Vietnamese cooking classes draw foreign tourists

Local food is among the key tourism attractions for any destination. Most people like to enjoy traditional and special dishes at restaurants. Many others choose to join local cooking classes to make food themselves.

Local food is among the key tourism attractions for any destination. Most people like to enjoy traditional and special dishes at restaurants. Many others choose to join local cooking classes to make food themselves.

Maggie – a German tourist - and her travel group, joined a cooking class right after arriving in Vietnam. She wants to learn about Vietnamese traditional food, not only in terms of flavour and taste, but also the recipes.

“I like going to the market here. It is very big, bigger than in Germany. There are so many products,” said Maggie.

Maggie likes to cook Pho (beef noodle soup) and Bun Cha (noodle with grilled pork), two Vietnamese signature dishes.

“This is the first time I cook Pho. It is so interesting to cook a local dish myself. I believe it will taste good,” Maggie said.

Maggie is among the six foreign tourists who joined a cooking class hosted by Rose Kitchen to learn more about the country’s gastronomic art.

Cooking class for tourists is becoming popular in tourism destinations, such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang City, among others. The model helps draw more and more tourists to Vietnam, particularly foreigners.

Rose Kitchen, established in 2017, is one of the well-known classes. It is highly recommended by international tourism website TripAdvisor.

Tran Quang, founder of Rose Kitchen said he set up Rose Kitchen to bring Vietnamese food closer to foreigners.

“Vietnamese food is already popular worldwide. Our chefs not only teach foreign visitors how to cook Vietnamese dishes themselves, but also teach them how to decorate the dishes and ensure food hygiene,” Quang said.

Maggie’s group had a good time, shopping ingredients in Vietnamese traditional market and making Vietnamese dishes themselves.

They love Vietnamese food so much that some said they would cook Vietnamese food after returning home.

“I like it very much. The food is delicious. I will cook in Germany, but I believe it is very difficult to slice ingredients into such small pieces,” Christine, another particpant said.

Meanwhile, Jessica, another member in the German travel group, was happy to know some little secrete in Vietnamese Pho when she learnt the recipe.

“It is so interesting. I didn’t know that we need cinnamon in Pho,” said Jessica.

Vietnamese cuisine makes up an important part of Vietnamese culture.

Vietnamese signature dishes, namely Pho, Bun Cha, Nem (spring roll), Chung Cake (Sticky rice squared cake), among others, have their presence in almost every tourism promotion event abroad.

Their unique taste and diversity attract international food lovers, bloggers and media.

Vietnamese food is becoming a significant tourism motivation, drawing visitors to Vietnam, particularly international ones.

The number of international tourist arrivals to Vietnam in the third quarter of this year increased 14.9 percent against the same period last year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

Tourists from Asia rose 27.2 percent; Europe, 9.8 percent; America, 12.5 percent; Oceania, 6.3 percent; and Africa, 19.5 percent.

The US has remained one of Vietnam’s top five tourism markets with the number of vacationers to the country exceeding 614,000 in 2017, up 11 percent against 2016.

As of August 2018, Vietnam had served 486,000 US holiday-makers, a year-on-year increase of 14.5 percent.