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Hoi An Information
Hoi An nightlife
Eating out - Gỏi cuốn fresh spring rolls and cao lầu noodles at Brother's Cafe
Food in Hoi An is, even by high Vietnamese standards, cheap and tasty. In addition to the usual suspects, there are three dishes that Hoi An is particularly famous for:
- Cao lầu, a dish of rice noodles which are not quite as slippery as pho and a bit closer in texture to pasta. The secret is the water used to make it, and authentic cao lau uses only water from a special well in the city. The noodles are topped with slices of roast pork, dough fritters, and this being Vietnam, lots of fresh herbs and veggies.
- White rose (banh bao vac), a type of shrimp dumpling made from translucent white dough bunched up to look like a rose.
- Wantan dumplings, essentially the same as the Chinese kind, served up in soup or deep-fried.
Shopping in Hoi An
Lantern shop - Made-to-measure shirts, blouses, dresses, suits etc. are on offer from the renowned tailors of Hoi An. When last counted in 2002, there were 140 shops in the city, and the number is now well over 400. It's one of the few places in Vietnam where the motorbike taxi drivers look positively sedate by comparison. Be careful who you choose to manufacture your clothes. As a rule of thumb, give all tailors 2 days advance to prepare your garment and keep going back until you get your clothes right! Suits should cost around 40USD, if you choose to pay 30USD, beware that you get what you pay for, slightly lousier quality of cloth and problems with workmanship, such as misaligned stripes on the pants and blazer. Shirts should cost 10USD and below. Skirts normally sell around 7-10 USD. Dresses should cost around 10- 14USD. However, prices might change depending on design and detail.
- Cloth Market, located next to the Central Market and looks like a cloth warehouse. Inside are many small tailor stalls that are generally cheaper and more reliable than shops elsewhere. Orders usually take a day or two.
- Yaly, Tran Phu Street, has a great and extensive range of fabrics to choose from and the staff are very attentive and extremely patient. Ignore the fixed price claim! Discounts can be given for multiple purchases.
Hoi An also has a good selection of Vietnamese art, both modern and traditional, serious and kitschy. Galleries can be found all over town but Nguyen Thi Minh Khai St, on the other side of the Japanese Bridge, has the heaviest concentration.
- Central Market, Bach Dang Street, (just before the Cam Nam Bridge) has all of the cheapster t-shirts and bog-standard souvenirs you've seen at every other stop in Vietnam, but it also has plenty of fresh fruit, vegetables, seafood, and all of the other stuff they use in Hoi An's terrific restaurants. T-shirts should cost around 20000 VND, and any amount of haggling will not reduce the prices beyond this level. There are shops selling backpacks, around 20 USD for a 100L backpack. However, Hanoi has a wider but more expensive selection.
- Thanh Ha Pottery Village - about 2km west of town, this traditional village has been making pottery for more than 450 years. It was on the verge of extinction until the wave of new hotel construction in Hoi An revived demand.
- Kim Bong Carpentry Village - about 3km west of town.
