Despite a thousand years of nomadic life, the Mong ethnic group in Dien Bien’s Tua Chua Village still considers black chicken a valuable part of many tasty dishes.

Chuoi nep nuong (grilled banana wrapped in sticky rice crust) is a popular dish in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho. 

“The tasty and delicious Tich Nghi fish porridge helped warm up my body during a cold winter day in Bac Ninh last week,” said Tran Thu Hue from Hanoi.

Prestigious website CNN Travel has selected the local delicacy Pho Bo (Beef Pho) among its 20 best soups worldwide.

Pho and banh mi are popular street foods with many foreign tourists, but the unusual balut and red jellyfish salad, among others, are not as well known.

In Vietnamese cuisine, steamed sticky rice is very popular among all ethnic groups, as rice has been planted nationwide for thousands of years. 

From traditional banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich), many bakers have created banh mi with unique shapes and excellent quality known in Vietnam snd around the world.

As part of the Government’s cultural development strategy towards 2030, Vietnam aims to have three cities in the UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network across many fields, including cuisine.

Com tam Sai Gon (Sai Gon-style steamed broken rice), Com ga Hoi An (Hoi An Chicken Rice) and Com hen Hue (Baby basket clams rice) are all wonderful rice dishes that diners should not miss.

The editors of Lonely Planet, which has sold 145 million travel guidebooks worldwide, have named dumplings as Vietnam’s greatest street food.

Even during the social distancing period, Hanoi is still beautiful with its rich culinary culture through drawing which evoke love and nostalgia thanks to an initiative of the Urban Sketchers Hanoi group.

Keeping customers happy so they come back for more is essential to every service business.

With an interest in travelling and exploring Vietnamese cuisine, young illustrator Le Rin has considerable knowledge of dishes from various regions across Vietnam. So far he has completed two food illustration books.

Hue-based celebrated cook Mai Thi Tra has eaten a strict vegetarian diet since the historic flooding which left hundreds dead in the city in 1999.

Unusual items made by craftspeople and cooks in Vietnam:

Having lived in Angola for 10 years, Vu Van Vo, 27, still cooks Vietnamese meals for his family.

Every Cold Foods Festival (third day of the third lunar month), Hanoians line up to buy banh chay (chay cake) at a well-known cake store in Hanoi.

The cuisine found in the northern region of Vietnam has been hailed by many international media outlets such as Cable News Network (CNN) and the World Records Union (WorldKings) of the United States for their uniqueness and delicacies.

If you are in Russia and are dying for an authentic taste of Vietnam, with “pho” and “bia hoi”, head to one of the 14 restaurants named ‘Uncle Ho’ around the country.

Tanya Pisarchuk, a digital marketer and amateur food reviewer, has spent more than seven years in Hanoi. That’s also how old her Facebook group Wheretoget Hanoi is, now a community of more than 16,000 members navigating Hanoi's nooks