Egg coffee at sunrise, the Old Quarter's 36 ancient guilds, and the greatest street food city in Southeast Asia
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are different countries in the same nation — Hanoi is the quieter, older, more formally Vietnamese capital, where the French colonial past is visible in the wide tree-lined boulevards and zinc-roofed mansions of the Old Quarter, and where the street food is different from the south in ways that matter. Bún chả (grilled pork patties in a sweet-sour broth with vermicelli and herbs) is Hanoi's dish; so is bún bò Hưng Yên, cháo (rice porridge at dawn from sidewalk vendors), bánh cuốn (steamed rice rolls), and egg coffee (cà phê trứng — a Hanoi invention from the 1940s w…
Hanoi was founded as Thăng Long ('Soaring Dragon') in 1010 CE by Emperor Lý Thái Tổ, who chose the site after reportedly seeing a golden dragon rise from the Red River — the Temple of Literature was founded in 1070 and is Vietnam's first university. The city was the capital of various Vietnamese dynastic states before French colonization began in 1873; the French rebuilt large sections of Hanoi in the Beaux-Arts style that persists in the Ba Đình and Hoàn Kiếm districts. The 1954 Geneva Accords divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel, making Hanoi capital of North Vietnam; the American War follo…