Hanoi — The City That Got Under My Skin

I arrived in Hanoi with a different kind of energy than usual.

Not bad — just different. Something I needed to work through by moving. So I walked. Thirty thousand steps a day, several days in a row, until the city stopped being a map in my head and started being something I actually understood.

By the end of the week, I didn't want to leave.

I need to address this first because it defined the week more than anything else.

I'm Finnish. Coffee is not a novelty to me — it's infrastructure. I've had good coffee in a lot of places. I've even had civet coffee before, the kind with the unusual production story.

Hanoi's coffee is on a different level. Dark, deep, unhurried. Every variation I tried was worth trying. But egg coffee was the one.

It arrives in a small cup — dense, almost dessert-like, somewhere between a tiramisu and the best thing you've ever had in the morning. Beneath the egg foam, the coffee is strong enough to remind you it's still coffee. I had it multiple times and didn't once feel like I'd had enough.

I was trembling from caffeine by the evenings. I went back every morning.

The Vietnamese coffee variations worth trying:

• Egg coffee (Cà phê trứng) - Dark, rich, foam like a dessert. This is the one.
• Coconut coffee (Cà phê cốt dừa) - Fresh, not too sweet, genuinely made from real coconut
• Tiramisu coffee (Cà phê tiramisu) - Do I really have to say more? Just try it.
• Salt coffee (Cà phê muối) — Sounds wrong until you taste it. Then you understand. One of my favs.
• Avocado coffee (Cà phê bơ) - Creamy, the coffee flavor lingers in a different way
• Matcha coffee (Cà phê matcha) — If you like matcha, go for the cold, foamy, creamy versions. Those are the best.
• Yogurt coffee (Cà phê sữa chua) — A little protein, a lot of variety. There are so many versions, worth exploring.
• Orange coffee - Had one bad version near the train tracks, skipping this one
• Hot chocolate (Cacao nóng / Socola nóng) — Not coffee, yes. But the hot and cold chocolate drinks made with real cacao were genuinely excellent. Some places mix it with coffee too — worth asking.

Best coffee spots in Hanoi:

• Cafe Giảng — The place that made me understand why Hanoi is obsessed with egg coffee. The birthplace of egg coffee, with my favorite balcony seating overlooking the street below.
• Đinh Café — Wonderful coffee and hot chocolate in a charming multi-level café. The balcony offers some of the best views over Hoan Kiem Lake.
• Loading T Café — A slower pace, beautiful old architecture, and a glimpse into the Hanoi of another era.
• The Note Coffee — Yes, it's touristy and popular with photographers, but the coffee is good and it's worth visiting at least once.
• Hidden Gem Coffee — One of Hanoi's most inspiring and visually creative cafés. Great coffee and a unique atmosphere.

I found myself at Bay Mau Lake in the middle of the city almost every day.

I'd sit and watch. Think. Do nothing in particular. And almost every time, someone would sit down next to me — men and women both — and start talking. Not aggressively, not with an agenda. Just genuinely curious.

Some of those conversations lasted two hours. A few times I ended up walking somewhere or finding food with someone I'd met an hour earlier. I can't remember the last time I experienced that kind of ease in connecting with strangers. Something about Hanoi — or maybe Vietnamese people specifically — makes it feel completely natural.

One conversation I won't forget happened at Hoàn Kiếm Lake. A ten-year-old girl came and sat down while I was drinking cacao alone. Her mother was watching from a short distance, clearly encouraging her. We started with favorite colors and animals. Then somehow we were talking about life and dreams.

She was brave in the way only certain kids are — the kind who will definitely be fine in this world.

Hanoi is loud. Horns constantly, from every direction, as a form of communication rather than frustration. You adjust faster than you'd expect.

But turn a corner and it disappears. The contrast is sudden and complete — a quiet side street where you can barely hear the city you were just standing in. Parks full of reading groups, dog walkers, people exercising in the early morning. Near water, fishermen. Once, inexplicably, sheep next to a coffee van.

The smells shift constantly too. Street food, exhaust, incense, sometimes something floral from a doorway. It's a lot, and it's all part of the same texture.

One thing worth knowing: the air quality is genuinely poor, especially in the evenings. If your body isn't used to city pollution, take it easy. And whatever you do — don't take a motorbike taxi for longer distances through busy roads during rush hour. It's physically exhausting in a way that surprises you.

Also: don't wear white or light colors. The coffee shops and restaurants will find a way.

Forget the guides. Seriously.

The best pho I had in Hanoi wasn't in any app, any list, or any recommendation I received before arriving. I found it by walking, watching, and trusting the oldest signal there is — a queue of locals, plastic stools, and a kitchen that was basically half on the pavement.

That's the rule in Hanoi. Where there are people, there is food worth eating. Where there are queues, sit down and order whatever the person next to you has.

The covered tables and polished menus had their moments. But the meals I remember were on streets where the chairs were mismatched and the broth had been going since early morning.

What to try in Hanoi:

• Phở bò — beef noodle soup, the northern version. Find it where locals are queuing before 9 AM
• Bún chả — grilled pork with noodles and dipping broth. Hanoi's own dish
• Bánh mì — grab one from a street cart in the morning
• Bún bò Nam Bộ — a southern-style dish that Hanoi does its own way
• Chả cá Lã Vọng — turmeric fish with dill, a Hanoi specialty worth finding
• Xôi xéo with pork floss (ruốc) — the topping looks a bit like edible fur, but don't let that stop you. One of Hanoi's most beloved breakfast dishes.
• Miến lươn — eel and glass noodles.

Vietnam is one country with two very different culinary identities, shaped by geography, climate, and history.

The north has cooler temperatures and historically less access to the spices that define southern cooking. Hanoi's food reflects that — cleaner, more restrained, built around the quality of a few key ingredients rather than layered complexity. The broth does the work. The balance is precise.

The south, influenced by trade routes and a warmer growing climate, cooks with more sugar, more herbs, more going on in a single bowl. Saigon's food is bolder, sweeter, more abundant in variation.

If you travel through both cities, order the same dishes in both. It's one of the more interesting experiments you can do.

Pho in Hanoi is broth-forward and almost delicate. The same bowl in Saigon arrives sweeter and richer — recognizably the same dish, genuinely different food. I gravitated toward the north. The subtlety suited me. But there were things in Saigon I'd choose without hesitation.

I heard the same debate from locals. Ask a Hanoian about southern food and you'll get a firm opinion. Ask someone from Saigon about Hanoi cooking and you'll get an equally firm one in the other direction. The conversation is worth having over a bowl of pho — whichever version you're sitting in front of.

I tried both. Hanoi has Michelin-recognized spots and I visited some of them. The food was good.

The best meals were on the street.

Vietnamese food in Hanoi is fresh, clean, and light in a way that doesn't mean small. The flavors are clear — nothing is buried or over-complicated. You taste everything distinctly. Eating felt genuinely restorative every time.

The street is where Hanoi's food actually lives. Follow your nose, sit on a plastic stool, and order whatever the person next to you is having.

I went without knowing what to expect and left genuinely impressed — not by understanding the story, but by the production itself.

I didn't catch a word. The story still made sense. What surprised me most was the scale of what's hidden behind the curtain — multiple musicians playing different instruments, puppeteers working figures on long rods and strings from behind screens, all of it coordinated live.

It's worth an evening.

Vietnamese personal space in crowded situations is different from what I'm used to.

At airports, in queues, at traffic lights — you will feel people close to you even when there's room not to be. I moved forward, they followed. I asked more than once if it was necessary.

It's not personal. But it's worth knowing before you arrive.

Walk more than you think you should. The city reveals itself on foot, not from a taxi window.

Sit by the lake and don't rush. Someone interesting will find you.

Drink the coffee. All of it. Tremble a little. Go back.

The best surprises in Hanoi are the ones you don't plan — the child who teaches you something without meaning to, the conversation that runs two hours without either person noticing, the corner that's somehow completely quiet while the rest of the city roars.

Hanoi is unpredictable in the best way. Arrive open and it gives you more than you came for.

____________

Samuli Makkonen — Pleasure Advisor
Live with more pleasure.

Follow the journey:
Instagram @pleasureadvisorworld
TikTok @pleasureadvisorworld
YouTube Pleasure Advisor