The ULTIMATE Vietnamese FOOD TOUR in Hanoi! (Trying Egg Coffee, Bun Cha, & MORE!)

Throughout our time here in Vietnam, one of our main goals has been to try as many local foods as possible. From banh mis, to pho, to lesser known regional dishes, we've loved getting to experience the delicious cuisine in this country. And today, we're exploring Hanoi in Northern Vietnam for the first time and going on a private food tour with a local to get a taste of what this city has to offer. It's definitely my favorite Vietnamese dish. That is so awesome. We are currently heading to the Old Quarter to meet up with our guide and according to the Airbnb experiences page, we're going to be trying between 9 and 11 food items, all within 3 hours. It's 11am and we have yet to eat today to prepare our stomachs for this experience. I am so ready. This is our guide, Minh. He's going to be taking us to all the delicious spots today. You're going to be our king of stomach happiness. I'll make sure I'll roll you back to the hotel. First we are going to be trying egg coffee, which is one of the things I've been most excited to try here in Hanoi. Back in the old days, Vietnamese, we actually didn't drink milk that often. Milk was introduced in Vietnam by the French. So after we won the war, the French left. No more milk in Vietnam. That made a lot of business, hotels, restaurants, they didn't have a good time. And one of the ones that was suffering the most was the Metropole Hotel. Because over there, it serves very high profile customers. One of the oldest hotels in Vietnam, made by the French. So important people go to Vietnam, they go there. You can imagine how angry they are in the morning without a latte. In there, there was a barista called Nguyen Van Giang. He came up with the idea of putting egg cream, whisked egg yolk with some sugar, almost like a merengue. Put it in there, cappuccino style, and made that into egg coffee. Became very famous. Later on, he opened up his own separate shop. And he left that for his son to inherit. This one is actually from his daughter. Oh wow. The recipe, it all stayed the same from the first time egg coffee was invented. Oh, it's so light feeling. Oh my gosh, it's not heavy at all. We have egg yolk, they whisk it, so it's very foamy with some sugar. Underneath there's coffee, very high quality coffee. Quite strong. Okay, okay. With some condensed milk. Oh, look at that. Oh my gosh. All right, so should I just spoon it? Yeah, you can spoon it or you can stir it. When you spoon it, you can see if it's too sweet, you stir it, so it can mix more with the coffee. We're spooning it first. That is so good. Kind of has the texture of a melting marshmallow. It's just very thick and creamy and sweet. I normally don't eat eggs, but I've wanted to try this for years, so I decided that I was going to let myself have one while we were here so I could just fully enjoy it. No regrets, no regrets. It's so thick, I can't even find the coffee. Yeah, you got to stir it like this. Really stir it? Like more like that? Yeah, like that, yeah. Oh, I see it now. Wow. Oh yeah, the marshmallow, like melting marshmallow thing, I think is the perfect description. It looks like the marshmallow fluff that comes in like a jar. The same texture and kind of a little bit of that same flavor. I think it'll be even better when you mix it with the coffee, take down a little bit of the sweetness. Yeah, that's like a perfect balance of sweet and then the strong coffee in there. It's just so incredibly rich, it's more like a dessert than a coffee. Back to the tiny chairs. Tiny chairs everywhere. I love the tiny chairs. We're going to be making some fresh spring rolls. And I'll show you how to make them. You don't need to water them. Okay, so first we got some lettuce. This is too big, so I'm going to break it off a little bit. Rice noodle. Some pickled papaya. Deep fried rice paper. Barbecue pork. Some fresh mango. These are a little bit on the greener side, more crunchy. Cucumber. You can put it in or don't. I'm not really a cucumber fan, so. Some mint. And then, well, we roll. You don't need to make a really tight roll. We have some sauce here. This is almost more like a pork with soup. That is amazing. The first thing you taste is that sauce there. It's a little sweet and you can taste some of those herbs in there. And a little bit of carrot. And then you get a bite of this and it just like is a bite of freshness. All the veggies in there, obviously. Crunch from the fried rice paper and savory from the pork. That's the best spring roll I've had since being in Asia. And you're right, that sauce. That sauce is hot. It's so good. Yeah, I like that it's hot. I like these in there a lot. They have the perfect little crispiness to it. I could eat this every day. We probably will now. We'll come here every day now. We know all about it, yeah. Yeah, we're coming back to this place for sure. It's really fun going on this tour with a guide. I think it's actually our first ever guided food tour. And I just love it because one, he knows all the cool local spots that we maybe wouldn't have known otherwise. And two, everything is a surprise. I have no idea where we're going next. So I'm just walking around wondering, what is it going to be? What is it going to be? Back in the old days, we were really poor. So getting oil is really, really expensive. People usually save it up until the end of the year and then spend it all. Make sure you have a good New Year. First, the beginning of the year, the month, always very important. You want to start it off good. On the outside, we have some rice paper. Inside, we have pork, noodles, mushrooms, some carrots, a little bit of pepper, and some bean sprouts as well. We just had fresh spring rolls. Now we're having fried spring rolls. And these used to be more of a New Year's delicacy. Seems hot. Yeah, this thing is piping hot. There's just a woman on the sidewalk just frying these things up fresh. The tiniest little closet looking thing. It's in a little alleyway. It's such an authentic spot. The outside is perfectly crispy and then the inside is just so moist. That's the best word I can use to describe it. Sorry to all the moist haters out there. It is moist in there. It's just so hot. It's so fresh. That's why I can't get over it. Normally, she can sell up to 600 of these per day. On the outside, we have some sugar and some sticky rice. Inside, we have some green beans and coconut milk. They actually grind the rice right here and then process it and make it over here. So this looks like a donut, but Ming said it kind of is like a donut. He asked if we wanted mildly sweet or really sweet and I asked how do the locals eat it and he said really sweet. Oh, wow. It's so doughy. That tastes kind of like a glazed donut, but it's more kind of like a gummy texture to it. Wow, this is amazing. Oh, wow. That's just like delightful to eat. I like the chewiness of it. Almost kind of like mochi kind of. These are way better than the donut holes you get in America that are more airy. These are kind of a little more dense. They taste similar and a similar texture on the outside, but way better. Way, way better. I'm not going to lie, I kind of missed this chaos when we were in Thailand. Next up, we're having boon cha, which we've actually tried once before off camera and we loved it. So we are super excited to try it again. It's vermicelli noodles with some barbecue pork. And the barbecue pork, we have two types, the meatballs and also the bacon type. Afterwards, you're going to make some fish sauce, vinegar, sugar, put some pickled papaya and carrots in there. And you dump the meatball in. You have a bowl of vegetables on the side. Most of them are going to be some lettuce, some mint, and some basil. They're going to have some garlic and some chilies with some lime on the side. That's a bite right there. That is super good. This meat here, you can see all the grill marks on there. Great grill flavor. The sauce in here, the soup, is a little sour, a little sweet. And then you get a fresh crunch from these papaya bits in here. And then, of course, all the noodles that you can dunk in there. It's just an amazing bite when you get it all in one. This is delicious. I love the soup that it's in. It just kind of has this umami type flavor. It's a little tangy. And then the meat, as Adam mentioned, it has an impeccable grilled flavor. It's very different than a lot of the Vietnamese dishes that we've had so far since being here in Vietnam. It almost feels maybe a bit heartier, a little less sweet than some of them. And the first time we had this in Hoi An, we said that it was our favorite Vietnamese dish that we have tried. And now that we've had it again, in the place where it originates, it's definitely my favorite Vietnamese dish. So here we have some red rice noodle. It's a little bit more on the chewier side. With some fried onions, some crabs, some Vietnamese sausage, and some fish sausage. With some vegetables and peanuts. And this is just a very popular lunch here for us. I'm struggling to describe what this is. There's not a ton of overpowering flavors. There are a lot of flavors that work together. It's a mixed bag of flavors. That sausage is really interesting. Vietnamese sausage has a little crunchiness to it. Some chewy parts. Different than most sausages you would have. And for our final spot with Minh, we tried a popular Vietnamese fruit salad with fresh fruits, condensed milk, and coconut milk. We have avocado, jackfruit, strawberries. What's this one? That's a type of tapioca. Oh, a type of tapioca. This is, I'm forgetting the name. Dragon fruit. Watermelon. Coconut jelly. In Asia, definitely gotta try out the fruit. Yeah, that's so good. It's just like a very sweet fruit salad. The condensed milk, just like with everything, it makes everything taste better. It's so good. So good. That's kind of like jello. It's very similar to jello. Maybe a little bit tougher, it doesn't fall apart as easily. That was good. I thought the avocado being in there was going to be a little off-putting or weird, but it actually works really well. I like that too. I didn't think I would, but I do. This is decadent. This is so rich and good. I think this is the best way to eat fruit, I've decided. Thank you! We just finished up our food tour with Minh, and we had such a blast with him. He not only taught us so much about the food, but also just about Hanoi as a city and the culture of Vietnam as a whole. We highly recommend going on a tour when you visit Vietnam. You'll just get so much more out of the experience. We booked ours through Airbnb Experiences, and it was about 30 USD per person, and we'll link to it below. I think we ended up eating around 7 dishes or so, and we are so full right now. But Minh did tell us of a few more food items to try, so we're going to give our stomachs a little bit of a break, and then head out again tonight to try as many as we can. We're honestly still pretty full, but let's go eat more. Next up, we're trying a Hanoi staple which has been around for 130 years, cha ca, which is catfish marinated in turmeric, galangal, fermented rice paste, and then topped with dill and other herbs. This is such a popular dish here in Hanoi that there's actually a cha ca street. However, we came to a different area of town to try it just because it was a little bit more convenient. They basically came over and just cooked it all for us, and they even mixed it all up for you too. They made it so easy. I love all the herbs you get in here. I got a big bite of dill, and then the fish. You can really taste the seasonings on the outside of there, so it's a little savory and salty, and the fish is super juicy in there as well. My first taste was of the dill. And that fish is so moist. Holy cow, how many times did we say moist in this video? It's so moist. That's really good. It's not very fishy at all either. I just love the whole cooking at your table experience. It's a lot of fun. It makes it extra fun, and it really helped that they helped us make this. One of the food items that Ming told us that we needed to try is a banana cake, which I think is basically just a fried banana, and he told us that the best spot to get this was this little stand right next to this pork skewer stand, which he also recommended, and I don't even think this banana stand is on Google Maps. That's how just kind of hidden it is. We actually walked around a bit just trying to find it, so I'll make sure we put a link to where we found it down below so you can find it, but this looks delicious. It is piping hot. She gave us extra napkins to hold on to it so we don't burn ourselves, and it's basically just like a volcanic steam vent. There's all this steam coming out of the top, so I'm kind of scared to try it because I don't want to burn my mouth. Oh. Like a dragon. Oh my gosh. Really hot. It's delicious. The banana is so gooey in there. So crunchy on the outside. Very solid suggestion, Ming. Looks like a fried piece of catfish or something. Whoa. That is so awesome. Oh, that is so simple, so good. The batter is nice and light, so it's nice and crispy, and then, yeah, super gooey in the middle, and Ming told us that a lot of places will just use a thin strip of banana in there. This place puts a whole banana in there. Oh, man, so much banana flavor. So good. Yeah, I love this thing. Last but not least, we are trying Northern-style pho at a spot that Ming recommended. When we were in Saigon, we had Southern-style pho, but Northern is a little bit different. We hear that pho actually originated here in the North. Northern-style pho has wider rice noodles, and instead of a lot of toppings, it only has cilantro and green onion, and another big difference is the broth. In Northern pho, the broth is mostly boiled with beef bones, creating a more clear and delicate broth. That broth is so good. It's nice and salty and definitely tastes a lot like beef stock. So it's like a much more simple broth than the Southern-style, but it's just a very defined and well-rounded flavor. It's very tasty. It's been about three weeks since we had the Southern-style pho, so I don't fully remember it. I'm trying to decide which one I like better. The Southern one's definitely sweeter. This one's more savory. I have a really hard time picking which one I like better, North or South. But if I had to pick, I would say the one that's in front of my face. This is also a really neat spot. There are definitely tourists in here, but there are also a lot of locals. It is so popular. The line is out the door. You can just all sit together and get nice and cozy with your neighbors. They're also only open in the mornings and the evenings, so prepare ahead. That's why we couldn't go on our tour earlier, because they were not open at that time. We were full before, but now we are officially bursting at the seams. A huge thank you again to Ming for such a fun and delicious day, and for helping us find some spots to go on our own. There's a lot more to Hanoi, though, than just the food. In our next video, we're going to check out the non-food things to do here, although we can't promise that there won't be at least a little more eating. Gotta eat to live, right?