Restaurant: Nha Hang Ngon

Location: Hanoi

Date: March 27, 2014

Cuisine: Vietnamese

Rating: Great Upscale Street Food

Our third city in Vietnam is bustling Hanoi — and I mean bustling. This city has the pounding pulse of a jack rabbit on speed.

Our investigations brought us to Nha Hang Ngon which is a small chain of upscale street food (again!).

The setting is a cool old colonial courtyard house.

If anything, this menu is even bigger than some of the others!

Crispy pork and shrimp spring rolls. These were the best fried rolls I had on the trip. Fabulous.

A fresh spring roll variant, I think with roast pork and crab. Also great.

Fried pork wontons. Delicious, but tasted of fry (big surprise!)

Egg pancake stuffed with shrimp. This was rolled with vegetables in rice paper too.

An accidental order was this duck soup, which was a sort of egg drop.

Beef Pho. A more classic beef pho with noodles, beef, herbs,  etc.

Green papaya salad. These fresh Vietnamese salads are incredibly delicious.

Salad with shrimp and fiddler crab.

Green salad. Sort of a western version. No dressing was apparent.

Coconut and shrimp salad. Somehow that shaved stuff is from the coconut tree. I don’t know what part.

Vietnamese BBQ Beef (Nha Trang Style). This apparently is a classic. The beef was tender and tasty. There is an incredibly salty fish salt and optional french bread to put it on.

Steak frites. I thought this was a Banh Mi, but it ended up being a pan fried filet mignon and fries. Not bad though.

And it came with bread, and various dipping sauces. The orange one was hot (and good).

Grilled sea-bass in banana leaf. A nice grilled fish.

Fried squid. What passes for calamari here. Pretty good though.

Shrimp. I don’t remember what kind but they were extremely tasty.

Vermicelli with shrimp. Delicious, as most Vietnamese noodle dishes are.

Wide rice noodles with beef.

Pad Vietnam. I made up the name, but this dish is essentially Pad Thai. It was delicious. You still the ingredients together. We ordered it twice.

Taro Sticky Sweet Soup with coconut milk. The concept is weird, but it was pretty delicious.

Jelly, water chestnut-tapioca pearls and coconut milk. A bit strange, but pleasant enough.

Fresh persimmon? Very interesting complex flavor, like an apple pie.

This place was great and we had a fun time. The food wasn’t quite as on point as at the other two upscale street food restaurants we found, but they have a monster menu and it was super tasty.