A delicious food street tour in Hue Vietnam

Helen Avaient
Jun 2
4 min read

Taking a street food tour in a foreign city is always an adventurous and fun. The best thing about doing a walking, and eating, tour is that you go to food venues you would not know to go on your own, the specialty places that locals eat at. This gives your visit a more authentic experience. Our guide explained each dish in detail, so we knew exactly what was in each dish. This would not happen without doing the tour as most of us don't have the time or resources to hunt the information for ourselves. With a Vietnamese speaking guide, there was no language barrier. Even if we wouldn't order some of the food again, it was a good way to try something new. Trying local delicacies got us out of our comfort zone.

First dish was Bun bo Hue, a spicy Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup. If you order this dish in a restaurant in the city of Hue, they just refer to it as Bun bo. The broth is made of lemongrass, shrimp and pork bones. Added to the broth is beef, pork and crabmeat. The noodles are made from rice flour and are a delightfully thicker and more round shape than the other Vietnamese noodle soup dish - Pho.

Two dishes are presented on a table with a pair of chopsticks. One is Bun bo Hue, a noodle soup with beef slices, bean shoots, pork, crabmeat all floating in a tasty brown broth. The second bowl contains a leafy green salad with bean shoots and shredded vegetables.

. The light shredded vegetable on the green leaves is from the flower of the banana tree. Bean shoots add an additional crunch to the dish. It was a mix of spicy, salty and umami flavours.

A refreshing glass of slightly warm green tea truly refreshed the palate before a stroll to the second course.

Bánh bèo, translated to English means water fern cakes. Made of rice flour and tapioca flour, this dish is topped with shrimp and pork. The fish sauce is put on the food, then the whole dish is spooned into the mouth. If you want to be authentic and use chopsticks, you need to nudge the Bánh bèo off the dish and eat it straight away. There is not much flavor to the rice but lots of texture. The gluttonous rice mixes with the crunch of the pork. like crackling. like a pork cracker. light and crunchy. the shrimp was chopped up very fine and was crumbly.

six dishes containing a Vietnamese dish made of rice and tapioca flours. Topped with a crisp piece of port and crumbly crabmeat. A larger bowl of dipping sauce and another bowl of green chillis sit beside the individual serving bowls.

Our third restaurant offered several food choices.

Bánh Nậm was once only available to the Vietnamese royalty. Rice flour and tapioca flour are combined with water to make a starchy paste. This is spread on banana leaves. The introduced filling is made of shrimp, pork, mushroom and scallions. The leaf is wrapped is into a parcel and steamed, then served with chilli sauce. You can definitely taste the shrimp. The pork is more subtle, and the whole dish is quite gluttonous.

Green banana leaves filled with flat Vietnamese dumplings sit on a white plate.

On a green banana leaf sits a Vietnamese dumpling made of rice and tapioca flours with a filling of shrimp, pork, mushroom and scallions.

Bánh bột lọc is a chewy, clear tapioca dumpling, cooked in a similar way to Bánh Nậm. Inside this dish is a whole shrimp with the shell still on, and pork. Wrapped in banana leaf and steamed, the sweet tapioca is very sticky. Both dishes are more easily eaten with a spoon. A lot of effort goes into making this, just over a mouthful in each leaf. Again, it is served with a sweet fish chilli sauce.

On a green banana leaf lies a chewy, clear tapioca Vietnamese dumpling. Inside this dish is a whole shrimp with the shell still on, and pork.

Bánh khoai means happy pancake. The pancake is made of rice flour with egg, water, sugar and salt. The filling was pork, shrimp and a quail egg. This was all fried in a tiny bit of oil, giving it a crunchy texture. It was very oily. It really didn't have much of a flavour, so it was perfect with the peanut sauce it was served with, if you placed it both underneath and on top of the pancake. The sauce was made of peanuts, sesame oil, soya beans, sugar and a little bit of pepper. A complimentary taste sensation was the salad of lettuce, green papaya, carrot and coriander.

Three Vietnamese pancakes, shaped in half circles sit on a plate next to a coriander, carrot and bean shoot salad. A blue and white bowl half filled with peanut sauce sits next to these foods.

Pure fruit juice with ice was divine to cleanse the palate. It was a refreshing treat to taste the sweetness after the salty and greasy flavours of the previous dish. Vietnamese food blends different textures with different taste sensations. Sweet mixes with salty, sour and spicy.

Another walk to our next and final stop for dessert.

Chè thập cẩm is made of white bean red bean, green bean, sticky rice green bean powder and coconut milk and sugar. It is best mixed with ice and eaten with a spoon. There is a noticeable touch of salt from when they cook the beans, and it is not too sweet. There are several texture sensations in this dish. The sticky rice is chewy and the beans are a smooth soft chunky texture. It is very filling as the whole thing is like a starchy thick shake. This is not a light dessert; it is a heavier substantial course.

In a tall clear glass is a Vietnamese dessert made of coconut milk and beans over ice. A spoon stands in the dessert waiting to scoop it up and eat its delicious flavours.

The progressive food tour was fun. We would have overlooked some of the dishes if we were on our own. The walk around the town was great, a good way to get your bearings without getting lost. The stroll by the Perfume River on the way back to the hotel was beautiful to see Hue by night. The bridge with its ever-changing colored lights is a fabulous backdrop to the boardwalk along the river. Strolling along here, listening to locals play instruments and sing, or just enjoy a drink looking out over the water is a fantastic way to end the Hue street food tour.