Food in Vietnam

Perhaps the most famous (and popular) dish in Vietnam is pho. This bowl of pho cost 27,000 dong ($1.71).

One thing I really enjoyed in Vietnam was the food. Vietnamese food is quick, delicious, and healthy. Despite eating it every day for 2.5 weeks I never reached the point where I threw up my hands and screamed, “No mas! No mas!” Anyhow, here are some more notes:

• Pho (pronounced “fah”, not “foe!”) is perhaps Vietnam’s most famous dish and is eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It is a large bowl of soup with noodles, thin pieces of meat, onions, etc. in it. Usually served on the side are sprouts, chili peppers, and some green leafy vegetables I do not know the name of. One can dump in these condiments in the soup.
• Pho and other dishes in Vietnam taste just like that in the U.S.. However, serving sizes are smaller. A typical bowl of pho in Vietnam is the size of a “small” order of that in the U.S., and there is no “large” option.
• Every table in a Vietnamese restaurant has a bottle of chili sauce; people out there (like myself) put chili sauce on everything. Even KFC has chili sauce!
• Fish sauce and vinegar (?) is also usually available on restaurant tables in Vietnam.
• Food is kind of like Chinese food in that everything is cooked (either boiled or fried), but tends to be a lot less greasy
• Vietnamese cuisine seems to have less variety than Chinese food. Virtually every entree in Vietnam is a variation of a noodle (usually vermicelli) or rice dish, with the exception of spring rolls.
• Dishes are cheap by American Standards. I usually was not spending more than $1-2 for breakfast, $1.50-2.50 for lunch, and $2.50-4 for dinner.
• Processed foods in supermarkets typically cost 1/3rd as much as in the U.S.. However, fruit (apples and such) seem to cost just as much as in the U.S..
• There are NO obese people in Vietnam except for the American, British, and German tourists. :) This leads me to believe that Vietnamese food is healthy. Indeed, most cuisine there seems to be minimally processed and low in fat and sugar.
• However, the people in Vietnam also seemed to be a bit shorter than Vietnamese in the U.S. (and definitely less fleshed out). I am 5′10″ (which is about average for an American) but seemed to tower over everyone. Maybe this is due to milk being much less consumed than in the U.S.?
• It seems like every time I go on vacation, I lose a couple of pounds (mainly water and muscle). However, this time I lost almost 7 pounds (sad because I would have liked to gain 7 pounds of lean mass…) Which leads me to conclude that Vietnamese food makes good diet food…

More photos are here.