Best food in Hoi An Old Town – The small city of Hoi An is a paradise for foodies with many local specialties to eat when visiting Vietnam, despite not being as big or busy as Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh. The Vietnamese food here is superb, renowned for quality, fresh seafood, low prices, so any budget can easily fit a seafood feast. So here’s our comprehensive guide to what to try in Hoi An for the best food.
An overview about Hoi An specialties
As an important trade port that flourished in the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries, Hoi An is the hub of Asia and Europe. As you have surely learned during your cultural tour through the UNESCO center, Chinese and Japanese merchants were allowed to set up and set up businesses, bringing their customs and food with them.
The worldwide influence of Hoi An is evident and diverse eats of the town are further enriched by mass tourism, which requires favorite dishes from other parts of Vietnam. Some of the specialty dishes of Hoi An are traditional, while others have recently become popular.
back to menu ↑Best food to eat in Hoi An
Cao Lau
Cao Lau noodles are Hoi An’s most famous dish. Even though hundreds of bowls are served every day in the streets of Hoi An, the recipe is a well-guarded secret. Even restaurant owners don’t know the exact ingredients of the noodles that they’re collecting fresh from the market every morning. Rumor is made of water from a particular well that only one local woman knows the location of. It’s the water that comes from the Ba Le Well. The strange ingredient in Cao Lau noodles is ash and the noodles are plump and squishy rather than udon noodles.
Cao Lau noodles are topped with barbecue pork, crisp crackling, and fresh herbs and spices. They are rich, multi-faceted, and served as little as 30,000 VND (US$1.50). No matter what time of day you’re looking for, you’re likely to find someone to serve them. It’s a 24-hour meal in Hoi An for both locals and tourists.
Banh Xeo
Translated as a ‘sizzling pancake,’ this delicious Hoi An dish is popular with locals and tourists alike. The crusty batter is folded over and stuffed with pomegranates, pork, beans, and salad. Alternatively, you can order them without pork and prawns, making them a delicious vegetarian meal in Hoi An. Instead, many venues will use tofu.
The best part of the banh xeo is how it’s eaten. To dine like a local, roll a piece of pancake in a sheet of rice paper and dunk it into a tangy orange sauce. Zingy citrus is delicious with smoked pork.
Mi Quang
Mi Quang’s name comes from the local area of Quang Nam Province. No matter what street stall you choose, this dish is a good one. These noodles are softer than Cao Lau pimentu and are served with a different set of ingredients. Rice noodles, a very tasty soup with tiny hard-boiled quail eggs, a few slices of pork, a few pomegranates, and another ladle of soup for good luck. Mix with greens, herbs, leaves, and shredded banana flowers. Despite the plethora of ingredients, you rarely pay more than US$2 for a steaming bowl of tasty mi quang noodles.
The noodle type is what makes the dish so distinctive. It is a thick-cut, wide, rice noodle that at the same time somehow manages to be soft, slippery, and chewy. It was traditionally made with alkaline water that gave it a yellow color, but turmeric is often used to give the sunny hue these days.
Banh Mi
Banh mi, the ubiquitous Vietnamese baguette sandwich mixing French (bread, mayonnaise, pate, cold cuts) with Vietnamese, is one of the latter (barbecue pork, cilantro, herbs, pickled veg, chili sauce). On his 2009 television program, American chef/food personality Anthony Bourdain sang his praises and the rest is history. Morning, noon, night, there is always a line-up spilling out front in the small shop, with people exchanging stories of how they have traveled for it across the globe.
Com Ga
Hoi An locals are crazy about com ga, chicken rice. Otherwise known as Hoi An chicken rice, no frills are needed for this simple dish. It’s a cheap meal in Hoi An that’s going to keep you full all day. Succulent white chicken meat is spread over fragrant yellow rice and served with chili, lime, and all the usual Vietnamese herbs. It’s a must-eat in Hoi An for a quick and tasty lunch.
White Rose dumplings
Known in Vietnamese as banh vac. It is a white rose with a center of ground shrimp meat and a steamed rice flour dumpling and its delicate folds make it resemble a flower. This Chinese-influenced dish is usually served on a flat plate with a vinegary dressing and sliced shallots.
A translucent white wrapper filled with minced shrimp and pork and topped with fried shallots has this delicious explosion of flavor. Remember to dunk it in a dipping sauce!
back to menu ↑Costs of eating in Hoi An
In Hoi An, we can provide you with a rough guide to food costs, but prices are a bit flexible. Out of 15,000 dong, many tourists have seen good Vietnamese street food, which is less than a dollar for a pho, cao lau, or mi quang. (approximately 20,000 dong = $1).
Prices tend to depend on just how much you like the owner. If you eat every stall has marked fixed prices at Hoi An’s Central Market, expect to pay between 20 and 50,000 dongs. Expect to pay 30-50,000 Dong if you can find a good restaurant, locally owned, that serves fairly authentic local food. You will be paying around 100-200,000 Dong if you go for a more lavish meal like a seafood hot-pot for two.
You will be charged more if you use western restaurants or any restaurant aimed at tourists. Of course, the sky is the limit, you could pay a fortune in the hotels, but we found food prices here generally very low. For approximately $2, you can most certainly get a very good meal.
