In this post, we will explore 10 popular Vietnamese dishes. These are the 10 popular Vietnamese dishes I find most prevalent at the street food vendors and in restaurants in Vietnam.
There are many street vendors in Vietnam that sell only one type of dish. For example, you may find street vendor or vendor that serves food half inside a house and half on the street that sells only phở, only bún bò or only bánh cuốn, etc.
Before we go into the details of the 10 popular Vietnamese dishes, let’s learn a few Vietnamese words. They will give you hints about the food items on most Vietnamese restaurants’ menus.
| cơm | rice |
| bún | rice noodles, vermicelli |
| bánh | bread, cake |
Table of Contents
Phở
Phở is one of the most popular Vietnamese dishes that you can find around the world.
Phở consists of bánh phở (phở noodles), beef and soup. When you say phở, people assume that the meat is beef. If you want to be more specific, you can say “phở bò,” which means beef phở. Some places may offer chicken as the main meat instead of beef. In that case, we call it “phở gà” to specify that the meat is chicken.
The noodles in the above photo is the type of noodles you would find in most phở in Vietnam. It is flat and wide. That’s the type of bánh phở I ate growing up in Vietnam. Some places in Vietnam make their noodles fresh from scratch. You may find that most phở restaurants in the United States use a thinner type of phở noodles, which you can also find in Asian grocery stores in the U.S. and which is similar to what is used in “hủ tiếu” – another Vietnamese noodle dish.
The type of beef in the above photo is also what you would find in most phở in Vietnam.
The phở in the photo is authentic phở you would find in most places that sell phở in Vietnam, except for the long pieces of green onions.
Phở is often served with a plate of fresh or blanched beansprouts, Thai basils, lemons and other vegetables. These are garnish for Phở. If you would like to add basils to your phở, remove the leaves from the branch and add it to your phở. You can also add the black sauce and/or red chili sauce.
Bún bò
“Bún bò” consists of rice noodles, beef, “chả lụa” and pork knuckles. “Chả lụa” is Vietnamese pork sausage or pork roll. The type of white noodles used in bún bò is rounder. Because of its shape, it is more slippery to hold using chopsticks.
In Vietnam, bún bò is an equally popular dish as phở so I am quite surprised to see that many foreigners only know Phở, but not bún bò, as a popular Vietnamese dish.
Bánh mì
“Bánh mì” is often translated as Vietnamese sandwiches and is often thought to look like the picture below; however, the word bánh mì actually just means bread. It just happens that the most popular type of bread they use in Vietnam is baguette.
To indicate the contents of bánh mì (or main meat), people usually specify what is inside. For example, bánh mì chả lụa means bánh mì with chả lụa (Vietnamese pork rolls) inside, bánh mì thịt nguội means bánh mì with ham inside and bánh mì thịt nướng means bánh mì with grilled meat (usually pork) inside. Bánh mì không means just bread with nothing inside (bánh mì means bread, không means empty so “bánh mì không” means “empty bread” or “just bread”).
The bánh mì that you often find people selling on the streets in Vietnam are usually baguette with Pâté paste, some sort of meat (chả lụa, grill pork, bbq pork, etc), pickled carrots, pickled radishes and cilantro. Some bánh mì can be customized differently, but those are usually the main ingredients.
Bánh mì is a cheap food option in Vietnam, and you can find them pretty much every where, from small street food stalls to bread shops.
The photo above is a photo of a food stall that sells bánh mì and xôi mặn (salty sticky rice). Kim Sơn is just a name, not the contents of the bánh mì. The 18K from the sign is the price, which is short for 18,000VND (about $0.78 USD at the time I’m writing this post). This photo was uploaded in 2019 so the price may have changed since then. Also, this is just from one stall so I would not think of this as standard price.
To learn more about Vietnamese currency, visit Vietnamese currency post.
Bánh cuốn
Bánh cuốn, also known as Vietnamese rice rolls, is another popular dish in Vietnam. The rice rolls are filled with ground pork and minced wood ear mushrooms. These are usually eaten with chả lụa, Vietnamese pork sausage or pork roll, blanched beansprouts, fried shallots onions, minced mint and sometimes minced cucumbers. It is often served with nước mắm (fish sauce).
To eat bánh cuốn, you either dip the bánh cuốn in the sauce and eat it or pour the fish sauce on the bánh cuốn and eat it from the plate.
Gỏi cuốn
Gỏi cuốn, or spring rolls, is a popular dish in Vietnam. It is not a main dish. Many street vendors sell this dish as a snack.
Gỏi cuốn is popular enough that you may see it offered in many Vietnamese restaurants around the world as an appetizer. It usually consists of pork, shrimp, lettuce and rice noodles wrapped into a roll by rice paper. But when you make it at home, you can put in whatever you’d like to eat. You can customize it however you want. For example, you can replace the main meat with something else, like fish, beef or even tofu, or you can skip the rice noodles if you don’t like the taste.
I ate gỏi cuốn growing up, and I never put rice noodles in gỏi cuốn. It is there more for filling purpose, in my opinion. I usually make gỏi cuốn with either beef, pork or fish. I tried a couple of times with fried tofu, and it actually tasted pretty good. Sometimes if I have leftover food from the day before, I just throw it in a rice paper and make a roll. It may taste much better than if you just eat it by itself or with rice. You can also add basil, other herbs, thin slices of cucumber, etc.
Gỏi cuốn is often served with dipping sauce. If you eat at a restaurant or at a street vendor, you just dip the gỏi cuốn in whatever dipping sauce they serve you. The sauce can be either the peanut sauce (brown sauce with peanut), fish sauce or soy sauce. When you eat outside, the sauce they often serve you is the peanut sauce. When I eat at home, I simply use soy sauce.
Cơm tấm
Another dish that is just as popular as Phở that you will see almost every where in big cities in Vietnam is cơm tấm. You can eat it for breakfast, lunch or dinner. You may see this dish served often on the streets than in the restaurants.
Cơm tấm consists of broken rice, bbq or grilled pork, pickled carrots and radishes, bì (shredded pork skin) and mỡ hành (scallion in oil). Some places may serve cơm tấm with extra vegetable, tomatoes or other food.
Cơm tấm is often served with fish sauce. When eating cơm tấm, use the spoon to get the fish sauce and sprinkle it on the food to season to taste. Fish sauce is very salty so be careful when you add it.
Bánh xèo
Bánh xèo, often known as crispy Vietnamese rice pancake, is often served folded in half like in the above photo and served with vegetables, herbs and fish sauce.
Once you open bánh xèo, you can see the contents of bánh xèo, which usually includes shrimps, pork and beansprouts. The crispy yellow pancakes are made with rice flour and turmeric powder.
How to eat bánh xèo? To eat bánh xèo, wrap a piece of bánh xèo in a green leaf lettuce with a few other herbs, or whatever you’d like to add, and dip it in fish sauce.
Bún mọc
Bún mọc consists of rice noodles, different types of chả lụa (Vietnamese pork sausages), pork rib, green onions, fried onions, often served with vegetables and and sauce. The vegetable plate that is served with the bowl of noodles is just garnish to add to the soup as needed. The sauce is also optional.
Bún riêu
What makes bún riêu different from other Vietnamese noodles is the taste of crab paste. Bún riêu usually consists of thin white noodles (thinner than the ones used for bún bò Huế), crab paste, tomatoes, tofu, pig blood curd, and green onions. And yes, you read it right, pig blood curd. Pig blood curd is the dark brown block you may find in the soup. Pig blood curd is solidified pig’s blood. It is thought to be rich in protein and iron.
Bánh bèo (or bánh bèo chén)
Bánh bèo and bánh bèo chén mean the same thing. Chén means bowl, in this case tiny bowl or plate. Bánh bèo chén just means bánh bèo in (tiny) bowls or plates.
Bánh bèo is actually not as popular as the other popular Vietnamese dishes in this list. People usually eat it as a snack and not main dish. You probably won’t see it sold on the streets as often as gỏi cuốn.
However, I include bánh bèo in this list because it is a popular dish from a central city in Vietnam called Huế and often served at selected Vietnamese restaurants around the world.
Bánh bèo, or Vietnamese rice cake, usually consists of rice cake with dried shrimps, crispy pork skin and scallions dipped in oil on top, and fish sauce on the side.
To eat bánh bèo, use a spoon to sprinkle some fish sauce on the small plate then use the spoon to separate the edge of the rice cake from the plate as needed and scoop the whole rice cake up to eat. People serve these rice cakes in these small bowls/plates to make it easier for customers to scoop them up in one scoop.
These are just 10 of the more popular Vietnamese dishes in Vietnam. You may find other popular dishes that are specific to different regions in Vietnam.