On the streets of Hanoi

On my first trip to Southeast Asia almost 30 years ago, I fell in love with street food. I was a student on a budget, staying in an area in Bangkok still famous for backpacker hotels. Along the streets and alleyways, stalls were mixing up complicated soups, grilling skewers, wrapping pancakes and selling the best noodles I had ever eaten.

The only thing to do was count out the equivalent of 50 cents or a dollar, sit down on a plastic stool at a table covered with oilcloth and start eating. Back in those pre-Internet days, street food was something you explored for yourself. The intrepid foodie was rewarded with unexpected treats that were cheaper, more authentic and tastier than anything that might be served in a grown-up restaurant.

Frugal travellers aren't the only visitors drawn to street food. When I checked into the Essence Hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam with my husband last summer ("an unrivalled luxury boutique hotel chain experience in the heart of Hanoi"), a sign at the desk advertised street food tours.

And indeed, delicious packets of sticky rice, fried spring rolls and skewers of grilled chicken are prepared by vendors on crowded streets in the Old Quarter and in farther-flung neighbourhoods.

I found myself buying sidewalk banh mi - Vietnamese sandwiches of grilled meat or cold cuts, herbs and vegetables stuffed into small, perfectly crusty baguettes, inevitably produced from a large straw basket by a vendor on a busy corner. The dishes are so delicious, and so clearly carry local flavours, that the culinary genre has made a leap into upscale restaurants where menus feature "street food snacks" or "famous street noodles."

It seems that lowly street food is now, paradoxically, a higher-end tourist business. I decided to check out a few restaurants, both expensive and humble, in Hanoi and around the historic town of Hoi An. But before I get started on what I found, it is helpful to note that restaurants and street stalls in Vietnam reflect more than culinary traditions.

One of the first meals we had was lunch at Quan An Ngon, a restaurant that is celebrated for serving street food from all over Vietnam. We tried banh cuon, rice flour pancakes stuffed with pork and mushrooms; the grilled pork dish bun cha; and banh xeo, a crepe with a distinctive rice flour texture.

It was a pleasant meal, but this upscale emporium couldn't touch what was delivered at far less expensive joints, many of them transitional spots that are essentially overgrown street stalls. While taking over slightly more permanent real estate, moving from sidewalk to storefront, the informality and limited menu of the street vendor are preserved. The more we sought out these specialised places, the better we ate.

Take bun cha, a classic Hanoi meal of charcoal-grilled pork slices and pork patties, served over thin noodles. We had pleasant restaurant versions, but they paled next to the bun cha served at Bun Cha Nem Cua Be Dac Kim, a one-dish joint in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, where phenomenally flavourful grilled meat arrived hot and juicy, and the dipping options included a mountain of pepper-spiked garlic, along with fish-sauce-based condiments.

A similar setup exists at Bun Thang Ba Duc on Cau Go Street, also in the Old Quarter. Bun thang is one of the great noodle soups of Vietnam, but less well known than pho - the anise-scented beef noodle soup that has been franchised all over the world.

After Hanoi, we moved south to Da Nang, the booming city that is the economic heart of central Vietnam, but actually dates from the Cham empire. After walking around the old town, we took a cab to the beach at Cua Dai, three miles away, where we found the Man Restaurant, one of several beachside seafood joints, where our driver clearly had a connection. The beach was spectacular, with views of mountains and islands and a pink tropical sunset. We were invited to find a spot in a row of chairs and umbrellas on condition that we ordered food.

It turned out to be one of the best restaurants in the world. The waiter assured us that his father had caught the fish that was being grilled by his brother on the patio.

What we were served on the beach wasn't street food, exactly, because there wasn't any street. But it was a restaurant where there was nothing hidden: the cooking was happening out where we could see it, on grills and open flames.

As with the other great street-inspired food we found in Vietnam, the secret was in the narrowly focused menus, a devotion to the subtle and complicated combinations of ingredients, and a commitment to the culinary traditions of the street.

©2015 The New York Times