First day exploring Hoi An, Vietnam! 🇻🇳 Local Market & Street Food

Hoi An is gorgeous. I understand why people love this city and why it's one of the most popular cities in all of Vietnam. We've been here for a couple days and we've been just kind of relaxing and enjoying the town. Now we're going to get some food. So the place we're looking for is called Phong Nga Thai. Oh is that it maybe? It says we've arrived and then it's like down a little alley. So there's this restaurant we've been looking for but we can't seem to find it. We're doing Nancy Drew right now. So yeah it's got this little post and a chain link fence. Post and a chain link fence. We are doing Nancy Drew right now. We're Ashley is a self-proclaimed super sleuth. You can call me Nancy. I'm not going to call her Nancy. Pay a little bit more attention and see if we can find it and then I say we just find someone else. There's no chain link fence anywhere though. Could it be a different alley? Funny story the reason that we wanted to go here is because it's like a local's hidden spot and it's really hidden. Bound to find it. I see the columns so I keep I want to keep walking a little bit. It's a cute street if nothing else. It is a very cute street. And you go there and uh and the right okay. Okay thank you so much. All right hopefully we'll find it. I think we found it. We just didn't go down far enough. We found it. All right so it doesn't look like they're open yet. Should we go try? We can go check and then say we get a snack. Yeah yeah okay. It's not open and we'll try it later. It works so hard. I know right. This is definitely it. That there's the part. All right so we got to come back later. It's 4 30. You think they'll be open by 6? We found it behind us here and it doesn't look like they're open yet. Online it says they are open usually in the evenings until they run out so we're just gonna have to come check it out later but for now we're gonna go find a snack. There's tons of food options around Hoi An so shouldn't be a problem. Go to the market or do you want to go down the walking street? If you were in the market for a custom tailored suit or dress Hoi An has got you covered. There are beautiful tailor shops all over this gorgeous city and everything looks amazing and I've heard everything's very affordable for the quality you get. If I was in the market for a suit I'd be getting fitted and I'd be fresh to death. Right now we're in the central market in Hoi An where it's definitely more of a local vibe. There's all kinds of fresh produce, meat and local wares for sale. It's right along the river and it's definitely a place to get outside of the tourist area of Hoi An. Meat pork outside, baguette inside. Okay, looks very delicious. How much? 30,000 dong. Bao Nhu is how much. Bao Moi Ning is 30. So we're trying. Yeah, you try. Okay. How do you say it again? Banh Mi Cha. So we just ordered Banh Mi Cha. Smells and looks delicious. It's a baguette stuffed with pork and then it's topped with chili sauce and mayonnaise. I don't see how you could go wrong with that. She grilled it. It smells so good. Thank you. And then we asked if she had water and she doesn't but she's asking everyone around her to help us get some which is just the coolest thing. The people here are absolutely amazing. Is it good? Oh yeah. One more bite and then I'll talk about it. It must be good. It is very good. Not too spicy at all. Really, really savory. It's got that nice smokiness and it's really, really, really nice. Not crunchy but really good texture. This is very, very, very good. I promise I'll give you some. I don't believe you. So we're still gonna get Com Nga. I was getting a little hungry and as everyone knows when you get hungry you can get cranky. Come on. Bao Nhu. Okay. The people in Vietnam are the nicest people on the planet. That's not an exaggeration. This is gonna tide us over and Ashley says it's delicious. I bet I'm gonna love it. I don't think I can describe it better than you did. I think you nailed it. I really, really, really love Vietnamese food. It's just, it's out of this world. Since we've been in Southeast Asia, I've been trying to get a pair of Birkenstocks or something similar but nobody ever has my size. We were walking the other day and we came across a leather shop and they have shoes that look very similar to Birkenstocks. I'm just gonna go grab some shoes. They're like this. 46. It looks like Birkenstocks. If you are in Hoi An, Ti Bao is the place to go. Come on. Thank you. It's a quarter till six right now. We're gonna head back to Com Nga Ti and hopefully it'll be open. Do you see them? City men. City men? Yes. City men. They're the cutest. That's the saddest Ashley face. That sucks. Okay so it looks like Com Nga Ti is not in the cards for us tonight so we're gonna go to a different place. They've got a drink called lotus milk which sounds really interesting so I'm excited to try that and it's only two minutes away which is awesome because we are beyond starving at this point. Let's go. Okay so we just got our Com Nga. I'm very very excited. I am so hungry. We also got some lotus milk and it says to shake it really well so we're gonna shake. Come on. Oh we get salad. Oh and this is like chicken broth or something? Smells good. This is what we've been waiting for. On top of the lotus milk we also got corn milk which I'm also very interested to try. I can imagine what it's gonna taste like and I'm very excited. So we've got this Com Nga here. Com Nga is a dish that's been served in central Vietnam for over 200 years and it looks delicious. Very simple but I hear it's very very flavorful. So we've got this chicken stock as well as on the dish itself it's got rice that's cooked in what they call chicken butter and chicken and then it Different places serve it different ways and often you may see locals eating it with organs, heart, intestines, and congealed blood. So if you're feeling adventurous and you want to try it the way the locals eat it you can just ask for it Long Nga. So we're gonna give it a try. I'm gonna spoon just a little bit of this broth here onto it. Give it some love. I'm gonna try it without chilies first because I always tend to dump chilies on things but I'm gonna try the actual flavor of it. Oh my god. Is it good? It's very very good. The chicken has fantastic flavor. The rice might even outshine the chicken. I think this is definitely a spoon dish. I'm gonna try a little bit of this corn milk too while we're at it. It's delicious. It's sweet. It reminds you of the sauce that creamed corn's mixed in. It's really really good. Sounds good. I'd be much more interested to try corn ice cream now. I have no idea what to expect. A lotus is a flower right? Oh interesting. It's like creamy but it's got like stuff in it. It's almost like flowery tasting almost but not like the flower but like like powder flower. Yeah it's really really good. All right I'm gonna go for it. It smells very oniony which makes sense. There's a bunch of onions on top. It doesn't taste oniony at all. Very very simple but very very flavorful. This chicken stock is really really good. I can see why this dish is so popular. This place is like out of a storybook but like a really really well manicured storybook. Like a Disney storybook. You can probably see behind me but there's these kind of pre-setup areas where you can pay to get your picture taken in front of the lanterns and it's a pretty popular thing. There's usually a line of people waiting to get their pictures taken so if that's your thing you can do it. I think it's only like 10,000 dong but we're gonna go find food. Coconut cake yeah? Yeah. How much? 30,000 for one. 30,000 for one? Okay yeah we'll take one please. One yeah. Okay one minute it's new one. It's new one. Thank you yeah come on. Very good. Okay my friend. You like banana inside? Yeah okay everything good. Coconut, peanut, sashimi, banana, milk, chocolate. Coconut milk and chocolate. Oh my god making us happy. Many yummy. Banana my friend. Thank you. More chocolate. Thank you. Come on thank you. Oh it looks so good. I didn't realize it was gonna have a little top. Thank you bye. It's leaking. Okay so we got our grilled coconut cake and it is dripping everywhere but it smells absolutely amazing. It's got bananas, shredded coconut, peanuts, condensed milk, chocolate sauce, all the good stuff. Many yummy. So let's try this out. Oh it's gonna be messy. It's so cute. That's a winner. You should have gotten your own. Oh my god that is so good. It's so sweet. Yo this place is so just packed with people. Everywhere you go you're getting like moved around. Yeah jostle. That is an awesome word. I like jostle. There's a lot of music going on. There's like live music at all the corner bars. There's a lot of desserts. Like I feel like most of the stuff we see here is dessert. Yeah. Which don't be wrong. I love dessert. That's 20. Okay I've seen these all around. It's like a minced beef skewer on lemongrass. So it seems pretty cool. So this is like a beef lemongrass skewer with chili sauce. Oh that's really good. I accidentally bit into the lemongrass. I don't know if it's accidental but it is fantastic. Is it like minced? No it's like a piece of steak wrapped around it. Yeah. So at first you taste the chili and the spices and then you get hit with that really nice lemongrass flavor which is a little bit sour and then it's just this finishes off with this nice and savory steak and a little bit of the heat from the chili sauce. It's really really good and the steak is very tender. Oh I want to try chai. What one is your favorite? You can mix everything. Mix everything? Okay we'll do that. Why not? Oh yeah thank you. Okay great thank you. Oh there's lots of beans and stuff. It looks good. Alright so we got our chai for the first time and she mixed everything in there for us so I don't know what to expect but I'm very excited. Let's try this out. Very gloopy. That is very interesting. I definitely taste the corn up front. It's very interesting. Let me try. There's like ice cubes in it. Yeah yeah. Try whatever this is. Oh yeah there's like whole beans in there. Yeah. Crazy. And tofu. Yeah like everything. Jellies. Alright and ice cubes. You get one of these green jellies and some corn and some beans. This is wild. Very interesting. Let's see what you mean. Yeah so it's like... Hello. Oh thank you. Thank you. I'm not sure what she just dumped in here but I don't know it's time. More beans. It's super interesting. It's sweet. There's condensed milk in it and then it's almost got like a tea flavor and then you've got these jellies that kind of remind me of boba and then beans so it almost tastes like bean soup that's sweet with jellies in it. I can sincerely say I've never had anything like this ever. No. So Ha was lovely. She was the lady that we bought the chai from and she also sells banh mis but right now we've got a mission. How much? 40. 40? Yeah. Okay. Come on. Oh it's so cold. Amazing. This is epic looking. It is very cold to the touch. I probably will. Okay so this is very very very cold. I'm a little nervous to eat this. It's like crunchy. It's cold. Oh weird. It's not ice cream. It's not? I mean I don't think so. I have no idea. It's like a candy I guess. It's dripping is what it is. It's like a candy. It's like airy and light like a wafer but it's very sweet. Not ice cream. I don't know what this is. It's good though. That is so bizarre. I've never had anything like this. It looks like crushed ice. It's interesting. It's almost got like a like a perfumey flavor almost. It's very strange. I don't love it but I don't hate it. It's not bad. It's just different. That or chai? Probably chai. I don't know that I'd get it again but I'm glad we tried it. It smells very good because of the syrup. I see what you mean about the perfumey flavor but I wonder if that's not like the syrup. I don't know how to describe it either. It's very strange. I don't know if I'd get this again either. It's not really what I thought. I would have rather got rolled ice cream I think. She dumped dry ice in there or liquid nitrogen or something and that's what gave it that kind of very smoky mystical look. It was 40,000 dong. I probably would have rather gotten one of Ha's Banh Mi's for 40,000 dong. Sure did. This feels more like a gimmick than an actual dessert. Glad we tried it though. Tomorrow we've got a bunch of food to try that's very specific to Hoi An and we are super excited. But for now we're gonna go ahead and call it a night. We'll see you in the morning. If you like this video go ahead and drop us a like. If you want to see more content on Vietnam and Southeast Asia, subscribe to our channel. And as always, see you in the next one.