Southern Vietnamese Cooking

The south had the easiest agriculture and the widest set of outside influences, and its cooking shows both. Sugar and coconut milk go into savoury dishes, herbs arrive by the plate rather than the sprig, and Chinese, Khmer and French elements sit alongside each other without fuss. Com tam is the working breakfast: broken rice with a grilled pork chop, shredded pork skin and a steamed egg cake. Hu tieu is the delta's noodle soup, pork-based, ordered wet or dry. Banh xeo is a large turmeric crepe folded over pork and prawns, torn up and wrapped in mustard leaf. The evening belongs to the snail stalls.

What you actually see

• Com tam - broken rice with grilled pork, sold from morning stalls and eaten fast.
• Banh xeo - a turmeric rice-flour crepe torn up and wrapped in mustard leaf and herbs.
• Hu tieu - the southern noodle soup, often ordered dry with the broth on the side.
• Oc - snails and shellfish grilled and sauced at outdoor stalls after dark.

When to go

The dry season, December to April, makes outdoor eating comfortable; the rains from May to October come in short heavy bursts in the late afternoon. Com tam is a morning dish and snails an evening one, and the market kitchens start cooking before dawn. Mekong towns eat early, while Ho Chi Minh City stalls run late into the night.

Honest expectations

Northerners find southern food oversweet, and southern pho, served with a plate of bean sprouts, hoisin and chilli sauce, is not what anyone who learned it in Hanoi expects. The heat and humidity are constant year-round. Ice and raw herbs at the roughest stalls are the usual cause of trouble; busy places with high turnover are the safer bet.

Nearby

Ben Thanh and Binh Tay markets both have kitchen halls; the delta towns cook differently again.