24 Hours Eating Like a Local in Hanoi, Vietnam

People say Hanoi has one of the best street food in the world but can't just 10 US dollars buy breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert and even fresh beer? Challenge accepted. Okay so the first stop is Pho Hao and I know you can find pho anywhere but wait until you see this. So here I have the pho tai lanh which is a stir-fried garlic beef noodle soup and you've probably never heard of this right? Because all you eat was pho tai or pho tai na which is the rare beef or the rare beef and beef brisket pho but what makes this pho different is that they put a lot of green onions and garlic in here. I can smell the garlic from miles away. So how do Hanoian eat this pho? First of all you add more garlic. Hanoi pho is usually very delicate, savory and a little bit sweet from the beef bones but this garlic vinegar will add the tangy flavor to your pho broth to make everything balance out perfectly. And then next up I'm gonna add a little bit of the chili and then you would mix everything together. It smells so good guys. It smells like home. I honestly love eating this garlic pho in the winter because it makes my body warmer. Okay let's eat. The meat is so thin. The beef is tender, the garlic is so aromatic, the pho is silky and soft, the onions are crunchy and the broth is very flavorful, sweet from the bones and savory from the fish sauce. This is definitely a great start for my morning. Not to mention that this pho is unique because it has the signature smoky wok aroma. If you come to Hanoi I highly recommend this place. I'll leave the address in the description box below. You guys know what's funny? Today I'm trying to stretch just 10 US dollars as far as possible in Hanoi and the last thing that I want is an expensive roaming bill ruining the challenge. That's why I use Silly whenever I travel and I've been using them for years and trusting them to be the sponsor for today's video. Instead of hunting for local sim cards that have the high risk of being scammed or paying crazy amount of money for international roaming fees, I just install an eSIM before my trip and get connected as soon as I land. Honestly it makes traveling so much easier. I can use map to find the hidden food stall, translate Vietnamese menus and even call the healing service if my feet are getting tired. What I love the most about eSIM from Silly is that it's very easy to install and activate. You can go to setting, cellular and activate your new eSIM. So if you're planning your next trip and want to stay connected without a hassle, download Silly app at silly.com and enjoy the exclusive discount of 15% off on your Silly data plan by applying the code pho at the checkout. Now that we're connected, let's see how much more amazing food we can squeeze in this $10 challenge. Have you ever wondered where the office workers, students or normal Vietnamese people would eat lunch? Today I'm gonna take you to Cơm Bình Dân which is known as the affordable rice meal. Let's go! So this full meal costs less than two US dollars. So what is Cơm Bình Dân? Cơm Bình Dân is a Vietnamese term that usually refers to an inexpensive meal consisting of rice and a selection of side dishes typically in Vietnamese cuisine sold by street vendors or restaurants. It's like a buffet. You come and you choose the ingredients. So as you can see my tray has full of food and I think just one meal people have enough energy to work throughout the day. So I'm gonna introduce you what I'm eating today. I love this one called Dưa Muối. It's quite salty but it's very good with rice. It is very crunchy and refreshing. Vietnamese people usually stir fry the sour pickled green mustard with beef. For those of you who are not very familiar with cải chua, it might be a little bit sour for you. So you could replace it with other boiled vegetables or stir-fried green beans. But I love it. Let's see the green beans. Yeah they look oily at first but we'll see how it tastes. A little bit like over stir-fried because they are pretty soft but I like the flavor. It's well seasoned. Boiled cabbage. You can ask for extra fish sauce or extra soy sauce to dip with it. The fact about me is that whenever I eat boiled vegetables, I don't usually dip it in soy sauce or fish sauce because I just want to taste the natural sweetness from the boiled vegetables. Also Vietnamese people love salted peanuts but if you are allergic to peanuts, be careful okay. The peanuts are sweet, salty and very flavorful. I wonder why Vietnamese people love eating peanuts when they drink beer. This chicken is called gà kho gừng. Chicken is stewed with ginger and topped with lime leaves. It is super fragrant. So good. It's very tender. Lime leaves really boost the scent of the chicken. I love it. You definitely need to order this gà kho gừng okay. This is chả lá lốt and in the south they call it bò lá lốt. Usually in the south they would wrap the beef with the lót leaves and usually people from the north use ground pork to eat with the bò lá lốt. It is super tasty. Also Vietnamese people love to eat it with soup. Here I have spinach with boar soup. It is super healthy. Well the soup is not hot anymore but it is super hot in Hanoi today so I'm okay with eating cold soup but this soup is supposed to cool off your because it's made with spinach and boar which is very good for your health. So yeah less than two dollars you can get carbs, proteins and fibers in one meal. To be honest even though I was born and raised here I didn't have a lot of experiences eating cơm bình dân because when I was in school in Vietnam after school I usually went home to eat my mom's food because it's cleaner and I liked better. Then at the age of 17 I moved to the U.S. so there was obviously no cơm bình dân in the U.S. right? And then when I came back at the age of 26 I was filming all other Vietnamese cuisine and I accidentally forgot to film this cơm bình dân which is the affordable meal that a lot of Vietnamese people have daily. Yeah the place is filling up with people right now. It is so crowded so from 11 30 to 12 30 people usually have lunch and then after that they would go back to their office get their blanket out and then take a 30-minute siesta. What a life! Actually I see most men, I see most men here eating cơm bình dân. That means a lot of women just pack their lunch to work. What I love about this place is that it's very affordable for everyone to have a good meal. I don't know why on google map they rated it like 1.2 star which is insane but they still have full of customers here and their food is pretty decent so I don't know why. If you want to experience the real Vietnam you need to eat cơm bình dân one time because you're not necessarily gonna like the food here but you will like the atmosphere. In Vietnam if you're full Vietnamese people usually just eat the meat. They would leave out the vegetables and the rice. The reason behind it was when we were kids whenever we're full we couldn't eat anymore. Moms usually persuaded us to leave the rice, leave the vegetables and eat only the meat or the seafood or the protein because back then the protein was more expensive compared to the veggies or the rice. As an adult I've realized that every meal is a blessing and not even a single grain of rice deserves to be wasted. One of my favorite food memories in Hanoi doesn't happen at breakfast or dinner. It starts around 4 p.m. That's when the streets come alive. Kids rush out of school, office workers finish their shifts and locals gather around tiny food stalls for the afternoon snack. Growing up I could never resist the smoky aroma of thịt xiên nướng, grilling over charcoal. My friends and I would order grilled pork skewers, nốt bò khô which is the green papaya salad with dry beef, bánh gối, crispy fried pillow cakes and finish with a bowl of cold sweet chè alongside hot banana and sweet potato fritters. It was a perfect mix of crunchy, savory and refreshing. Most of these snacks cost just a dollar or two. They're simple, affordable and for so many Vietnamese people they taste just like childhood. Isn't it funny that sometimes the things that cost the least are the ones we can never afford to lose? Okay guys so we've got some money left, let's get some beer. Oh my gosh it is so hot outside but it's so great to have a glass of cold beer. Cheers! Oh wait, I'm going to teach you how to cheers in Vietnamese. So in the north people would say that means one two three cheers, two three cheers, two three drink and in the south people would So this is the iconic bia hôi Hà Nội. So bia hôi Hà Nội is a fresh beer that is brewed daily. It's only two to four percent ABV and that's why when you drink it it's so light, cold and very refreshing. Fun fact, Vietnamese people only started drinking beer a few decades ago. For centuries the traditional wine made from rice and fruit are the alcoholic beverage of choice. In the 1890s the country's first brewery was opened by the French in Hà Nội. With around 30 workers, Homo Brewery produced around 150 liters a day, mostly serving the French military until they think of a new idea of producing instant drought beer which is called bia hôi nowadays. However, the locals were still very loyal to their traditional wine and beverages so that's why bia hôi was overlooked for a long time, not until the government interfered to make the taste better to fit the locals' palate. So that's when the popularity of bia hôi was growing. If you show up at a beer place after 5 p.m you're gonna see a lot of office workers, family, friends would come here and drink beer, chit-chat with each other and eat the drinking bait. However, today I'm gonna take myself on a date and drink beer by myself and eat the delicious nem bui. But I don't feel lonely because I have around more than 200,000 people joining me, right? It would even make my day better if you hit the subscribe button and turn on the bell if you haven't yet. This one is called nem bui and nem bui is from the bui village from Bắc Ninh and now it's Bắc Giang province and the meat here you see is the lean pork meat, the pork fat with the pork skin mixed with the thính, that means like the stir-fried rice and then the white powder that you can see on top of the meat is actually called thính gào or thính and how people make it is that they stir-fry the rice and then grind the rice very finely to make it as a special ingredient for the meat. So you would put the meat inside the thick leaf and then you grab it and then you dip it in the chili sauce and enjoy it. So good, sip beer. Nem bui is nutty, savory and has the umami taste. The leaves is actually fresh and crispy, mix very well with the nem. Oh I've almost forgot, so another popular spot for beer in Hanoi is the Ta Hien street so if you want to drink affordable and fresh beer in Hanoi, go to Ta Hien as well. Finally, mission is completed. I didn't break the bank and I'm so full right now guys. If you like this video, don't forget to like and subscribe to my channel because I'll be back with more interesting videos. Comment down below which video ideas you want me to do in the next ones. I really appreciate your support and thanks again for watching. I'll see you guys soon. Bye-bye!