Luke Nguyen's Vietnam Food Tour: Day 2

Breakfast is served in the hotel's basement. That sounds bad, but it was a charming restaurant with smiling waiters and waitresses who immediately fetched coffee. The cool thing about hotel breakfasts in Asia is the variety. Sure, you can have bacon and eggs, or pancakes, but live it up. Try some chicken phở, their famous soup that will fill you up in the morning. Soon I'm slurping up the salty noodles, breathing in the aromatic broth, and downing their famous Vietnamese coffee, strong, nutty, and sweet from the condensed milk.

Stuffed, we head to the Temple of Literature, Vietnam's first national university.  It was founded in 1070 (for some perspective, Harvard was founded in 1636, and I thought that was old) and dedicated to Confucius. We've been here before, but with a guide, I actually learned something about it.

Years ago, the university employed the Confucian court examination system, a civil service examination used to select civil officials. Established in 1075 and lasting until 1919, the exams evaluated candidates' understanding of ethical and political principles in the Confucian classics.

Today, the temple is a gathering place for students who have recently graduated and their families. They come dressed in their graduation outfits to celebrate their academic achievements and take pictures to celebrate the event.

After our visit, we stopped at a tea house, drank a lot of it, and floated back to the hotel for a break and a leisurely lunch on our own. The time to chill out was important because the evening event was approaching fast. Luke was taking us on a walking tour of the old section of Hanoi to sample all kinds of delicious street food. And we ate until we dropped.

Honestly, I'd never stop at any of these street restaurants for fear that I'd spend the rest of the trip sick in bed. If you do ever get ill in a foreign country, it's usually not their fault; our bodies are often just not used to the different bacteria found outside of our own little cocoons.

But Luke knows all of these stops and the people who run them. These are secret alleyways and hidden food stalls. And because we're with Luke, we get access to what's happening behind the scenes, in the cramped kitchens where family recipes have been prepared for generations.

One of the coolest stops was at a little cart that sold tiny bánh mì sandwiches. The standard bánh mì is a light, crusty baguette about nine inches long, stuffed with pâté, grilled pork or chicken, a spicy pepper, pickled vegetables, and cilantro, sprinkled with mayonnaise and chili sauce if you want it. The bread is half wheat flour and half rice flour, which makes it light and crisp.

At this little cart, they were selling miniature bánh mì, about three inches long — a delicious light snack.

After a dozen or so stops and a few beers with ice cubes — a classic Vietnamese custom, especially in the heat of October — it was time to call it a night. There are a lot more frenzied days ahead.