Hanoi Street Food

If your going to visit Vietnam, you are going to have to get used to walking on the street, because the sidewalks are strictly occupied for arbitrary things. First of all, 50% of sidewalks are used for parking mopeds and motorcycles due their small size.  That isn’t scientifically proven, but it does seem true. The other 49.99% of the sidewalks are used for various merchants and street food. And only that small .01% of sidewalks are used for walking, meaning you might be able to squeeze through a small crack, through two mopeds.  There are some vacant sidewalks on the bigger roads that are farther from downtown.

 

The most interesting use of sidewalks, however, is the street food. For a local, going to street food is like going to Georgios Subs for my family…very common. From what I saw, no Hanoi local would go to a restaurant that doesn’t experience the weather outside, this is due to the following: 1) street food can be delicious 2) if the restaurant runs out of space, one guy grabs another plastic table and some stools and sets it on the other side of the road; and finally 3) the most expensive street food restaurant you can find is 30,000 dong for one person’s meal, which translates to $1.50. We never tried street food on our first trip to Hanoi, because we got a little sneak peak at how they cleaned the dishes (running them under sewage water), but on our second visit, we were brave enough to do it several times and nobody got sick!  On our next trip, we’ll be eating like a local.