There are few better ways to learn about the culture of your destination than explore its cuisine, and these new food tours.

Vietnamese cuisine. 

Vietnamese cuisine along the Mekong has been ranked seventh among the best food tours that you can explore cuisine and culture at the same time, according to a list released by The New York Times.

“In Southeast Asia, the travel company APT teamed up with the Australian celebrity chef Luke Nguyen to lead a 14-day trip in Vietnam and on the Mekong River. From November 30 to December 13, Luke Nguyen will guide guests through the alleyways of Ho Chi Minh City to meet his relatives and visit their kitchens, shop for ingredients at market stalls and cook with him as thay sail down the Mekong,” The New York Times wrote.

Exploring private cooking clubs around the globe tops the list, followed by Italian culture and cuisine by bike, food and wildlife in South Africa, spices and teas in India and Sri Lanka, take a gourmet Polynesian cruise, food fload down the Amazon, experience Vietnamese cuisine along the Mekong.

Earlier, Pho, Vietnamese iconic traditional food, has been listed among the world’s 15 best foods that are easy on a globetrotter’s pocket, according to UK-based travel site Rough Guides.

Pho’s ranking came after India’s Thali on the list of Rough Guides. Pho is a bowl of flat, soft rice noodles dipped in a fragrant beef or chicken broth flavored with different condiments. It is served with beef or chicken, shallots and chili and lemon to taste.

“The warming broth is eaten at any time of day, and is best bought from a hole-in-the-wall vendor, where it probably costs less than the raw ingredients back home,” Rough Guides wrote.

Vietnam welcomed some 11.616 million foreign visitors in the first nine months of 2018, an 22.9% increase from the same period last year, the General Statistics Office (GSO) has said in a monthly report.

Of the total visitors in the first nine months of 2018, over 9 million came from Asia. Chinese tourists topped the list with 3.8 million, followed by 2.5 million from South Korea, 623,700 from Japan, 527,700 from Taiwan (China), 381,800 from Malaysia, 236,600 from Thailand and 202,800 from Singapore.

Hanoitimes