Vietnamese cuisine in Japan

Okano Akiko, a Japanese woman, has lived in Ho Chi Minh City for four years. She is now working for a Japanese tourism company in Ho Chi Minh City- Apex-Vietnam. After a recent return trip to her country, she wrote an article on Vietnamese cuisine in Japan.

Vietnamese restaurants in Japan

There are many Vietnamese restaurants in Japan, including 10 in Tokyo. The most famous one is Hoa Hoa restaurant, which is famous for several Vietnamese dishes, particularly "cha gio" (spring roll). Hoa Hoa has two floors with five or six tables on each floor. The main meal for each person there costs VND600,000-being a reasonable price by the Japanese.

Another restaurant, named after a well-known film made by an overseas Vietnamese person, is "Du du xanh" (Green Papaya). The Japanese &Vietnamese Restaurant Kitchen is another restaurant famous for dishes from North Vietnam, including "pho" (noodle soup). Each bowl of noodle soup here is around VND12,000.

Far from Tokyo, in Kobe, the Vietnamese Soup Restaurant serves not only noodle soup but also Vietnamese dishes made of raw fish and vegetables, and winged yam.

Japanese learn Vietnamese and open Vietnamese restaurants

In Vietnam, Japanese restaurants serve Japanese food and Korean restaurants do Korean food only. However, in Japan, customers of Vietnamese restaurants are mainly Japanese. But all Vietnamese restaurants bear the Vietnamese style. A special Vietnamese sauce is fish sauce, which is served in all restaurants in Vietnam. Most kinds of wine, including new rice and Da Lat red wine, are imported from Vietnam and a bottle of Da Lat red wine in Japan costs VND90,000-120,000. In the restaurants, besides pictures being bought from Vietnam, Vietnamese poems are also hung. Most Vietnamese restaurants use Vietnamese bowls and dishes, most of which are made of Bat Trang ceramics.

Many owner of Vietnamese restaurants in Japan can speak Vietnamese. One of them, Ms Masumi, says she spent two years in Hanoi learning Vietnamese and that is why her restaurant Kitchen serves many dishes from North Vietnam. Tsuno Mari has been in Vietnam since 1996 and spent three years in the country learning about Vietnamese cuisine before receiving a cooking certificate from the Ho Chi Minh City Women’s Palace of Culture. Ito Shinobu can speak Vietnamese very well and plans to open a Vietnamese restaurant in Japan. She used to work in La Fenetre Soeil in Nam Ky Khoi Nghia Street, Ho Chi Minh City. During her time in Vietnam, she started short courses on cooking Vietnamese dishes for the Japanese. She is now in Vietnam to collect more information to write a thesis on Vietnamese cuisine for a Japanese magazine.

Vietnamese food produced in Japan

Recently, some Vietnamese food and drinks have been manufactured in Japan.

The country produces Vietnamese specialities, including "pho an lien" (instant noodle soup). In supermarkets, besides a diverse range of Japanese drinks, there are also Vietnamese drinks, including "sinh to" (fruit juices), available for Japanese shoppers to buy. Each tin of "sinh to" costs around VND30,000.



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Yay Yummy Vietnamese food is going global. Did you know that according to leading culinary experts, Vietnam boasts more good food per square mile than any other country?

Hmm.. Pho serving with sushi :o

LOL that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard LOL

I can't see Beef Pho being popular in Japan. Those people mainly eat seafood rather than beef which is kinda sparse in Japan. But I can see Vietnamese seafood dishes being popular there.

People do get sick of eating the same food over and over again. Besides, Japanese are filthy rich and the price of beef is nothing of concern for them.

Vietnamese foods are exporting to Japan but the Japanese way:

They come and recruit our cooks for their chains of restaurants.

In the Netherlands Vietnamese don't sell pho, at least they don't do it in my area. Instead they all sell "lumpia" and "baht bao" (i hope you guys know what i'm meaning).
I wan't to try some pho, hehe.

Don't get all friendly, we don't want to be backstabbed without knowing who did it. It's easier to have visible enemies than hidden enemies.

Do you live in the Nederlands?

Banh bao? is that in Amsterdam?

Anyway, just come to Paris. The Vietnamese Chinatown in Paris is known as even better than in Vietnam and elsewhere, but expensive (French standards and prices).

Yup, i'm living in the Netherlands. Not in Amsterdam though, but in Nijmegen.

I'm not sure if it's Banh Bao or not, i'm searching for a picture right now.

I always wanted to visit Paris, but i never had the chance to.
I even "parle un peu Français".

Edit: sorry, i couldn't find a picture. Dutch call it Bat Bao, patpao, or something like that. Do you know what it is?
It's (steamed) white bread, usually has porkmeat in it.

Bánh Bao

Bát Bảo is something else, and is Chinese!

(Aparté: I've worked in Nijmegen for BMS as mainframe computer engineer.
Flight to Amsterdam on Monday morning. Lease car drive to Nijmegen 180 kms. Back in Paris Friday evening).

if there is more good food then why does it seem like they are starving?

You should go back to school.

Having a great culinary tradition and having enough food to eat are two different matters

BTW this article must be at least 6 months old!

Sorry Johann, but I have eaten at practically all the Viet restos in 13ème and I don't agree with you. Pho*? in Paris is pretty good but it's nowhere near as good as in Vietnam.

Pao can be baked or steamed. I love char siu pao for breakfast.

i really love that addon term of "ăn liền" - sounds kinda funny - i found a pack of cháo ăn liền in VN 2 years ago - it was a must try - not bad

Whenever they talk about Vietnamese food, they only mention the freshly made spring rolls (Roi Coung). //My Vietnamese spelling isn't too good...
Also Pho is very famous here too.

What are you talking about? According to the World Banks's Vietnam Development Report 2004 that I have. It says:

In 1993 Vietnam had 24.9% food poverty, and this was the height of our poverty since our country had no dipolomatic ties with the rest of the world at all. Still embargoes.

In 1998 our food povety was 15%

And now in 2004 our food poverty is 10.9%

Interestingly enough that this 10.9% food poverty only 6.5% of it applies to Kinh and the Chinese while 41.5% of our ethnic minorities are suffering from the food poverty.

lol so if your talking about Vietnamese then our food poverty is only 6.5% while our minorities is 41.5%.

Dude Vietnam exports rice to the Phillipines and Vietnam is the World's 2nd largest rice exporter. 1st pepper exporter,2nd coffee exporter and 2nd cashew exporter. We have plenty of food.

Hell Phillipines has 40% of people living below the poverty line by International standards and Vietnam's is only 29% and of that 29% only 23% of Kinh and Chinese are living below the poverty level while while 69.1% of our ethnic minorities live under the povety line.

We are definetly not starving, even in our highest poverty time which was 1993 where we were isolated from the rest of the world period we only had a 20.9% food poverty rate for Kinhs and Chinese as well.

i never eat that much japanese food befor but i did try su se once and didnt like it