July 19th, 2009 
Sheila Simkin Vietnam Restaurant Recommendations – Sapa and Hanoi had the best restaurants
In Sapa, we ate at Sapa Lotus twice…View image…. Once for some tasty tuna sandwiches and the second time for really great pizza. The cost for three tuna sandwiches, french fries (chips) and two glasses of very good wine including tip and tax was 315,000 Dong, or about $20 U.S. 315,000 Dong sounds much more impressive. It was the wine at $5 U.S. per glass that was relatively expensive, not the food.
In Hanoi, Wild Rice and Mediterraneo. A very few other highly recommended restaurants are: Bobby Chinn’s…View image… (very, very expensive); Le Tonkin, 14 Ngo Van so; and Little Hanoi, two restaurants – 14 and 2 Ta Hien in the Old Quarter. Also great pastry and coffee shops scattered in all quarters of the city. Both myself, and the excellent Hanoi Tourist Information Center do not recommend eating off the street but if you prefer to gamble with your health, be our guest.
Lao Cai’s Nhat Linh Restaurant …View image…on the train station square had very cheap and good food. There are only two decent restaurants here and all the tourists hang out waiting for the night trains back to Hanoi. Nice owners, good food and extensive menu (with a few amusing misspellings)
Other than the upscale restaurants listed above and a few local dishes scattered throughout Northwest Vietnam, the food wasn’t that terrific. I am crazy about Asian food and tasted stir-fried Morning Glory with garlic for the first time in Hanoi…delicious, developed a taste for Pho, but the majority of the other dishes, were underwhelming.
Uncommon food sights ranged from entire pig’s heads and snakes intestines in the Bac Ha Market…
…a huge bottle of wine with a monkey smooshed inside…this was completely gross…
…and not unusual, but “unusually” displayed…freshly killed chickens, sold “toes up”…
Each to his/her own taste…
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