Top 10 Vietnamese Foods You Should Try

Learn foods you should try

Lesson Transcript

Want to speak real Vietnamese from your first lesson?

Hello again. So today we will talk about top Vietnamese dishes you must try when you travel to Vietnam.

And my name is Ling. Welcome back to vietnamespod101.com.

The fattest, easiest and most fun way to learn Vietnamese.

What is your first impression of Vietnam?

I’m from Hanoi- the capital of Vietnam, and which is the North. So I lived there for my whole life.

I just moved down 2 years ago, almost 3 years ago. Now I’m living in Ho Chi Minh city, which is the South of Vietnam.

So I have to say that my taste is very northern. Like I love northern food and I love the taste there, but since I moved to Ho Chi Minh City, I have different experience

about the south and food, the local food. So today I'll share you some differences between

the food in the north and the food in the south.

In the north we prefer to have the natural sweetness of the ingredients. So we don't really put so much seasoning or too many different ingredients,

but instead we prefer to enjoy the real flavor of the food, of the ingredients.

And food in Ho Chi Minh City, which is the south of Vietnam, I feel like here they like to have

a lot of seasoning, a lot of ingredients, a lot of oil. They put a lot of sugar and oil in the dishes.

What are your eating habits?

Now let's talk about the eating habits. There are some very typical cultures in Vietnam.

For example, when eating we use the chopsticks instead of using fork or knife, but we use

chopsticks and spoons. Also when eating, usually when we start eating, young people in the family will address old people in the family to show respect.

We say something like “have a good meal” or “bon appetit”. So in Vietnamese you can say:

Con mời bố mẹ ăn cơm.

So I address my parents.

Con mời bố mẹ ăn cơm.

So from the north people would prefer to have dinner together at home,

but from the south people will go out for eating. So that is the big difference between

the northern people and the southern people.

What are the 10 famous dishes that you don't want to miss in Vietnam?

Now it's the best part. Let's talk about 10 famous dishes that you don't want to miss in Vietnam.

Let's start with the number one, phở, phở.

So you must have heard about phở a lot when talking about Vietnamese food. So we have

chicken and beef phở:

Phở gà, phở gà

And

Phở bò, phở bò.

So chicken phở and beef phở.

I would say phở is from the north. I'm not sure if it's from Hanoi or

Nam Dinh, but it's from the north. So it's very sweet, the natural sweetness of the meat and the

bones and also the combination between some noodles, some soup, some meat, some onions,

some spring onion and a little bit of chili sauce and fish sauce and lime.

And it's the best, best, best breakfast ever. The best. I can eat phở every day. I mean every day.

The next one is bánh mì pa tê. Bánh mì pa tê. So I think you know about bánh mì. It's

famous, it's popular everywhere in the world and there are many kinds, many versions of bánh mì.

But it's also like the inspiration for Miss Universe. She has a bánh mì costume when

going to the competition and it's very funny. But I have to say that bánh mì is like the symbol

of Vietnam. So we have:

Bánh mì pa tê

Bánh mì chả

Bánh mì trứng

Bánh mì thập cẩm,

Bánh mì heo quay

Bánh mì xá xíu

Many many kinds. So don't forget to try one bánh mì when you

are traveling, when you are walking on the road. It can be easily found everywhere.

Bún chả. Bún chả is one of the best dishes that every foreigner loves because

it's easy to eat, it's tasty, it's light, it's healthy and it's just delicious. So usually bún chả is made of pork. I can't only think about the other versions of bún chả but this is pork

and they chop the meat, they mix with some seasoning and they grill it and the fish sauce

is the key point of the dish. You have to mix some fish sauce and some sugar, some vinegar,

garlic, peppers. You have to boil it a little bit to make it, to make all the flavors

go well together or something. And then you eat with noodles, with the rice noodle which is bún.

So bún is the noodle and chả is the meat.

Xôi. Xôi is sticky rice and you know, maybe you know mango sticky rice from Thailand

but in Vietnam we have also many different kinds of xôi. So we have xôi thịt,

so sticky rice with meat but they cook very very well. They slow cook for a long time,

the meat becomes very soft, very tender, very juicy but very tasty and we eat with sticky rice.

So also we have xôi ngô from corn. So it's like corn sticky rice.

Xôi xéo

Xôi gà

Xôi chả,

Xôi pa tê

Xôi….a lot. But for me sticky rice is a little bit hard, it's a little bit heavy for

breakfast so usually I eat sticky rice for lunch or it's like in the middle of the day.

Nem, nem. Nem is from the north but from the south they say chả giò.

Chả giò

Chả giò.

So this is one of my favorite dishes because I can cook it.

So this is a combination of vegetables, carrots, meat, some glass noodles, some onions, some peppers, some spring onion, some some other vegetables, some dried shrimps, some mushrooms and they mix all of them together. They put it in the rice cake and then they roll them and after that they fry.

So it will be very crunchy outside but very soft and moist inside and you have to make a sauce

to eat with noodles. So usually we eat nem with bún chả. So we have bún chả, bún nem

or yeah that's it. And this nem is always on the plate of holiday, public holiday especially

Tết, Lunar New Year.

Bánh cuốn. Bánh cuốn.

So the special thing about this dish is it's very light and you can either eat for breakfast,

for lunch, for brunch, for snack in the afternoon and even for dinner. So it's very very flexible

and the key is also the sauce, the fish sauce. So we have:

Bánh cuốn Thanh Trì

Bánh cuốn Hà Nội

Bánh cuốn Tây Hồ

Usually it's like the name is from where the bánh cuốn is made.

Bún riêu is like a kind of noodles that you eat with Vietnamese crabs. So the Vietnamese

crab is very small like this, like this. Not that big, so very small. So they will make it,

they will how to say smash it, the crabs and then when it becomes very very small,

they will use water to filter the water and then the meat of the crab will come out from the

shell and then they cook the soup with that liquid and it becomes very very sweet, the natural

sweetness that I told before.

So after that they put some tomato, tofu, onions, probably beef or

depends on your taste. They will put ingredients and then you eat with noodle and the soup is

amazing. It's very very very sweet, very it's very light, it's very healthy as well and it's just

tasty. So this is a cheeky dish because not so many people can eat that.

Ah, bún đậu mắm tôm.

So this is a tricky dish because not so many people can eat that.

The key is the mắm tôm, mắm tôm. Mắm tôm is like the sauce from shrimp, not from fish, not fish sauce but we have shrimp sauce. So it smells really really really really really really strong and if you are sensitive with smells, with strong smells like you can't eat durian, so you better be careful before you taste this.

When you can handle the smell, the combination of noodle, fried tofu and the shrimp sauce, it's just so tasty. It's too good to resist because once you get familiar with that, I think you will get addicted.

So nowadays we have some other kinds of protein to eat with mắm tôm because before when we were very very poor, our parents or maybe grandparents designed this dish to handle the hunger. So now it has become very popular because it's also a traditional dish of Vietnam.

Bún bò Huế

So this is one of the dishes from from the center of Vietnam which is

Huế. So bún here it's also a kind of noodle and bò is beef. So this is basically from

beef and beef bones. The soup is very tasty, it's very sweet, it's very very sweet and also

because it's from the central so they put some sugar, I guess. Also they put some

gingers and some other kinds of herbs that I'm not sure the name because usually the soup is

the secret, the key of the dish. So bún bò Huế. Bún bò Huế.

Last one I like to share is like the most popular

dish in Ho Chi Minh city which is cơm tấm. Cơm tấm is everywhere. It's like they can eat

for breakfast, they eat for lunch, they eat for dinner, they eat anytime and it's very healthy,

it's very light, it's very cheap. It's only around 25,000 which is one dollar and you can have a box

of cơm tấm and it's good for like half of a day so I think it's very convenient.

Okay I'm very hungry now, I have to go and probably have some spring rolls because I love it, it's everywhere here, it's easy to find and it's affordable. I hope that you like this video and I really like these kinds of topics that you suggested so please suggest more topics for the next videos.

Also don't forget to like this video, subscribe the channel and visit the website VietnamesePod101.com to learn more Vietnamese and you'll get your free lifetime account right now.

Thank you so much and see you. I'm going to eat now.

Comments

Hide