Experience Vietnamese Cuisine Euphoria At Hanoi Cooking Centre

Discover Vietnamese ingredients during a market tour

The class begins with an hour-long tour of Chau Long Market. Chau Long Market is a wet market, which means there are live animals and fresh produce for sale in the market. However, don’t expect to see chickens, cows and pigs running around the market. Those animals, among others, are killed before the morning rush begins at about 7 am and again before the evening rush begins at 5 pm. The live animals that are for sale are mainly seafood, including fish, shrimp, crab, and tortoises. The live “seafood” are kept in tanks whose water often overflows onto the ground, creating a wet environment.

Aside from fresh meat and live seafood, there is also a large selection of produce. Your head chef will escort you through Chau Long Market pointing out cilantro, basil, Vietnamese carrots versus Chinese Carrots, dragonfruit, and more. Feel free to ask your chef about anything you see or where the produce comes from. If he does not know the answer, he will ask the vendors.

You will notice that the vendors are almost all women. Furthermore, the buyers are all women. In Vietnam, the market is women’s work. If the women are in a hurry and don’t want to pay the 5,000 VND (0.22 USD) parking fee, they will drive their motorbikes through the market as they hop from vendor to vendor. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled!

Time to prepare your feast!

During the “Hanoi and Northern Highlands” cooking class, you will cook four different dishes: ginger chicken, banana flower salad, shrimp and omelette spring rolls and, lastly, sweet corn and coconut soup for dessert. After returning from the Chau Long Market, you will head to the cooking room. The head chef cooks at the front of the cooking room. Stand up front during the presentation to have a better view of the technique and what ingredients are used. The head chef will prepare one dish, then tell you to return to your cooking station to copy his actions.

The food preparation stage is when you will discover where all the flavoring comes from. Vietnamese dishes require a lot of sugar. Yes, even the ginger chicken used a lot of sugar. Additionally, there is fish sauce in almost everything. Phu Quoc, an island in Southern Vietnam, is the mecca of fish sauce and where most of it is made. On top of the sugar and fish sauce, much of the flavor comes from ginger, different types of vinegar, basil, and chili.

Each cooking station is set up for two people to cook together. Staff will bring you the necessary ingredients for each dish. The chef will walk around the room making sure you are preparing the dish correctly. The chef is available to answer any questions or to help you if you require it. After preparing one dish, you will return to the front of the room to watch the presentation of the next dish. In all, it will take you approximately 2.5 hours to prepare and cook all four dishes.

Enjoy the feast!

After 3.5 hours working up an appetite, it is finally time to enjoy your feast! Walk up the spiral staircase into the Hanoi Cooking Centre restaurant. The staff will bring all your food upstairs for you and escort you to a set table for everyone from the class. Enjoy some Vietnamese rice wine or a local beer with your meal. You will most likely have trouble finishing all four courses of the meal; however, you will try because it is all so tasty! Don’t fret if you can’t finish it. You may box up the leftovers and take them to-go for later that day.