Ha Tien is a street food heaven
If you know where to look, Ha Tien’s walkable streets is like one big street food buffet. It’s the perfect place to familiarise yourself with common dishes, especially if you’ve just hopped across the border from Cambodia.
Locals come out in force in the mornings and evenings, digging in to bowls of noodles together with friends and family. At lunchtime things are much quieter as people retreat indoors during the heat of the day.
Spending a couple of weeks in this little town gave me the chance to graze across much of the town’s street food – and there is a lot. The places I’d go back to are all listed below.
Many of these are busy and popular at peak times – meaning food turns over quickly and is more likely to be fresh).
Takeaway is also popular, which is nice if you want to grab a bite and eat it near the water or in your hotel room, though personally I found the popularity of polystyrene containers fairly concerning.
All these dishes are common and popular all over Vietnam – so it’s worth getting to know and love them!
Seafood
Seafood is a big deal in Ha Tien, which is why I’m putting this heading up first. Come evening time you’ll see around a dozen waterfront stalls open up as part of the ‘night market’, mainly geared at domestic tourists.
Fish, squid or shellfish are all on offer and the barbecued dishes look particularly delicious. Most places have have menus with set prices (around 100 to 150K per serve) but be aware that prices are usually negotiable. For example you could ask for 80,000 dong’s worth of prawns if you wanted a smaller serve (whip out the calculator on your phone to indicate the price).
Unfortunately, loud speakers blaring music or karaoke are fairly standard at these kind of (domestic) touristy type scenes across Vietnam, so unless you want to be blasted during your meal it is better to walk up towards Oasis Bar.
A better option is to walk further up to one of the more chilled out eateries up towards Oasis Bar (Quan Lang Nuong Ha Tien or its neighbour Quan Hai San Bo Ke). This is where you’ll find crowds of locals hanging out.
Breakfast
Fresh baguette with a fried egg: Banh my trung
Baguette vendors line the waterfront in the morning, but the best are those close in to the market. Look out for the ones displaying eggs in the cabinet, they’ll fry one up for you and put it in a roll with Vietnbamese coleslaw, coriander, soy sauce and a little bit of pork for flavouring. Get there as early as possible for the warmest, crispiest rolls; enjoy it with a coffee at a nearby cafe (hyperlink). 10K
Banana fritters: Banh chuoi
A friendly lady sets up near the fish market every morning selling these fried banana fritters alongside waffles (Banh kep). Though maybe not something to eat every day, the fritters are piping hot, delicious and satisfying.
Glazed doughnuts: Banh Cam
Another naughty treat, definitely try one of these at least once. They are delicious, but only sold at the morning market. The crispy glazed outside (made of rice rather than wheat flour) is offsest by a slighlty salty filing (5K).
Broken rice with pork chop and egg: Com Tam Suon trung
Vietnamese people don’t distuinguish so much between breakfast and dinner/lunch meals, and will happily tuck in to a hearty pork chop and rice meal first thing in the morning. In the shade of one of Lam Son street’s pretty historic buildings, clouds of barbecue smoke billow up as the sun starts to shine. Why not join them and think of it as bacon and eggs?
Lunch
Spring roll salad : bun cha goi
Diem, near the corner of Lam Son and Duong Nhat Tao, serves refreshing noodle salads in front of one of Lam Son street’s quaint historic buildings. Herbs, salad, and super fresh rice noodles are topped with your choice of fried spring rolls, prawns or pork belly. Tangy dressing is self-serve from a commal jar on the table. Diem is also open for breakfast.
Choose-your-own meal with rice – Com Tam/Com binh dan
Quan An Thien Nga on Chi Lang street is a few blocks back from the waterfront but in a handy location if you are visiting the temples. The eatery is actually in front of a childcare centre, but with nice wooden grown-up size tables in a pleasantly cool and spacious setting. The food is good, too: of all the rice meals I tried in Ha Tien, this was my favourite, with less sugar added than is often the case in this part of Vietnam.
Com binh dan, or ‘common rice’ restuarants are found all over Vietnam and basically recreate the kind of food that Vietnamese people normally eat at home. Simply point to two or three dishes and a small portion of each will be served to you on rice together with an extra serve of soup and vegtables.
Vegetarian/vegan
A few blocks north from Oasis Bar, Quan Com Chay An Phung on Duong Mac Cuu is a buddhist vegetarian eatery in Ha Tien. On the day I visited they had about ten different dishes to choose from including tasty vegetarian fritters and tofu with lemongrass.
Another vegetarian place worth checking out is right near the market on Duong Ngo May, which serves very cheap food (10K for a plate) and seems to operate on a charitable basis. Very few Vietnamese people are 100 per cent vegetarian, but most (those that follow buddhism) will avoid meat on certain calendar days each month.
Variety
If you want a bit of a choice for lunch, visiting the food and drink market (Duong Nguyen Trung Truc and round the corner along Duong Pham Ngu Lao) is the way to go for a range of tasty dishes including noodles with seafood. A couple have English menus.
Dinner
Grilled Chicken: Ga Nuong
OK, this could be more of a snack, or maybe a course in your street food degustation, but however you choose to eat it, the grilled chicken at Ha Tien’s night market is not to be missed. Chicken legs and quails are on offer (25K each) or you can also look for beef wrapped in betel leaf, another classic dish. You’ll get a little pile of salt and pepper on the side; squeeze some lime juice into it to make a dipping sauce.
Broken rice with pork chop – Com Tam Suon
Com Tam, literally ‘broken rice’ is probably the most common street food you’ll see all over Ha Tien (or the south of Vietnam for that matter) and is eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner. A tender marinated pork chop is served on a bed of rice, along with coleslaw and a side bowl of broth (25K).
Sometimes there are other protein choices for the protein, such as braised meat or fish (tip: the braises always taste a good deal better than they look).
One of the busiest Com Tam places is near the corner of Bach Dang street. It’s easy to spot: look for the billowing clouds of smoke where the barbecue is in full swing. On a hot eveningconsider grabbing a takeaway and heading to the river.
Noodle soup with tumeric fish: Bun Ca
Bun Ca, a local specialty, can be found all over Ha TIen through the day. In the evenings, you’ll find absolutely heaving with people – and for good reason. This bun ca has a generous serving of fish and greens with a deep tumeric flavour from the marinade. Do as the locals do and order a side serve of fried fish cakes with coleslaw from the next door stall.
Tofu and noodle platter with ‘special’ anchovy sauce – Bun Dau
This dish comes with a sleeve of rice paper on the side and it’s great fun to ‘roll your own’ parcels with the fresh ingredients inside. Just be warned that the sauce (made from fermented shrimp) is an aquired taste, so if its too much then politely ask for regular fish sauce (nuoc mam) instead.
The regular version of this dish comes with slices of fatty pork belly (not my favourite) – ask for ‘cha’ (sliced pork patty (instead) or ‘khong thit’. You’ll almost certianly find someone who speaks English at this eatery, which is nicely decorated and popular with Ha Tien’s twenty-somethings.
Lemongrass beef noodle soup: Bun Bo Hue
At the corner of Chi Lang and Phu Dat is a terrific place to try Bun Bo Hue. Not only is the soup good, but the setting is lovely, in a calm, tree-filled courtyard. I couldn’t stop at one bowl – enough said. (Closed Fri-Sat)
Snacks
Green mango salad with peanuts – Banh Trang Tron
This must-try dish is perfect for a snack or entree. I had an absolutely delicious version outside the floating Cafe Dong Ho (Thuy Tien), three minutes’ walk up from Oasis Bar, while local teens giggled and dared each other to say hello. The lady next door also sells fresh rice paper rolls.
Bakery/filled baguettes: banh my
Lo Banh My at 62 Tran Hau street churns out a rapid production line of fresh filled pork baguettes (banh mi thit). You’ll get a mixed filling of pate, pork belly, pork loaf and crispy crackly along with salady-stuff. There are fixed prices and you can choose either a snack-size roll for 8K or regular size for 10K. (Open all day).
Also worth a try is the banh mi on the corner of Lam Son and Tham Tuong Sanh. Instead of pork belly, these rolls are simpler, containing lots of very, very nice peppery pate with pork loaf and cucumber.
Coffee
My regular morning coffee haunt in Ha Tien bas been Mr Hieu’s place just near the vegetable market on Ngo May. While maybe not the most attractive location, the people watching more than makes up for it. The irrepressible Mr Hieu works the crowd like a charm and there’s a steady stream of gossip and banter. Locals order in noodles from their favourite eateries to enjoy with their coffee and deliveries arrive on the back of motorbikes.
Even as the rest of the town bakes in the heat, Cafe Dong Ho (waterfront just past Duong To Chau, marked on Google mpas as cafe Thuy Tien) manages to stay incredibly cool and breezy. The floating cafe bobs gently up and down as boats of all shapes and sizes zoom past. If the late afternoon sun is shining there are great views across to the Ngoc Tien monastery. (Open all day).
Beer and beer snacks
Chill with the local dudes (yep, they are pretty much all blokes) at this sidewalk bia cafe which sells bottled beer for less than the price of a coffee. They do peanuts and other beer snacks too.
