Food Tours · Tour

Phin Coffee, a Lantern to Keep, and Cao Lau in Phu Lanh

Three things get made here, and only one of them is dinner. The coffee comes with a phin, the small metal filter that sits on top of the glass and drips at its own speed, which is the whole Vietnamese method and part of why the coffee is that strong. You make it yourself. The lantern is the Hoi An one, the silk-and-bamboo kind hanging over every street in the old town, and the class covers where the shapes and colours came from before you build one and take it home. The food is four dishes: Hoi An deep-fried spring rolls, rice pancakes, papaya salad with chicken, and Cao Lau, the noodle with the thick chewy strand and the pork, which by tradition is made with water from one particular well in Hoi An and is therefore hard to eat anywhere else. Before all that, the market with the guide, then out to Phu Lanh in Cam Thanh: a welcome drink, a briefing on the fishing village and how the families here live, and forty-five minutes in a basket boat through the Bay Mau coconut forest. The locals put on the coracle-spinning show, and there is palm-leaf weaving and crab-catching with a fisherman. Four and a half hours. Up to fifteen people, in English, with hotel pick-up and drop-off in Hoi An, all entrance fees, mineral water and the guide. Not recommended if you are pregnant, have a spinal injury, or have a heart condition.