Top 10 Hanoi Food Tour: From Street Food to Fine Dining | VIETNAM | Bianca Valerio

Hello everyone, I'm Bianca Valeria and welcome to a very yummy and healthy episode of Come Away With Me with Bianca Valerio. Okay, maybe I shouldn't have said healthy because that means usually they say how can something be healthy and yummy at the same time. Okay, just give me a chance. One of my favorite cuisines in the world is Vietnamese food, so that's exactly where I'm taking you today. I'm taking you to Vietnam to Hanoi. This is going to be a food tour where I'm giving you, I'm serving up to you not just street food, traditional restaurants, but even fine dining as well so that when you make your next itinerary, you kind of have different choices to choose from. Perfect, right? So here it is, my own food tour in Hanoi. Okay, so this restaurant, you can see right over there, we're gonna have a snail. They actually have fish, they have crab, they have all these different ingredients that you can choose from, so they have vegetarian options as well. So even if you don't eat chicken, pork, beef, it's okay. I totally forgot to share a video. We were just so hungry and this bowl, well, was. I left some for you guys. This bowl is like, it's glass noodles and it's dry. You can choose to have it like the soup version, but because it has meat in the broth, I decided to just skip it. I mean, this is, you know, it's a hot day. I decided to try something different. So what's nice about the noodles has bean sprouts, it has peanuts and snails and onions and what I really love about Vietnamese food, that no matter what meal you have, it always comes with fresh herbs and you can have as much as you like. So it's like sotanghon. It's like our glass noodle and it's very light, really delicious, very fresh and the servings are not too big and this is less than two dollars. So that was very ngon. Ngon means delicious. So I'm really excited because the one thing that I really wanted to do in Hanoi is eat at the restaurant where Anthony Bourdain had met up with Obama and that's right there. And usually it is so full, there's like a long line, but thank god I came after breakfast and I didn't really come for lunch. So it's I guess kind of brunch, so there's not a lot of people. Here we go. This place is really, really popular. The table is like, you have to share so they can squeeze as much people in. It actually looks really small from the outside, but this is like multiple floors. Yeah, there's so many photos of Obama all around. So thanks to Anthony Bourdain, he's really made this place so popular. So I want to show you my very exciting dish. It's vegetable broth. And then Chloe had got me to put some noodles. Yeah, I took some noodles. And then put it in the broth. There's basil, there's some lettuce, these things just to add more flavor. And then a very simple sauce of chili and garlic. And there you go. Okay, so entering the very tiny hallway for some egg coffee. Apparently there are a lot of fake ones that say it's the original, but this is not really. This is so quaint and cute. Really nice. So apparently this place has become super, super, super popular with tourists and locals as well. And look, like everyone is filming, like everyone, every tourist is filming. And then the floor, there's actually sunflower seeds. So Toy was telling us that apart from having the coffee, that what locals like to do is just eat the sunflower seeds and just throw it on the floor. So the guy who took our order, he didn't write anything down. He had taken our order. He literally went around this room and just taking everyone's orders without writing anything. So we're all wondering like, is he going to get it right? So we shall have to see. Oh my God, God bless him. He got it right. Amazing. Okay, so let's give it a try. It's like dessert. It's actually like melted custard, like liquefied leche flan or custard. I mean, that's why it's egg. So you really taste the egg and it's very frothy. It's really, it doesn't seem like coffee. It's very indulgent. No wonder you eat it with a spoon. So really good. So the guy in the bag, he is the one who invented the egg coffee, Mr. Zam, Zam, Zam. So I'm here now in Old Hanoi. And as you can see, it's quite empty. And it's not because it's not a popular joint. In fact, it is a very popular one made so by Chef Gordon Ramsay. Now the reason why it's empty, it's because it's 3pm. So the restaurant is actually technically closed. But when we got here, it was just me and my sister. And it was so lovely that the staff was so accommodating. And they decided they're like, they're going to reopen the kitchen just for us to dine. And instead we're seated outside so that this and she even turned out the lights for me so I could shoot this video. Really, really kind staff. The people here in Hanoi are just lovely. Okay, it's actually nice that we sat outside because you know, it's it is very humid here in Hanoi this summer. So because the outside is closed, it's like we're having alfresco dining right outside. And it almost seems like we have the restaurant to ourselves apart from that guy in the back who followed right after we arrived. And we actually ordered a couple of things. And my mom always gets mad at us every time we order so much and we don't really get to finish. As much as possible, we do try to finish but it's only because we really want to try and sample every single thing. So we're so excited. Let's see what it looks like. So the waitress told us that for the pancakes, you put the pancake in your bowl and then you add veggies and then you wrap the veggies with a pancake and then you dip it in the sauce and you can use a spoon if you're having a hard time or in this case, you just use your hands. Right? How is it? Very good. So this is actually the dish that is the most popular in the menu because it was the dish that Gordon Ramsay had prepared when he was here. So let me try. So, minus the the terrible like visual. Okay. So the pancake is is crispy and because it's fried so it is a little bit oily so but because of the sauce, it has some acidity to it. I think it has like sugar and vinegar and something and the vegetables, it also I guess adds a little, I don't want to sound so pretentious but it does add some freshness to it because again, it's so it's fried like you can actually see the oil that's been collected in in the pot. So it's a really great balance of textures and flavors. So all the fresh herbs that Vietnam is so known for. It's delicious. Cook about the fish here. Yes. And then I take some the noodles on bowl here. Take the fish and some vegetables on the top. Then I put some fried peanuts and sauce on here. You mix together and you eat. Mix together and eat. Yeah. Okay. This one. I'm not the best at these food things but yeah this one. The fish old Hanoi style. The fish literally it just melts in your mouth and it's so tender and because it's on a bed of like rice noodles maybe that's why it's called Hanoi style because a lot of Vietnamese dishes do always come with rice noodles and rather than sauce that's you know very like ultra savory and rich. This one it's always comes with a very light dipping sauce so it really cuts that oiliness. It is so so good. I highly recommend it. Okay so there are three ways that you can enjoy the menu. One is a la carte and then there's two types of tasting menus. There's the more expensive one and the cheaper one. And the more expensive one is you can eat everything from the menu and then the cheaper one is there are select items from the menu that you can try and it's eat as much as you want. So yeah the one thing that I really am excited to try is the fried frog with rock salt. So this this restaurant is so popular that they had to make reservations around three times to finally get a spot and so finally that we did. Okay so finally the dishes here. This is the frog with rock salt and then I also got a red tilapia with salted egg. To be honest I just got the most expensive items in the menu to really feel like we got our money's worth. This is a frog leg. That's a very fat frog. That's just the thigh of the frog. Crazy. Let's try. It is so tender and even if it's fried the batter is very thin. You know I haven't had chicken in a long time and when people say that frogs that taste like chicken it's very true. Hi. Okay so what are you gonna make for us today? Yes hot pot. Okay and that is there we go. I'm so flushed. I've never had so much wine in years but I've always believed that there's always room for dessert no matter how old you are. So we got five but they're small anyway so we got traditional Vietnamese desserts. Oh my god that was such a good meal. I think my waistline is like 30 and drunk. Yeah what whoa I told you that was an awesome meal. I highly recommend this this restaurant because you oh there his name is Tip Top. Hi Tip Top. His English is excellent. Oh really? It is. It's live stream or video. Yeah it's a video. Can you speak in British? Oh not really. I can't. I can't. Okay bye Tip Top. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. You are so beautiful. She's your daughter. Oh wow. Yeah beautiful yeah. Also how are you? What's your name? So Thuy says that this is the best coffee in Hanoi so I really wanted to get some fresh coffee grounds because Vietnamese coffee for me is like one of the best in the world if not the best. So we get to smell. Oh it's like really really really sweet. It's so fragrant. So what I want is I don't like acidic or a very mild roast. I like a deep dark bold roast. So is this her recommendation Thuy? It's actually very good. Okay so well I don't really have other choices but soaked. Okay so which one is this? This is the great traditional. I thought it was something extra special but yes traditional Vietnamese coffee. Done. Thank you. So I guess this is it. So here we go. Yeah I have Nescafe Cafe Viet. Yeah so we're Oh this one. I like thicker and I like ground. Ground can be like Yes oh there we go. Okay so you can buy them in beans or ground and since I don't have all day to ground them. Perfect. And how much is this? 200,000. 200,000. How much is that? Nine US dollars. Thank you. They even turned on the lights for me for this video. Thank you so much. Kim Lai Cafe since 1972. So the best one is weasel coffee. So it's from the droppings of the weasel. Do you see the weasel? Okay so it's the drop. So we've heard like droppings from a bird. We've heard droppings from a cat. And then now this is the weasel. Okay all right. Okay so I'm all about eating at Ho's Wall and there's a lot of like dumplings here that are fried and you can choose. So here we go. Okay so I had a request to come to it. I wanted something seafood or something local. So she suggested that there's a shrimp cake. It actually looks familiar because it's like our ukoy from the Philippines. But it's a bigger cake. And then she says to wrap it inside floss. Of course it's really crunchy and it's nice because since it's oily it's nice to leave. It gives a refreshing taste to it so it doesn't seem as oily. So you feel like it's still healthy but not so healthy. Okay so I'm gonna finally try the bami. And of course it's so nice on this plate. On the street this is not how you get it. You don't get it with fries and a very nice salad. It's actually really big. It looks so small in photos. Really good. So okay so you must be asking did you actually like join a tour for this? Like how come you're able to find all these different restaurants? Well to be honest like my sister I always share this. My sister is the most amazing itinerary extraordinaire. She creates these things and we team up with our tour guide and we tell them look we don't want anything fancy. We want you to eat. We want you to take us to where the locals eat. So that's exactly where our tour guide took us. So my sister really wanted to try some snail soup and that's what we got. It was actually pretty good. To be honest the snails they were so so small. If you guys you know being Filipino, if you're used to super big snails. This is like really really tiny as you saw in the pieces. But I know some people are just kind of iffy about street food. So you know on on the top floor of the Lotte Hotel, there is a really really beautiful fine dining restaurant and we actually stay at the hotel. So in the days that it was actually raining, that was a perfect way to cap off the day. But I think my favorite meal I would have to say was the restaurant where Gordon Ramsay had had opened that restaurant. Of course I mean am I biased? For sure it's Gordon Ramsay. But really it was nice that the waitress had explained every single dish to us, why it's relevant or what region of Vietnam it's from. And just knowing that Gordon Ramsay really had a hand in creating that menu. It just goes to show that it's not just local but it's very worldly and international as well. So I hope you guys had enjoyed that episode and I hope that really whet your appetite because it makes me hungry. So until the next episode, I promise to share more about Hanoi and Saigon and all the other places and Halong Bay. I'm Bianca Valeria. Don't forget to check out BiancaValeria.com for the travel diary and the written post. And there's Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Okay I'm Bianca Valeria. Until next time, bye guys!