Hanoi IV – Street Food Tour

On our last day in Hanoi we went on a food tour. This is our tour guide, Tu. Since there were only three of us on the tour (and usually there are many more) he decided to just take us to some of his favorite places.  

           This is a map of the route we walked (3.6 miles). We walked from the West Lake to the Sword Lake.

 

We started at one of Tu's favorite noodle stands.

Ingredients: fish, banana flowers, banana stalk, lime and dried chilies.

I love coffee. I especially love Vietnamese coffee because they use really sweet condensed milk. Apparently not a single one of them is lactose intolerant.

They have wet markets in Hanoi just like they do in Shanghai.

They have very nice arrays of spices.

Uh... and squid.

Snails, crab paste and um... how should I say it uh... silk worms.

              

 Now how did you get there?

BBQ pork.

They even have Mexican coke (don't ask me how they got it).

 

We stopped for some mid-morning dessert . . .

. . . of red rice and yogurt.

The boys at the shop were very interested in PvsZ.

At another shop they sold little green cakes. They go nicely with tea . . . and weddings.

This lady is ninety years old and I am taller than her.

CCCCoooooofffffffeeeeeeeeeee. 

Double espresso. Dad likes no LOVES double espressos. My mom is not very fond of them.  

This lady runs a police stand (see Hanoi I).

I am getting kind of full.

At the end of the trip Tu got me a present . . . FRIED SILK WORMS!!!!! 

                      

I hoped that you enjoyed this tasty and utterly disgusting blog.

Love Parker

P.S. (from Pam). Tu was a great tour guide. We enjoyed hearing all his stories about the food and the people who make it. The 90-year-old lady has been making the green rice cakes all her life. They are a traditional gift for wedding guests (the reason the shop has all the big fancy towers of them.) We got Tu's name from the Dutch couple we met on the Halong Bay tour. He has a blog about food and his travels at www.vietnamesegod.blogspot.com. You can also find more descriptions of other food tours he's done at http://streetfoodtourshanoi.blogspot.com/. They make us wish we were back in Hanoi.

P.P.S. I ate some of the silkworms. Parker did too. They mostly tasted crunchy. I wouldn't fly halfway around the world just to eat them, but they weren't bad. I might go that far for the fried fish soup, though – it was fantastic.