"To travel is to live" -HC Andersen: Eat Your Heart Out

I'm a self-confessed foodie. This doesn't mean I'm snobby about what I eat, I'll eat nearly anything as long as it is GOOD food. My traveling always has a element of, "Yea, yea...those buildings are nice. BUT WHAT'S FOR LUNCH?"

As Edi and I planned for our trip to Vietnam, the theme of food was resounding. At one point, my dear H pointed out that 90 percent of the links we were sending back and forth were about restaurants, cafes, street food stalls and recipes. Yep, we had an agenda.

Street Food

You can't go to Vietnam and not eat off the street. I know there is always the risk of "traveler's stomach" but what's life without a little risk. The key is the old adage "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". This means if the locals are scarfing up the food and there isn't a free place to sit then it is a good place to try out. If no one is sampling the goods, keep walking.

Each street stand did one thing and one thing well. It might be a bowl full of mouth watering Pho Bo (Rice noodle soup with beef) or Mien Ga (Glass noodle soup with chicken). This was (usually) a woman who had honed he skills for years and had perfected a broth that could send you into a food coma.

Rice Stand, Ho Chi Minh City

The Best Bowl of Cao Lau Noodles in HoiAn

Restaurants

We learned quickly there were several different types of restaurants. The first was the upgraded street food restaurant. It was hit or miss, and often only carried one type of food (only rice noodles or only rice with vegetables).

Then there was the "recommended by the guide books" restaurant. These were yummy places that were sometimes local/sometimes tourist focussed, but always vetted. We stayed in the mid-range price market so there were no Michelin star chefs whipping up our meals, but we did eat well. The guide books and websites that give recommendations have been around the block, they've done the research and you can be fairly confident they won't put their name on a dud.

The restaurants that we found to be the real duds where the touristy ones. Being touristy is different than being tourist centered in my book. Touristy restaurants are after a quick dollar. They don't care about the quality of food, the quality of service or the quality of atmosphere because they know the tourist isn't coming back. It is a one time deal. The tourist centered restaurant, however, is aware of how reputation travels. They are concerned about quality because although a lone tourist may not return more than once, that person will tell other travelers, friends, social-media, etc about the experience and good word of mouth can be far more profitable than a one-off customer.

Edi eating the amazing food at KOTO Restaurant, Hanoi

Cooking School: Red Bridge

We knew we wanted to do a cooking school course while traveling. And we had read up enough on the adventure to know we wanted to do it in the center of the country because that was where the best cuisine was suppose to be. So when we arrived in HoiAn, smack dap in the middle of Vietnam, we started looking for a cooking school. There were two big names that kept coming up. We asked around bit and the best reviews seemed to be Red Bridge cooking school. For us, it was a perfect match.

One of the chef's from the school picked us up at a local cafe, after a refreezing welcome drink we went on a tour of the local fruit and veg market. Then we took a 20 minute boat ride to the school, which was located on the river bank and surrounded by lush forest and filled with fragrant herb gardens. We had hands on instructions in preparing several traditional meals and then we were treated to a late lunch from Red Bridge Restaurant. A two-thumbs-up experience!