Vietnamese street food | Top 10 Dishes Make You Fall In Love

Vietnamese street food is an outstanding cultural feature attracting locals and foreign tourists. Street food in Vietnam is manageable and simple but still captivates people. It is that simplicity that makes the taste of Vietnam. Therefore, it is notable for its unique features that are not found anywhere else.

VIETNAMESE STREET FOOD CULTURE

Vietnamese street food dishes are varied and flavorful. With geography covering three regions (North, Central, and South), each has its distinct cuisine. Vietnamese cuisine balances ingredients to bring out the fresh taste, maintain natural deliciousness, and be healthy. Therefore, Vietnamese street food provides individuals with various exhilarating emotions.

Most Vietnamese people enjoy street food stalls because they can quickly immerse themselves in the bustling ambiance outdoors. They just need to find a sidewalk coffee and eat a few snacks, which is a simple but meaningful joy when coming to Vietnam.

Foreign tourists first try Vietnamese street food

Street food in Vietnam differs from the high-end restaurants on the big street. It’s just tiny shops and appears with small stools placed on the side of the roads. If you travel to Vietnam, you will see a simple image of people sitting on a stool and enjoying their food. This is how Vietnamese street food culture has appeared and is popular until now.

10 DISHES NEVER MAKE YOU DISAPPOINTED

Banh Mi – A symbol of Vietnamese street food

It is impossible to discuss Vietnamese street food dishes with Banh Mi, a famous and nutrient-dense Vietnamese breakfast dish. Banh Mi is a traditional breakfast dish that is eaten in the morning to prepare for the start of a busy working day. It is affordable for most people, with a moderate price of roughly 20,000 VND (1 USD).

A wonderful flavor doesn’t need to describe

Layers of tasty fillings and toppings are hidden within Banh Mi. It frequently includes a range of proteins such as grilled pork, shredded chicken, cold cuts, or even tofu for vegans. Banh Mi can be prepared in various ways, including sour, spicy, salty, and sweet, depending on your flavor.

Banh Mi in each region also has a different shape and taste. Hanoi has a crispy and spongy crust served with pate, meat floss, and spring rolls. Saigon is full of grilled meat and ham. Banh Mi Da Nang is smaller, slightly pointed at both ends and often served with the typical Da Nang sweet chili sauce. The variety of a dish prepared differently in each region is a feature of Vietnamese street food that attracts foreign visitors.

Spring Rolls

Vietnamese street food is well-known worldwide for its variety of meals, with Vietnamese spring rolls being one of the most famous must-eat Vietnamese foods. Thanks to the creativity of Vietnamese people, spring rolls have many varieties you should try. 

1. Cha Gio – Fried Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Fried Spring rolls have different names in each region. The South is known as “Cha Gio” and the North is “Nem” or “Nem Ran”. The fantastic glass noodles, pork, vegetables, and aromatic spices blend is wrapped in rice paper and deep-fried to form little rolls. 

A perfect Vietnamese street food snack you shouldn’t miss

Cha Gio can taste the best if you dip it into the fish sauce. Because the combination of salty, sweet, sour, and spicy flavors of fish sauce and the crunchy of Cha Gio is always a perfect balance. If the fish sauce smells too overpowering, you can eat Cha Gio without it, and it’ll still be tasty.

Cha Gio can be served as a main course or as an appetizer with rice, noodles, and salad. If you want a snack during the day, these crispy rolls are the greatest option on your Vietnamese street food menu.

2. Goi Cuon – Fresh Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Goi Cuon might be your perfect choice for a healthy spring roll version. The dish originated in various Southern provinces and has a cold and mild flavor. Goi Cuon totally does not use oil for cooking. 

Goi Cuon – Southern culinary imprint

Shrimp, pork, vermicelli, and fresh veggies are wrapped in a thin sheet of rice paper. The top is so clear that you can see the ingredients inside. This dish is usually dipped in hoisin sauce, which is made up of black soy sauce or ground soy sauce, broth or coconut water, and other ingredients. Goi Cuon’s dipping sauce can also be made with peanut or fish sauce. 

If you are a healthy foodie, this dish should not be missed in your Vietnamese street food menu!

Sticky Rice

Sticky rice is a diamond in Vietnamese street food, with a great mix of flavors, textures, and fragrances. Sticky rice is produced from glutinous rice that has been soaked, cooked, and flavored to create delicious food. 

If you want a quick breakfast but are still full of nutrients and delicious, sticky rice is a perfect choice. And here are some types of sticky rice that Dideden recommends for you.

1. Xoi Man – Savory Sticky Rice

One of the specialties of street food in Ho Chi Minh is savory sticky rice. A simple package of hot savory sticky rice will only have a layer of onion fat and then a thin layer of pate. After that, the seller will put a few slices of sausage, shredded pork rolls, meat floss, and coriander on it. It’s as simple as that, but it’s always delicious.

Simple but nostalgic food full of flavor

In the past, salty sticky rice was wrapped in banana leaves and tied to an elastic band. But now the sticky rice is contained in a foam box. Either way, salty sticky rice is also considered a delicacy in Ho Chi Minh.

2. Xoi Dau – Bean Sticky Rice

Xoi Dau is a well-known Vietnamese street food sticky rice meal. It can be served with various ingredients, including meat. This dish is produced by crushing beans and soaking in water for about 5 hours (typically overnight). After that, they are mixed with glutinous rice and steamed in a steamer.

Bean Sticky Rice

There are also many different types of sticky rice, such as sticky rice with peanuts and sticky rice with green beans. Another interesting point of this sticky rice dish is that they are wrapped in banana leaves or dong leaves and tied with elastic bands. This has created a unique feature of Vietnamese street food culture in the eyes of international friends.

3. Xoi Vo – Glutinous Rice Balls

It’s called “Vò” because people must use their hands to break the glutinous rice when eating them. Xoi Vo is also carefully prepared since the glutinous rice must be separated when cooked. But they are strangely soft and fragrant when you taste them.

Glutinous Rice Balls

This dish is often served with coconut milk or pepper, depending on the people’s taste in each region. Some places will eat Xoi Vo with sesame salt. Dideden believes that Xoi Vo is one of the strange dishes for first-time visitors to Vietnam.

4. Xoi Ngu Sac – Five-colored Sticky Rice

The name “five-color sticky rice” refers to the sticky rice’s five primary colors, which are white, purple, blue, yellow, and red. Tay Bac people dye sticky rice with various plants and wild vegetables for beautiful colors.

The quintessence of Tay Bac converges

The five-color sticky rice specialty is not only delicious but also incredibly beautiful and holds many unique and profound meanings. The meaning of five-color sticky rice, in addition to the “five elements”, also represents the desire for love and symbolizes luck. Vietnamese street food will never let you down because, besides being delicious, it always carries with it beautiful cultural values.

Banh Xeo – Crispy Vietnamese Pancakes

Banh Xeo is a popular street food in Vietnam that is greatly thought to have originated in France during their colonization of Vietnam. The word “Xèo” refers to the sound made when the rice batter comes into contact with a hot pan. Banh Xeo is a crispy pancake with a delicious diluted fish sauce.

Banh Xeo has a yellow exterior layer with boiling pork, shrimp, bean sprouts, and green onions. Some people prefer to eat banh Xeo with chopsticks rather than their hands. However, eating it with your hands is the greatest method to enjoy this pancake.

A dish that is hard to resist

Banh Xeo is big and has a thin border in the South. The cake flour is diluted with coconut water to achieve a light fat. The dish has crunchy edges that are soft in the center. The Central region’s Banh Xeo is smaller and fried with additional oil to promote crispness. The filling does not contain coconut water or green beans, like Banh Xeo from the South.

If you are a vegetarian but still want to enjoy this dish, there is also the Banh Xeo Vegetarian version. Most restaurants remove the meat from the recipe and replace it with mushrooms. You can see that Vietnamese street food is always rich and flexibly processed in many different versions.

Banh Khot – Vietnamese Mini Pancakes

Banh Khot is a Vietnamese street food that is worth enjoying. It is known to tourists less than other dishes. However, it is attracted by its small shape and interesting name.

This dish is called “Khọt” because when taking the cake out of the mold with a spoon, it collides with the mold wall and makes a “khọt khọt” sound. These bite-sized cakes are created with rice flour, coconut milk, and turmeric. It gives them a bright golden color and a hint of coconut taste.

Famous street food in Vung Tau

To make Banh Khot, a small amount of batter is placed into a specialized pan with small circular molds. The batter cooks to generate a crispy exterior layer while remaining soft and creamy on the inside. The pancakes are then topped with shrimp, resulting in a delectable blend of textures and flavors.

A standard Banh Khot must be crisp and chewy, with plenty of fat from rice flour and coconut milk. It serves with raw lettuce, perilla, herbs, broccoli, and shredded papaya. You wouldn’t want to miss a dish where you can clearly feel the crispy taste of the crust with the soft filling in your mouth while eating, right?

Banh Duc

Banh Duc is a popular street food in Hanoi, especially in the winter. Banh Duc in Hanoi currently keeps its traditional flavor as a popular folk food of the Vietnamese people in the past.

Banh Duc has flexible cake flour made from ordinary rice flour, tapioca flour, and roasted minced pork with a wood ear. Finally, it mixes with hot sweet, and sour fish sauce, fried onions, and coriander. It will be an omission if your Vietnam travel list does not have this hot but delicate traditional dish.

Banh Duc Hanoi – The familiar taste of winter

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Bo La Lot – Beef With Guise Leaves

Bo La Lot is one of the world’s most famous Vietnamese street food. Bo La Lot is a meal from the Southern region. When visiting Vietnam, you will notice several roadside shops selling this meal, ranging from small to large stalls that are often crowded.

Vietnamese rustic dishes are famous all over the world

The ingredients are also simple, consisting of meat and fig leaves. To maintain food cleanliness and safety, the ground beef is completely seasoned with spices, and the guise leaves are cleaned. This dish is unique because it must be roasted over a charcoal stove to be completely outstanding.

Bo La Lot is wrapped in rice paper with vermicelli, cucumber, star fruit, and green veggies. Then it was dipped in fish sauce spice to make a taste that had foreign diners in tears.

Goi Kho Bo – Beef Dry Salad

Goi Kho Bo is a Vietnamese street food that has been around for a long time. Goi Kho Bo is made of grated green papaya, roasted peanuts, coriander, and dried black beef. Goi Kho Bo is a harmonic combination of sweet, salty, and spicy flavors. It is much better when eaten with crispy shrimp crackers.

The deliciousness of Goi Kho Bo depends on the sauce poured over it. Each region and each person will have a different way of mixing. Therefore, each table has 1 bottle of vinegar, 1 bottle of homemade chili sauce, and 1 bottle of soy sauce. Depending on the taste of each person, it will create a different sauce.

Beef Dry Salad

Banh Trang Nuong – Vietnamese Pizza

Banh Trang Nuong is a popular Vietnamese street food snack among young people. A cake topped with eggs, onion fat, sausage, and dried meat in various attractive flavors and colors.

Banh Trang Nuong is loved by the crispy heat enjoyed after taking it from the coal stove. All ingredients are simple, but when mixed, they bring a full sweet and spicy flavor.

Unique street food you must try

This delectable street food may be found at lively night markets and is popular in all Vietnamese street food shops. The satisfaction of watching professional vendors cook Banh Trang Nuong right in front of your eyes adds to the appeal of this gastronomic excursion.

Che – Sweet Soup Dessert

Che is considered one of the most loved street food in Ho Chi Minh. Che is usually cooked from beans, glutinous rice, sugar, coconut milk, fruits, and tubers to create a sweet and rich dish. Some types of Che can be mentioned, such as Thai sweet soup, bean sweet soup, lotus seed sweet soup, banana sweet soup, etc.

Simple street food in Vietnam

Che comes in a range of flavors and food types. Iced Sweet Soup is a refreshing summer dessert. And, if you need a little extra warmth in the winter, steaming Traditional Sweet Soup will be served to you.

On the big and small streets, it is easy to see street vendors selling sweet soup or feverish sweet soup brands on food forums. Che has become a famous Vietnamese street food from a popular dish without knowing. As can be seen, Vietnamese cuisine is really rich and diverse!

Vietnam’s cuisine is always rich not only for locals but also for tourists. If you want to try delicious food with lots of flavor and value in each dish, Vietnamese street food is an excellent choice!

If you want to learn more information about Vietnam tourism, do not hesitate to visit Travel News and Vietnam e-Visa. At the same time, Dideden is always ready to assist you through the hotline at 1900 3398.