Eat Hoi An — Local services in Hội An

My wife and I are big fans of food tours and have done them in many places, and I can say without hesitation that Eat Hoi An was by far the best we have ever done! Our guide, a lovely woman named Na, met us at a coffee shop in Hot An ancient town and for the next four hours took us to a dozen or more food stops. We ate at a couple of the more famous places (Bahn Mi Phuong, and White Rose) which were excellent and worthy of their reputations, but what really made the tour special were the numerous street vendors we visited. Most of these chefs had small street-side operations where locals sat around on little plastic stools enjoying the delicious food that was served. Had it not been for Na we would have never found any of these places since they were outside of the touristy ancient town and down funky back alleys. Even if we had found these places, we would probably have just walked right by, oblivious to the amazing food being served there. Thankfully Na, who grew up in Hoi An and knows where all the best food is, took us to all her favorite places and told us each vendor’s backstory, how many generations the recipe had been passed down, how the food was prepared, and how it should be eaten. Each place we went to served a single dish, which was prepared to perfection and each one was some of the best food I’ve ever eaten. We went to so many places I began to loose track of them all. It was an absolutely magical evening, and felt more like being shown around town by an old friend than being just another tourist hoping to sample some good food. If you are planning a visit to Hoi An I strongly encourage you to contact Eat Hoi An before you go and arrange to be taken...

Eating street food with Mr. Phouc was the highlight of my Hoi An trip. My only regret is not booking his tour on our first day here, so that I could revisit the vendors. Phouc is passionate of his vendors and representing their food. If you want to understand Vietnamese food and how food is made, this is the tour for you. For example, cao lầu. This was the third time, eating this noodle dish and I'm so glad I got to try it with him because I got to see how sublime it can be. The place he took me to, the noodle is hand made. The texture is rougher hence the sauce clings to it. Also, I assumed cao lầu noodle is an egg based wheat noodle. Nope. It's the technique that gives it the yellowish hue and it's made out of rice. I tried balut for the first time. After the history of balut and the vendor, how could I not? I ate it with an open mind and found out that it's mild and creamy. The vendors are selected with care. The papaya salad lady, she doesn't take short cuts. She washes the papaya strips first to remove the sap, followed by wringing them out, so that they soak up the sauce while remaining crunchy. Phouc is concerned about the future of street vendors and their food. Some of the vendors are aging like the noodle maker, others are cost related of making a dish or ever increasing cost of the changing city. I hope this will not be the case. In the meantime, walk with Phouc and let him show you how food is...

This was an exceptional street food tour. Mr Phouk was exactly on time. We walked around the area just north of the Old Town, away from the tourists (ours were practically the only European faces we saw) and sampled 15 dishes in 12 stops. At each stop Mr Phouk told us about the food and how it was made, what sort of people came to eat it and at what times of day (schoolchildren, workers, families); and also the stories of the people whose businesses we were visiting - all of them hard-working entrepreneurial women. We felt that we had a better understanding of life in Hoi An after our tour with Mr Phouk than after two days’ sightseeing. The food was all utterly delicious. Some was familiar - chicken and rice (but tastier than any chicken and rice we had ever eaten) and noodle soup (ditto); and some was unfamiliar - tapioca dumplings (an unexpectedly delicious combination of different textures and favours), rice cake (set rice milk with a wonderful pork and shrimp sauce, in beautiful small blue and white bowls) and white roses (Hoi An’s take on dim sum). I am a tour guide myself and I really appreciated the careful thought and work that had gone into preparing and presenting the tour. Absolutely...