Food Tours · Tour

Ma May Cooking Class in Hanoi with a Market Walk and Cyclo

A cyclo turns up at your Old Quarter hotel and pedals you to the restaurant on Ma May, which is a better start to a morning than a taxi. The chef takes the group to a local market first. This is the part that changes how you cook afterwards: which herbs are which, what to look for in the fresh produce, how a Vietnamese cook decides. There are stops for street food snacks along the way. Back at the restaurant, a hands-on class through a set menu, taught step by step, with the balance between sweet, sour, salty and spicy explained rather than assumed. That balance is the whole grammar of Vietnamese cooking and the thing most home cooks get wrong. Then everyone eats what they made, with local drinks. Four hours, up to fifteen people, in English. A welcome drink on arrival, a certificate from the chef at the end, and Vietnamese egg coffee thrown in for groups of four or more. The cyclo pickup is free from Old Quarter hotels. There is no drop-off, and drinks beyond what is listed are extra.