me through the streets of the Old Quarter as we maneuver around swarms of motorcycles. Hanoi has made several unsuccessful attempts to ban these ubiquitous vehicles, in part to combat its worsening air pollution. But the city still has 7 million of them.

Street food in the Old Quarter

alt Fruit and vegetable stalls line the street in the Old Quarter.

“In Hanoi, you feel a strong sense of local culture,” says Nguyen. Most people, she adds, eat out in the morning and make their way into tiny stalls at lunchtime, so there are lots of places to eat.

Our first stop is a small mom and pop shop selling banh xeo (crispy rice pancakes stuffed with meat, shrimp and bean sprouts). A dish from the south of the country, banh xeo is wrapped in rice paper with salad and coriander leaves and dipped in a sweet-spicy sauce. As in many other parts of Asia, rice is the basis of Vietnamese cuisine, often incorporating ingredients such as fish sauce and fresh herbs. Meals include a balance of sweet, salty, bitter, sour and spicy notes.

As we walk through the tiny alleys, passing dozens of small food stalls, Nguyen says that complex dishes like pho are rarely made at home because of the range of ingredients required and the time and labor needed for preparation. While Vietnamese cuisine is multilayered, with a variety of rice noodle dishes, soups and meats hailing from different regions, Nguyen tells me that many tourists limit themselves to banh mi (baguette sandwiches) or pho. “That’s one of the reasons I started this tour,” she says, “to show tourists about Vietnamese cuisine.”

alt Left: Preparing banh xeo, crispy rice pancakes topped with bean sprouts and meat. Right: Guide Hoan Nguyen runs a street food tour that introduces tourists to favorite local dishes.

At one of the stalls, we stop for cha ca lang, a Hanoi delicacy that includes grilled Hemibagrus (catfish) marinated with turmeric and galangal, and grilled over charcoal. I watch as Nguyen sautees the grilled fish with scallions and dill in an oiled pan over a burner. We pair the fish and herbs with soft, delicate rice noodles, peanuts, and a delicious, pungent shrimp-based sauce.

The neighboring stall sells bun cha, a Hanoi dish that is believed to have originated in the Old Quarter, which incorporates smoky grilled pork patties in a sweet and sour sauce with rice noodles and herbs. Bun cha has been popular with Western tourists since former U.S. president Barack Obama and the American chef Anthony Bourdain dined at Bun cha Huong Lien, a Hanoi restaurant specializing in the dish, in 2016. Bun cha Huong Lien now boasts photographs of Obama and Bourdain (who died in 2018) on its walls, and is mentioned in the Michelin guide to Hanoi.

alt A cha ca lang meal, a Hanoi delicacy that includes grilled Hemibagrus (a species of catfish) marinated with turmeric and galangal, and grilled over charcoal.

However, Nguyen says the best food in town comes from small roadside joints. “Most locals only go to sit-down restaurants at the weekend for family dinners, a date night or special celebrations,” she says as we sit on small plastic stools to taste banh khuc — steamed sticky rice rolls wrapped in banana leaf with cudweed, pork and mung beans. “It’s nostalgic. It takes me back to my village home whenever I have this,” she says.

The coffee culture

alt A typical coffee shop in the Old Quarter.

Coffee runs in the blood of the Vietnamese. But it was not part of local life until it was introduced by French colonists in 1857. Robusta coffee plants, which have a high caffeine content, thrived in the country’s central highlands, and when the country opened for foreign trade in 1987 its coffee became popular worldwide. According to the World Economic Forum, Vietnam is now the world’s second-largest coffee exporter and accounts for more than 40% of the world’s robusta beans. Vietnam’s annual export earnings from coffee topped $5 billion for the first time in the year to September 2024, according to the Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association.

In Hanoi, coffee is everywhere, served in roadside stalls and “third wave” establishments focusing on single origin beans. Traditionally, beans are dark-roasted and coffee is slow-brewed using a phin, a cup-shaped brewing tool with a filter and a lid. When fresh milk was sparse and expensive during French rule, condensed milk became a viable alternative in part because it lasts longer in the hot, humid climate.

alt Left: Old Quarter scene. Right: A neighborhood coffee shop.

Ca phe trung (egg coffee) is a must-try, Nguyen says as we walk through a jam-packed narrow alley to enter Cafe Giang, a legendary spot that introduced the drink to Hanoi. Here, egg yolk is beaten with sugar and condensed milk for a rich, creamy texture and mixed with black coffee. There are other variations, including ca phe muoi, which is made with salted cream and ca phe dua, made with coconut milk. Many other coffee shops serve specialty drinks, including the Ta Ca Phe roastery on P. Hang Thiec Street, which uses six different blends and offers unique drinks such as yogurt coffee.

History and culture

While Hanoi’s people have moved on from the dark days of the war, Vietnam’s troubled past is still evident in places like the Hoa Lo Prison Museum, which focuses on the fight for independence from France, and the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel, which opened in 1901. Today, the entrance of this five-star hotel housed in a French-style building is often frequented by Vietnamese queuing for social media photographs. In the 1960s, though, the hotel built a bunker to protect its guests from American bombs and provided its staff with military training.

alt The 19th-century St. Joseph’s Cathedral in the Old Quarter is one of Hanoi’s most photographed landmarks.

Curious to know more about Vietnam’s history, I met Pham Trung Kien, a grandchild of a Vietnamese communist fighter who now runs a walking group tour. “No [other] tourists come here so I can easily identify those who are on my tour,” he says as a group of tourists from various parts of the world gathers at a coffee shop 3 kilometers outside the Old Quarter’s tourist buzz.

Over coffee, Kien briefs us about Vietnam’s history, beginning with its royal past and the French colonial period and ending with the 1954-75 Vietnam War, often referred to by Vietnamese as the “American War,” in which communist North Vietnam, backed by China and the Soviet Union, successfully sought to absorb non-communist South Vietnam, which was supported by the U.S. and other Western countries.

According to a 1995 Vietnamese government report, as many as 2 million Vietnamese civilians lost their lives along with 1.1 million North Vietnamese soldiers and irregular Viet Cong fighters and 250,000 members of the South Vietnamese armed forces. The U.S. lost 58,000 military personnel, and other South Vietnamese allies lost nearly 5,000.

alt A flower vendor.

Kien also tells us about the great famine in Vietnam in 1944-45, during the World War II Japanese occupation of French-ruled Vietnam. “My great grandparents survived by eating rice and water. When they went outside to look for food, they would see dead bodies lying around,” he says. Estimates of the death toll range between 600,000 and 2 million.

After the briefing, Kien walks us through the narrow alleys of a market selling vehicle parts, and past Soviet-style buildings still occupied by shop owners. Kien says his mother lived in one of these houses as a child with four other members of her family, sharing the bathroom and kitchen with 15 other people.

Kien says he was selected to take part in a cultural exchange program at age 15, and attended high school in the U.S., returning to Vietnam a few years ago after training as an architect in Ireland. “I’m happy I came back,” he says. “More and more young people are returning home to Vietnam.”

alt Hang Ma Street in the Old Quarter is known for its paper and stationery shops. At Christmastime, the street takes on a festive air, with shops adorned in white and red holiday decorations.

In 1985, Vietnam was one of the world’s poorest countries, with 75% of the population living in poverty, according to the World Bank. Today, it is one of Asia’s fastest-growing economies, with a poverty rate of 3.9% and forecast growth in gross domestic product of 5.5% for 2024, according to the World Bank.

As our tour ends, we visit one of Hanoi’s two “train streets” — narrow roads with single track railways where trains pass within centimeters of shophouses and pedestrians. This area was damaged in a U.S. bombing campaign in December 1972, with many houses flattened around Kham Thien Street, a busy shopping area.

As we sit in the train street, a tourist asks Kien if the Vietnamese still resent the nations whose citizens occupied their country or fought against the communist forces’ campaign to unify it. Kien says they do not, adding: “People no longer hold onto what happened. Because if they do, they know they can’t move on.”

Where to stay

Pick the Capella Hanoi for a five-star stay in the Old Quarter, or rest your head at the charming La Siesta Classic Ma May, which has an excellent rooftop bar.

Eating and drinking

alt Left: Old Quarter charm. Right: Banh khuc, a dish that includes sticky rice, cudweed, pork and mung beans, rolled and steamed in a banana leaf.

Some of Hanoi’s local street food places do not feature in online guides and maps. For cha ca lang, head to 115B Phung Hung Street, while Pho Suong is excellent for bowls of beef pho.

Sente: The Flavor of Lotus is a charming Vietnamese restaurant serving dishes such as stir-fried lotus seed noodles.

If you are looking for a book date with coffee, pick Bookworm Hanoi, which sells English-language novels.

Try egg coffee at the Loading T Cafe, and pho-inspired cocktails at Ne.

10 top things to do

Join a street food tour.

Learn about Vietnamese history on a walking tour.

Visit the Hoa Lo Prison Museum.

Go for a run at Hoan Kiem Lake.

alt On weekends, the streets surrounding Hoan Kiem Lake are open only to pedestrians and cyclists.

Visit the Confucius Temple of Literature.

Join a pottery painting class at Pottery Hai Doan.

Taste egg coffee at Cafe Giang.

Try banh mi at Banh mi Long Hoi.

Watch a water puppetry show at Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre.

Spend half a day at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, which exhibits the daily life and traditions of ethnic groups in Vietnam.

Zinara Rathnayake is a contributing writer.

Source: Asia Nikkie