Da Nang morning food tour

I had booked two food tours, the second one for the morning. For this I had to catch a taxi to the city. Unfortunately there was some kind of obstruction near the bridge and my taxi had to take the long way around on another bridge. Fortunately Vietnamese taxis are relatively cheap.

My guide, Dung, told me that I was the only one on the tour that morning. We started off with some bò né, meaning avoid the beef, because it comes on a sizzling plate.

At the next place we had bánh cuốn, savory rice rolls and bánh bèo, water fern cake, although those look like rice noodles in the picture to me. This was accompanied by sữa đậu nành, soy milk, which is consumed all over Asia.

At a coffee shop, we had cà phê, which needs no translation. Vietnamese are crazy about coffee, there are shops all over the place. Possibly because it's a producer nation. The coffee was made by filtering hot water through grounds in a metal container with a wire mesh at the bottom, dripping onto condensed milk. When you ask for milk with coffee in Vietnam you will get condensed milk. It was strong and full of flavour.

At a local market, the other one to the Han market, we had nước trái cây, fruit juice; mine was some kind of sour fruit.

By this time I was quite full so I asked for a light snack. I mentioned that I had bánh xèo already so I think she crossed it off her mental list and instead took me to a place serving nem lụi, BBQ pork sticks and bò lá lốt, beef in a leaf. It came with rice paper and salad. But I forgot to take a picture of them. There were so good that I asked for the leftovers to take away and had them for dinner later.

Finally we finished up with dessert: chè thập cẩm, mixed bean sweet soup and chè xoa xoa, jelly sweet soup.

The great thing about Vietnamese food is that each area has their own variations on dishes. It's also a healthy cuisine as they use a lot of vegetables.

Along the way I had an interesting conversation with Dung, who explained a lot of things about Vietnam.