Top 30 Famous Vietnamese Foods That Will Blow You Away
Vietnam is one of very few countries in the world that is famous for its superb street food. All the popular Vietnamese dishes show the beauty of culture and lifestyle. Some famous Vietnamese food combines the country’s traditional culture as well as other country’s cultures in the world. With Vietnamese dishes, all the ingredients are meant to bring refreshing flavors. You will find all different types of taste from sour, spicy, to salty and sweet, which are incredibly impressive.
1. Banh Mi - Vietnamese sandwich
Banh Mi is a very popular Vietnamese street food. Like Pho, Banh Mi has made tourists fall in love with Vietnamese cuisine. The Vietnamese are very proud of this dish. If you are interested in history, you will know that Vietnam had been occupied by the French. Therefore, some Vietnamese dishes are influenced by the French culture, including Banh Mi. However, this dish was changed in a Vietnamese way by the locals by adding other ingredients such as egg, pork, cucumber, and herbs. Historically, this dish was more popular in Saigon as a breakfast. Nowadays, it is a famous street food along with the country.
For a simple Banh Mi, you have bread, egg, pate, BBQ pork, cucumber, tomato, carrot, and herb. But you can always add more ingredients, from sausage, grilled beef to chicken, all together bring the delicious flavor. As Banh Mi is a famous Vietnamese food, it can be found anywhere in Vietnam. Banh Mi is served in restaurants, street stalls, and food carts.
2. Bun Cha - Vietnamese Grilled Meat Noodle
Bun Cha is authentic Hanoi food, but its reputation has been all over the country. Even Vietnamese coming from other provinces would find and try the dish when they go to Hanoi. It is also highly recommended for tourists when they visit the capital city of Vietnam.
Bun Cha is a combination of warm broth with grilled minced pork and Vietnamese noodle. When the food is brought to the table, you will have a plate of rice noodles, a small basket of fresh herbs, and a bowl of warm broth with grilled minced pork. There are many different dishes that are made from Vietnamese noodles, but this one is different and has a unique taste, mostly comes from broth and pork.
When you eat Bun Cha, you will dip a small number of rice noodles into the broth, and eat with grilled pork. Do not put all noodles in because it might cool the broth down quickly. Also, if you like grilled pork, you can always ask for more. The broth has a salty-sweet taste from baking pork bones, and the grilled pork is amazingly good. You can find Bun Cha on every corner of Hanoi, including food stalls or restaurants.
3. Pho - Rice Noodle Soup
Pho is probably not a new name for tourists because it has been on every list of famous must-try Vietnamese food. It is a pride of Vietnamese cuisine and has been popular all over the world. Pho consists of broth, rice noodles, herbs, and meat. The meat varies from beef, chicken to duck, goose. The rice noodle used in Pho is flatter and larger, which is different from the one used in Bun Cha, which has a small shape of white rope.
Pho originated in northern Vietnam and it was brought to other countries over the world by refugees after the Vietnam War. Saigon ( in southern Vietnam) has its own style of Pho, but the flavor is different from Pho in the north. Saigon Pho has a sweeter taste of broth and meat, but they use the same ingredients for meat, including pork, beef, chicken, duck, or goose.
You realize that Pho is a popular Vietnamese dish when you can easily find a restaurant serving Pho everywhere in the country. However, if you want to enjoy the most authentic traditional flavor of Pho to know why people love it, you must have the dish in Hanoi.
4. Banh Cuon - Stuffed pancake
Banh Cuon is another famous Vietnamese food that can be served all day. It is a delicious street food that can be the main dish for locals. Banh Cuon is made from rice flour, steamed into thin slides like paper. Then it will be stuffed with cooked minced pork and rolled. Before it is served, it will be sprinkled with golden brown dried onion on top. And you will eat with spicy and sweet sauce which plays an important part of the dish.
To make the batter of Banh Cuon, the cook needs to husk the rice until smooth, then blend it with water. When you eat Banh Cuon, you eat with Cha (Vietnamese pork sausage) to add more protein as well as flavor. Banh Cuon is a very old dish of Vietnamese cuisine. And you can find the dish in many cities and provinces in Vietnam.
5. Banh Goi - Fried Pillow Cake
The dish is called Banh Goi because it has a cute pillow shape and is usually the favorite dish of the Vietnamese in winter. It has a colorful delicious sauce with green papaya and carrot in it. Unlike in Western countries where cake is baked in the oven, Vietnamese cakes are mostly deep-fried. And Banh Goi has no difference, it will have yellow skin that is delicious, crispy, and fragrant after being fried deeply in cooking oil.
Banh Goi has two main parts. The skin is a mixture of water and rice flour and the inside is made by combining different ingredients. Glass noodles, wood ears, minced pork, egg, and mushroom are chopped and mixed well together with some spice. That’s for the cake, but to make the dish delicious, there is a dipping sauce that consists of fish sauce, garlic, chili, sugar, lime juice, and water. When Banh Goi is served, it comes with some fresh herbs like lettuce and coriander.
