I was in Hanoi almost ten years ago to the day, fresh off the boat of Moms funeral, finding myself in Asia for the first time dealing with the grief of losing a parent. It was humid and damp, and my memories mostly consist of a very nice bar filled with lanterns and a ten-quid-a-night hotel room where the air conditioning was clunky and the bed sheets a cheap, itchy fabric. Hanoi was my least favourite part of that holiday, mostly because it’s that little bit cooler, little bit more expensive, and a little behind everywhere else we went.
A decade on and a lot has changed. Hanoi is fully embracing the concept of tourism. Hoan Kiem lake is still a beautiful place to walk around, though now the city has hoards of tourists, seemingly waiting for the train to pass within an inch of their faces, or drinking their way down the frankly awful neon attack of Bier Street. We’re staying five minutes away from where I stayed before, a five star on paper that’s four star in reality, with a dubious restaurant whose ‘buy one get one’ offer never fails to make me laugh, but has a rather fantastic roof top pool and bar. The city has a cocktail scene with prices not out of the norm in London, and a Michelin guide that requires a deep dive to find the right restaurant. Most are places which do singular dishes, and you’re about as likely to end up at a snail restaurant as a beef pho restaurant. I’m using the word restaurant very lightly.
From the outside Pho Ga Nguyét doesn’t look much. The dirty white frontage with big blue lettering, with a lady in the shop front picking chicken meat by hand. The options are everything as long as it’s chicken pho; you select the cut of meat and whether you want it soup or dry, wait a minute and it arrives. The pho is very good. Clean, fragrant broth with jewels of fat and hints of anise and corriander. Chicken breast and thigh, both typical of the slighter tougher texture that is appreciated in this county, both good on flavour. Springy noodles. I add too much chilli because I’m an idiot, and mop up the juices with fried bread sticks. Sophie gets the dry version that only differs with a handful of peanuts and fried shallots, with a little bowl of broth on the side. Two phos, fried bread, two beers. £4.20.
We almost missed our flight this morning to Hoi An. The airline changed our flight number without telling us, meaning that our existing booking meant nothing to anyone, which took the fantastic Erin from the hotel to call the airline on her own phone at her own personal cost to not only give us the new details but to also check us in. She wouldn’t take any cash from me, so here is my thanks to twenty-odd thousand readers. May DeVille is a fantastic place to stay if you want central old town and Erin is a superstar. With two more weeks left here, I’m not planning on writing every meal up, but I will keep them ticking over, including a $100 pho a world away from this. Now get me to a beach.
8/10
