Description
In Vietnam you can see the doctor, the dentist or the barber on the street. You can have a manicure or a pedicure, get a broken zip mended or give blood. Hardly surprising, then, that you can also eat on the street, and eat extremely well. Up and down the country, restaurants in the traditional sense - hardly dare emulate the specialities of the street. For the food on the street is the real food of the country, the food that the Vietnamese have traditionally eaten since they were children and which they steadfastly continue to eat today.
Whether a traditional bowl of noodles (pho), a banana leaf parcel of sticky rice (xoi), fresh spring rolls (goi cuon) or fresh stuffed rice cakes (banh cuon), the very best of the street dishes is usually found in the particular city or town of origin. And in every town and city there is always a woman who specializes in just that dish, one woman who cooks it better than any other. If she does not serve it literally on the street or at a table in the market, she will have set up a makeshift corner restaurant (probably in her house) and will be selling her special dish from there. A stall or shop front is not even necessary. One young woman in Hue crouches near the pavement just outside her house, in front of a heavy-based pan on a charcoal grill in which she makes banana fritters, selling them to passers-by as she flicks the sweet-smelling pieces hot from the pan.
