While the international press has been fawning over Vietnamese cuisine long before US President Barack Obama shared a few bowls of bún chả with Anthony Bourdain in Hanoi a few weeks back, the visit may have helped catapult the Vietnamese capital to the top of the Telegraph’s “World’s best cities for food” list.
The rankings, released a week after Obama departed from Vietnam, dubbed Hanoi number one out of 16 cities to take the top spot:
“Our experts…advise eating like a local and taking to the streets for freshly prepared dishes such as pho tiu noodles with a sweet and sour soup, pork and fish sauce; banh mi, a baguette filled with pate, cucumber, herbs, crispy onion and chilli; and com tam, broken rice with grilled pork, pork skin, egg and fish sauce. Finish with traditional egg coffee - or ca phe trung - a blend of coffee and egg whites, folded with sugar, drunk hot or cold.”
The other contenders – in order of rank: Tokyo, Japan; London, England; Jaipur, India; New York, US; Mendoza, Argentina; Bologna, Italy; Lyon, France; New Orleans, US; Bangkok, Thailand; Barcelona, Spain; Singapore; Copenhagen, Denmark; Lima, Peru; Fez, Morocco and Chengdu, China.
