If you are vegetarian, or even if you’re not, you should try to make it to Bo de Quan if you visit Hanoi. It is a fairly new restaurant, only around since 2014 and in its current location since 2015, but I think it will be around for a while. If you would like to learn more about the origins of the place, I highly recommend this article which I was pretty excited to find because we had wondered about it.
A Great Little Find
Onto our discovery of the restaurant: Our first night in Hanoi we faced a number of problems. Not too surprising seeing as:
- We decided to go there only the night prior.
- I’s Vietnam. Anyway, while I was waiting for a person that lived in the house – not even the host, she was down in HCM – to come and go into his locked room to fix the internet router.
Kyle decided to scope out our food options.
What he discovered while he was out wandering (among other things) was Bo De Quan. At the time (February 2016) the restaurant was not yet on Googlemaps (or at least on in the correct location), but now you can find it on maps, Happy Cow, and TripAdvisor (though the picture does not look right so it’s possible it’s a different place). It was a little less than a kilometer away from our Airbnb and we ended up trying it out the next day.
Amazing Food At Bo De Quan
It was SO GOOD, arguably some of the best food we have tried while traveling.
~Update 9/11/2017: This still is arguable the best food we’ve had across over a dozen countries.
All of the options are vegan or vegetarian. Meals were around 40-45k dong ($1.80-$2). We ended up with a schedule which involved eating here for lunch and cooking our own dinner. While it may be a tiny bit farther away from some of the more touristy things, it is a cheaper option than many of the other exclusively vegetarian restaurants in Hanoi.
The soups were perfect for the cool weather. They were also really filling. Here are some of the dishes we tried. Hopefully I’m matching them up/identifying them correctly:
Bun Rieu Chay / bún riêu chay
While researching this one, it looks like it is supposed to be Vegetarian Mock Crab Soup (though I am not sure what is supposed to be imitating crab). I looked up a recipe and it should contain tomatoes, various vegetables and spices, tofu, and cassava.
Some recipes include other things like apples and pears but these were not in this soup. We think it is possible it contained cassava but think they put banana in our’s instead (surprisingly good). Everything else seemed to match up.
Bun Chuoi Dau / bún ốc chuối đậu
This one translates as “Banana Bean Noodle Soup.” Now, Kyle does not normally like bananas but the bananas in these soups were different from the bananas we normally have back home and he really enjoyed both soups.
In addition to the bananas and noodles, this soup contained potatoes, tofu, and mushrooms. When it’s not made to be vegetarian, it also contains snails and ham. Vietnam knows how to do soups!
Bun nem / Bún nem:
Translates as “Crisp parcels with vermicelli salad. Basically salad/lettuce, noodles, and spring rolls.
Hu Tieu Xao
Noodles, vegetables, nuts- basically a stir fry
We Just Kept Coming Back
We primarily stuck to the soups so we did not end up trying the other dishes, but I will try to identify them for you. Banh Xeo Chay / bánh xèo chay- vegetarian pancakes- looks more like an omelet, com chay- not sure- various vegetables/tofu I think, nem chay – vegetable/spring rolls, bahn goi chay / bánh gối nhân chay- translates as “Vegetarian Cake’s Pillow” and may have vegetables, beans, peas, etc., and pho cuon- we think vegetable rolls. You can find a little more info in the article I linked to at the beginning.
Because vegetarianism isn’t much of a concept in Vietnam for the most part, most all of the other people we saw at Bo De Quan were foreigners. While I really think more Vietnamese need to try out vegetarianism, being around some foreigners was kind of nice for us. Despite there being a large and active online expat community in Ho Chi Minh, we rarely ran into other foreigners except in the most touristy areas. In Hanoi, we found the complete opposite. I guess instead of spending all of their time online, the foreigners in Hanoi are out doing things.
An Expat Hotspot
It seemed like many of them had established social groups. There was a group of women (British, Australian, and either American or Canadian) around our age or a little older whom we saw a couple times. At least a couple of them were English teachers, while others seemed to be doing different things- visiting, studying, working online. We heard one say she was just fired from a Yoga Studio because she had been teaching Zumba with an expired certificate and someone had told on her to the Zumba board or whatever (I don’t remember or know exactly how it all works).
We saw other groups of people as well. I think if we stayed there for a while, we would probably end up developing a social group of our own. I pictured it. We had a conversation over lunch one day with a British man who had moved to the city and was working as a consultant for local businesses there. Discussion turned to how Vietnam is really growing and has a lot of potential. We also talked about the American politics and Australian politics.
Lovely Owners
The owner and her family were really nice too. One day (maybe on our third or fourth day eating there), the mother of the owner gave us some melon as we were leaving. It was primarily her who we interacted/dealt with on our visits.
Info:
Address:
164 Au Co, Tay Ho District, Hanoi, Vietnam
Hours:
We aren’t exactly sure, but we think it was something like 10am-8pm
Other:
It’s cash only. Bring your dong. You’ll love Bo De Quan.
~B~
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