Northern Vietnamese Cooking

Northern cooking is the plainest of the three regional styles and the least sweetened. Sugar is used sparingly, chilli arrives on the side rather than in the pot, and the flavours lean on black pepper, vinegar, lime, spring onion and dill. Pho is the northern dish that travelled: a clear beef or chicken broth with flat rice noodles and almost nothing added beyond herbs and lime. Bun cha is the Hanoi lunch, charcoal-grilled pork patties dropped into a bowl of diluted fish sauce with pickled kohlrabi, eaten with cold noodles and a heap of herbs. Cha ca, turmeric-marinated fish fried at the table with dill, is the other city speciality.

What you actually see

• Bun cha - grilled pork in a bowl of sweet-sour fish sauce, with cold noodles and herbs.
• Pho - clear broth and flat noodles, eaten at breakfast and rarely dressed up.
• Cha ca - turmeric fish fried at the table under a mound of dill and spring onion.
• Banh cuon - steamed rice sheets rolled around minced pork and wood-ear mushroom.

When to go

Breakfast is the main event, from around six until nine, when the pho, banh cuon and xoi stalls are at their best. Bun cha is a lunch dish and most shops sell out by early afternoon. Winter suits the broths, while the humid summer months favour the cold, herb-heavy dishes. Autumn brings com, young green rice sold from flat baskets.

Honest expectations

Single-dish shops sell one thing, take cash only, use plastic stools on the pavement and close when the pot is empty, often by one o'clock. Few have English menus and fewer have anything for vegetarians, since fish sauce and pork stock are in almost everything. Tables are shared, the noise is constant, and hygiene varies stall to stall.

Nearby

Hanoi's Old Quarter concentrates the stalls; Nam Dinh and Ninh Binh have their own versions.