It’s 8.15 on a Saturday morning, and I’m standing on the steps of Hanoi Posh Boutique Hotel in the city’s Old Quarter waiting for Mark Lowerson, aka Sticky.
He appears bang on time and we walk south on Ma May Street to pick up the other participants in thismorning’s street food tour.
We meet Justin and Evelyn, their 2-year-old daughter Amy, and Justin’s mother, Carol, and set off on our adventure.
Sticky and his partner, Tu, run street food tours for small groups, sharing their hard-earned knowledge gleaned from years of sampling dishes at the tastiest spots in town.
At our first stop, a nondescript shophouse on Hang Manh, the place is packed, but Sticky leads us up to the third floor where we find a free table.
The speciality here is xoi ga – chicken and sticky rice, served with a mild broth, a sweet sauce with pickled papaya and carrot, and a basket of herbs and vegetables.
Suddenly, I see why the place is so popular, as the thin strips of chicken are deliciously tender, and the sticky rice is cooked just right. Much as I’d like to devour the lot, I force myself to leave half of it so I’ll have room for other tasty treats.
We walk round to a string of shops facing Hoan Kiem Lake and Sticky gestures for us to follow him into a shop that sells luggage. Puzzled, we clamber up a dim stairway and find ourselves in a crowded coffee shop.
“Hey, I never thought we’d be going anywhere this cool!” says Justin.
Fading prints of Old Hanoi line the walls, the strains of mellow jazz seem just right for Saturday morning, and groups of young Hanoians squat on tiny stools and jabber away over coffee and juices.
A cool café overlooking Hoan Kiem Lake. Photo / Ron Emmons
“Anyone for egg coffee?” asks Sticky, and he explains that the owner’s mother was one of the first to popularise what is now a famous Hanoi drink. The whipped egg white gives the coffee a creamy texture, and already I’m fired up with anticipation about the hidden gems we’ve yet to discover.
As we head deeper into Hanoi’s Old Quarter, passing along narrow streets and alleys no more than a metre wide, Sticky stops in front of a stall serving banh tom, or shrimp and sweet potato fritters, and there’s a steady stream of locals pulling up on motorbikes to take away a bagful.
Sticky squeezes us into a corner where we watch two women preparing the dish; one deep-fries the fritters, each with a large, unshelled shrimp on top, while the other prepares bowls of a sweet dip and basket of fresh vegetables and herbs.
Carol starts pulling the head off the shrimp, but Mark stops her. “Just eat it as it is,do as the locals do,” he says. So we all crunch through our fritters – heads, tails and all, and agree that this is a truly yummy street snack.
Sticky (left) explaining the subtleties of xoi ga. Photo / Ron Emmons
I realise that I could spend a lifetime in this city and still never exhaust the culinary treats on offer, so I’m delighted to be introduced to a few that have been tried and tested.
In a crowded alley, Sticky stops by a noodle stall where we settle down on a bench to try pho tiu. By this time, I’m beginning to feel full and wonder if I might pass on this one, but Sticky urges me to try it, saying we only have one more minor stop after this.
I’m so glad he talked me into it because the pho tiu is my favourite of all the dishes we’ve tried today.
It’s a bowl of noodles with Chinese barbecued pork, beansprouts, peanuts and coriander, with a slightly spicy sauce drizzled over it. In no time at all I’ve finished my bowl and am considering asking for more, but feel that would be greedy. Sticky sees my empty bowl and raises his eyebrows, so I pat my stomach and give him the thumbs-up.
By now we’ve ventured into the northern reaches of the Old Quarter, and Sticky leads us back southward for “just one more mouthful—a dessert”.
On the way I’m distracted by motorbikes honking their way through crossroads without stopping and women with bamboo yokes over their shoulders, balancing baskets of doughnuts or noodles.
Sticky tells us to wait while he crosses the street and returns with our dessert. “Who’s first to tell me what’s inside?” he asks.
We all bite into our chewy rolls that are dusted with black sesame seeds, and Evelyn is first to shout, “It’s coconut!”
“Well done,” says Sticky, “and that, my friends, is your lot.”
I bid farewell to my newfound street-food friends and make a beeline for my bed in the Posh Boutique Hotel and a well-deserved siesta.
