Aside from restaurants, be sure to eat plenty of street food while traveling through Vietnam. Street vendors serve up steaming bowls of Pho and other delicious noodle dishes.

The food of the north is heavily influenced by China with its stir-fries and noodle-based soups. As you move south, there's more flavor-blending with nearby Thailand and Cambodia. The tropical climate down south also sustains more rice paddies, coconut groves, jackfruit trees, and herb gardens. The food in southern Vietnam is typically sweeter: sweeter broths for pho, more palm sugar used in savory dishes, and those popular taffy-like coconut candies made with coconut cream.

Basic elements: rice and fish sauce

Travel all over Vietnam and you'll quickly find two universal themes. Rice and fish sauce.

Vietnam is the second-largest rice exporter in the world (after Thailand). Rice is grown all over the country, most bountifully so in the Mekong Delta down south, which can grow enough rice to feed all 87+ million people of Vietnam, with plenty of leftovers beyond that. (So much rice.)

Rice appears at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert. There's regular ol' rice of course as well as rice noodles, rice paper wrappers, rice porridge, sticky rice, fried rice, puffed rice snacks, and rice wine. I don't think I ever went more than a few hours in Vietnam without consuming some form of rice.

One local told us that instead of saying gesundheit in response to a sneeze, you can say cơm muối, meaning "rice and salt." So, rather than blessing someone or wishing them good health, just say rice and salt, and that should cure whatever's ailin' them.

Most salt intake in the Vietnamese diet is delivered in the form of fish sauce. Salty, funky, fermented fish sauce, or nước mắm in Vietnamese, is used in marinades, soup broths, salad dressings, spring roll dips, and it's really hard to think of any dish where it's not used. The national condiment is nước chấm, made of fish sauce that's diluted slightly with a splash of lime juice, sugar, chilies and garlic

People say the most prized fish sauce comes from Phu Quoc, an island near the Cambodian border. The waters around Phu Quoc are rich in seaweed and plankton, keeping the local anchovy population very happy. While any kind of fish can be used to make fish sauce, anchovies supposedly produce the ultimate fish sauce and Phu Quoc sauce only uses anchovies harvested around the island.

Herbs and aromatics

Vietnamese food makes extensive use of fresh herbs, spices, and aromatics. Sometimes they go into a steamy pot of pho, sometimes wrapped into spring rolls, sometimes enclosed with a banh xeo pancake.

The freshness of each ingredient is crucial. When we met a popular chef in Hoi An, Trinh Diem Vy, she said her highest-paid employee (and she has 280 employees across all her restaurants) is her market shopper. There's a lot of pressure on that market shopper's nose to whiff through the chaos of the market to locate the very best and brightest ingredients.

Here's a quick primer:

Cilantro: In salads, soups, spring rolls, and beyond. Widely used as the finishing touch garnish. Depending on your genetics, might taste soapy.

Mint: Several varieties grow in Vietnam. Some are fuzzy, some taste lemony, some spearminty, others are spicy...

Fish Mint or Fish Leaf: Ever tried fish mint? Wow, it's really fishy. Appropriately named, this leafy herb has an awfully pungent smell and taste. You'll think you wrapped actual fish into your spring roll, but really it's just this sneaky leaf.

Basil: More popular in Thailand but still makes an appearance in pho and on herb plates.

Lime Leaf: Bright green and shiny. Somewhat bitter oils.

Lemongrass: Tastes and smells, not surprisingly, like lemon. Used in both sweet and savory dishes.

Green Onions and Scallions

Garlic Chives: Flat leaves with a delicate onion and garlic flavor.

Perilla Leaf: Green on top, purplish on the underside with a complex flavor that combines licorice, mint, and lemon all in one leaf.

Dill: Hardly associated with Southeast Asian cuisine but used in a famous Vietnamese fish dish called Cha Ca, where it's treated more like a veggie than an herb.

Turmeric: Sometimes called poor man's saffron, it adds a vivid goldenness to fried foods and some peppery flavor.

Ginger and Galangal: Both knobby rhizomes, both pervasive in Vietnamese cooking.

Saigon Cinnamon: There are different species of cinnamon in the world, and this one is indigenous to Vietnam. Woody, earthy flavor and aroma. Important in pho.

Tamarind Pulp: Maybe this doesn't belong on this list, but it needed to go somewhere. The sweet-sour pulp is used in noodle soups and curries.

Coffee

In lieu of fresh milk, you'll see cans upon cans of sweetened condensed milk, famously used in "white coffee." The sweet, lusciously thick blanket of milk gets mixed with Vietnamese-grown dark roast coffee, individually brewed from a small metal drip filter into each cup. Usually there's more sweetened condensed milk than actual coffee in that cup. Unapologetically sweet and amazing, it's also dangerously strong. I wasn't sure why I couldn't fall asleep in Vietnam for several nights and then realized, oh right—might have been all those cups of coffee.

Fruit: As vegetables and desert fruit

Unripe fruits are considered more like vegetables in Vietnam. A green papaya or banana flower, for example, becomes the base for salads in lieu of leafy greens. Usually a bit sour, the unripe fruit pairs nicely with fish sauce, chili, garlic, dried shrimp, and finely chopped peanuts.

Ripe fruit, on the other hand, is sweet and wondrous. Instead of cakes or cookies for dessert, usually a meal ends with a hot teapot and big platter of indigenous fruits. Slices of banana, mango, pineapple, watermelon (the redder the insides, the more good luck awarded to you!), dragon fruit, papaya, rambutans, and lychees.

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Please take a look at the following reviews from our customers

Ovad and Angela

Israel | 11/02/2018

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Trip to Vietnam and Cambodia

We would like to highly recommend Funny Travel as travel agency to arrange a trip as you desire. We asked Joe to help us arrange a honeymoon trip for 3 weeks in Vietnam and Cambodia. He did everything and sent us a done schedule with every fine details (activities, flights, hotels, guides, drivers, meals etc.). From the moment we arrived, we didn't have to worry about nothing (pick up from and to an airports/hotels, a local sim, money exchange, advises, making sure daily that we are ok and if we need anything). A very big appriciation to Joe, Vicky and their staff, everything they did for us was above and beyond. It was a pleasure. We absolutely sure that whoever will choose Funny Travel, will not regret. Thank you again for a perfect honeymoon, Ovad and Angela

Hawkoinc

Australia | 11/02/2018

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Motorcycle city and street food tour

Loved it, loved it, loved it. We organised a tour with Joe at the last minute but our guide and 3 drivers turned up at 9am the following morning. Our guide Chien was very knowledgeable and made it a fantastic day for us. He had a great personality and sense of humour and the street food we tried was beautiful. Joe has gone out of his way to help us with anything we needed. He is a wealth of information and local knowledge. Do yourself a favour and book a tour with Funny Travel. They have a tour to suit everyone. I highly recommend Funny Travel.

Moniqueavelaine

United Kingdom | 11/02/2018

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Funny Travel made our trip amazing!

WOW, where to start. We had the most amazing experience in Vietnam with Vicky and the Funny Travel staff and there is no way we would have had such an incredible experience without their expertise. From the moment we booked Vicky communicated with us about what we hoped for in our 8 day trip in North Vietnam and now at the conclusion of our trip we are so happy because of the incredible experience they arranged. Everything was thoughtful and we'll orchestrated - we had great accommodations everywhere (including a homestay in an ethnic village near Sa Pa), we had AMAZING GUIDES!!! (thank you Thuc, Ben, and Hieu) and they were so knowledgeable of the communities and places we were visiting, Vicky set us up with a Sim card which made communication easy, she checked in and helped us easily get things done to make our trip more comfortable (arranging laundry, mail, etc), showed us amazing food and answered every question, and all around was so warm and welcoming. It was an incredible trip because of Funny Travel. We 100% recommend and plan to use Funny Travel again when we are back in Asia!

Samsee

Switzerland | 11/02/2018

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Tour Halong Bay e Sapa

Dopo aver visto le varie recensioni positive, ci siamo rivolti pure noi a questa agenzia. All'ultimo minuto Vicky è riuscita ad organizzarci due giorni e una notte in crociera alla baia di Halong e tre giorni e due notti alle risaie terrazzate di Sapa. Tutto organizzato al meglio: trasporti comodissimi, hotel al top, guide simpaticissime e sempre disponibili, escursioni e attività molto piacevoli, abbiamo trascorso anche una notte in una homestay a sapa ed è stato davvero tutto perfetto. Un paese molto interessante abitato da persone gentilissime. Se volete andare sul sicuro rivolgetevi anche voi a questa agenzia!! Super raccomandata!!

Rebecca

Australia | 11/02/2018

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Perfect Travel Agency

It's not just a funny travel agency - it's a perfect agency! We've never aspected to get such a good trip to sapa and halong bay! Everything was organised very well. They took care about us the whole trip, they were always very frindly, kind and funny :p was a pleasure to meet them in Hanoi! thank you Vicky!!!

Colyn D

Poland | 11/02/2018

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Wonderfully warm, friendly and excellent service!

I would like to thank Funny Travel for their absolute fabulous service. We had a great time doing the bicycle and food tour and highly recommendit to anyone in the Hanoi area! A definite must-have experience!!

Relinda G

Philippines | 11/02/2018

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Hanoi Vacation

Funny Travel, you made our vacation memorable, great experience. We had fun in our day tour, friendly staff. They even have an incredible food trip to top it all with. The whole trip was exceptional! A must do when you head over to Hanoi. Thank you to all our guide and to the staff. Keep up the great work

Danielle O

Australia | 11/02/2018

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Craig & Danielle Overend

We were lucky enough to come across Joe and he offered a street food tour to us. He and his colleague Ken took us on a tour trying all different types of food in the old quarter. He was also full of information about his country, we had a fantastic day and highly recommend Joe and his team. Great value for money.

Fager1898

Spain | 11/02/2018

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Buen hacer y excelente trato

Si quieres evitar agencias sospechosamente baratas y no te importa pagar un poco más, esta es una excelente opcion. Muy atentos en el trato, tanto a la hora de la contratación como durante el tour. Hicimos un tour de un día sin prisas, a nuestro ritmo, con un guía muy agradable y seguimos exactamente el recorrido que queríamos dedicando el tiempo que considerábamos necesario. ¿Hay otras agencias más baratas? Sí, las hay, pero a veces por unos pocos dólares no merece la pena arriesgarte con sorpresas que puedan estropear tus ilusiones. Con esta agencia te quedará un muy buen recuerdo de un día irrepetible, en nuestro caso en Mua Cave y Tam Cốc.

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