Ha Noi included in best food tours around the world

Ha Noi among best food tours around the world

Ha Noi has been named among the 20 best food tours around the world, according to a list released by The Guardian, a British daily newspaper.

Once you love Vietnam, you’ll love its food forever, too. Aussie expat Mark Lowerson has loved it for 17 years and, along with partner Vang Cong Tu, navigates plastic-stool eating around town as Ha Noi Street Food Tours.

Mark explains color and texture in Vietnamese food, talks of Chinese, French, and American influence on the country’s cuisine, and walks foodies through a wet market glistening with fish, and decodes the food offerings at temples while ambling through holy grounds.

The Guardian advises travelers that after banh da ca (soup made with tea-colored noodles from Hai Phong), and banh cuon (minced pork and wood-ear mushrooms in rice sheets, sprinkled with fried shallots) dipped in a sauce that balances salt, sweet, spice and sour flavors using ingredients such as chilli and kalamansi, the balance tips towards sweet.

Take coffee in a tiny cafe where the floor is littered with pumpkin seed shells, and tuck into heavenly soft and chewy black fermented sticky rice with frozen yoghurt, the writer tips.

Porto tops the list, followed by Lisbon, Berlin, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Naples, Palermo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Mumbai, Tokyo, etc.

Earlier, Ha Noi has been named among 10 cities guaranteed to turn you into a foodie, according to a list released by The Travel, the world's most interesting site for travel tips, guides, and facts.

Ha Noi is expected to welcome more than 14.3 million visitors in the first half of 2019, a 9.5% increase from the same period last year, according to the municipal Department of Tourism. The number of foreign arrivals is estimated at 3.3 million, up 10.6% year-on-year.