Cha ca La Vong Hanoi, Hanoi Cha ca La Vong, Cha ca La Vong Hanoi, Hanoi Cha ca La Vong, Cha ca Str, Hanoi, Hanoi Travel Guide

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Cha ca La Vong Hanoi

Cha ca La Vong

 Cha ca La Vong, 1a Cha Ca Str

 Cha ca La Vong Add: 14 Cha Ca Str, Hoankiem Dist, Hanoi, Vietnam

 

“Cha ca” is a favourite dish of Hanoian. Located in Cha Ca street, Cha ca La Vong (”cha ca” means grilled fish) is the famous restaurant to many Hanoian as well as visitors from all over the world.

The food is supposed to have been created by the Doan family. According to Mrs. Ngo Thi Tinh (a descendant of the 4th generation of the family), the family started the business of selling “cha ca” to earn money to support the family members and to have a meeting place for the Vietnamese people who wanted to fight against French colonialism.

The family food became a speciality of Hanoian people. There’s a statue of La Vong (an ancient Chinese poet and revolutionist) fishing by a stream on display in the restaurant. This is the symbol of a talented and patient man who know to wait for the right moment to come. The patrons called the restaurant “Cha ca La Vong”.

Connoiseurs usually wait until it become cool to go to enjoy the taste of Cha ca. The grilled fish must be made from a kind of fresh water fish called hemibagrus because it has very few bones and the flesh is very tasty. If hemibagrus is not available, we could make do with mudfish or snake-head fish. Some connoiseurs may request for a special kind of fish called Anh Vu, which is available only in Viet Tri city at the turning point of the Bach Hac river.

Thin slices of Anh Vu fish are rolled with a kind of herb called “soi” then grilled to give an excellent flavour. To make grilled fish, thin slices of fish have to be mixed with ginger, saffron, fermented cold rice, pepper and fish sauce; then placed on bamboo skewers and grilled on a burning charcoal stove right on the dinning tables.

 

Hanoi Cha Ca La Vong Reviews:

 


Eating tradition by larryboy - lonelyplanet.com
Went to one of the best eating place in Hanoi. I m not a great fan of fish but I love every bit of the dish served here. Having read it on the guide books, I went searching for this place, but went passed it as it looks like any other antique shop. I tried again the next day and got lucky, the eating place is upstairs. Heading up tiny steps, we finally made it there. It was very traditional and the food was soon on its way. Fish cooked hot on a small stove at your table...eat the fish with Pho and peanut oil and sauce...yummmy...don't miss it when you are in Hanoi.


Its Rubbish!! bywizemen2 - lonelyplanet.com
Everythin LP says is right, its quaint, but paying VND 10,000 for food scraps worth maybe VND 500 is to me a restaurant making hay while the sun shines. If the meal was maybe VND 2,000 I would have no complaint, but otherwise its a total theft flogging unsuspecting tourists.. What LP does not mention though is  that the place is in my opinion a Fire trap!! Fire burning on every table in a wobbly cooking brazier  in a ricckety dry timber building with a steep attic type  staircase the only way to access the upstairs dining area is an accident waiting to happen. Only twice the amount asked at this establishment for a feed of scraps will get you a fine Buffet at a 5 star hotel with a range of over 100 different dishes,so how does that make sense!/


Very disappointed! by cxx927 - lonelyplanet.com
not worth the money at all! i believe if local ppl come, the charge must be less than VND40,000, but local ppl wont go paying VND40,000 for the food and service I believe.  But for foreigners, it's VND100,000 per person and the food is very close to rubbish...


Total Rip Off by kimjennifer - lonelyplanet.com
We came here upon recommendation from a friend who has been living in Hanoi for the past couple of years.  In fact he came along w/ us and knows the people who work there.  There were 3 of us for lunch.  You can only order the cha ca which is charged on a per person basis.  So we got 3 orders, 1 soda and 2 beers.  Total bill?  450,000 VND!  That is exorbitant by Vietnamese standards.  You would think being w/ someone who's been and knows one of the managers would help but no.  In fact last time he was there alone they charged him about 80,000 VND (I only learned this after asking him later since we picked up the bill).  Portions were really small - it was more like a healthy portion for 1.5 people.  Food was good but not awesome.  For the money, there are plenty of other options with better food for a 'fair' price.  The cost is trivial but the principle of ripping tourists off more than triple is ridiculous esp for what they gave us.  I don't believe in supporting businesses that rip people off.


Tourist rip-off!! by singalingaling - lonelyplanet.com
We followed our guide book and found this place and right the moment we sat down at the table, a lady handed us a luminated sheet reading "Only One Dish in this Restaurant - Fried Fish. VND100,000 per person". I was a little surprised when I saw the price because 100,000VND was a lot in Hanoi's standard and don't forget this is only a street food restaurant.

The VND100,000 dish was apparently a pan of VERY OIL fried fish fillets with herbs - totally not worth the money. What really pissed me off was that I saw a local family of 3 paying VND 7,000 (total amount for 3 persons) for the very same dish! A total tourist rip-off.

Service was bad and the place was awful. Just imagine the amount of carbon monoxide released from 8 tables of burning charcoal indoor - not a very smart idea.

I urge LP to remove this low standard restaurant from the guidebook. This store is no good for any travelers.

   
Cha Ca La Vong: Fried Fish Hot Pot by bpacker - members.virtualtourist

This place is listed under Patricia Shultz's "1000 places to see before you die".

Since this place is highly touted by Shultz, it's supposed to be an instituition pretty much like the Pho Hua in the South. But sad to say, I won't give this place high points for the food though service is excellent. Nope dear reader, if you can, give this place a miss and try your Cha Ca at La Brique or Brother's cafe.

Ok, it wasn't the creaking windy staircase or walking around the choked arteries of the old quarters that made me debunk Shultz's recommendation.
It was the tumeric.
There was too much of it , making the dish more yellow than the Beetle's submarine. And like a fussy Chinese eater, I don't like the fact that my fish was frying the whole time I was eating! When that happens, the fish is stripped off the taste and moisture. Too bad, this was otherwise a fine place and service was par excellent.
How did I know? Well, after ordering the dish, I snared one the the waiters and asked in terrible vietnamese how to eat this darn thing. The next thing I knew, the proprietess intercepted the waiter.Guess she took pity on me. She broke into a cheerful prattle of motherly chuckles and threw in an ark of vegetables into a sizzling platter of oil and fish. Next, she threw in something here and there and voila! There was the dish ready for me to eat...

Here's a lesson on eating cha ca in case you look as daft as I did in the shop.

Eating Cha Ca 101
Attack the dill, parsley and assortment of vegetables like a crazed rabbit and throw in the lot into the simmering pan. Toss in some noodles too for good measure.Stir fry it for a while to kill unhappy e.coli in the vegetables.
Take out the concoction, sprinkle an odd peanut or two, drench it in sweet sauce and feast on the fish.



Cha Ca La Vong: a fish dish to die for By richiecdisc - members.virtualtourist

This is an extremely busy place to dine if you go in the evening so to avoid crowds go in the afternoon, after the lunch hour rush. Though it is reputed to be 200 years old and is visited by many tourists, there is a decided local flair to it and indeed many Hanoians dine here. It is a narrow and simple place, with too many wooden tables squeezed into its area space. When the tables are full and the waiters are scurrying about with hot sizzling pans of cha ca, you know you are in the right place.

Not sure if they even have anything aside from cha ca but this is THE thing to get if you are here anyway. It is a white fish, served in boneless chunks, smothered in greens and saffron-infused oil. It comes out right in the frying pan it is cooked in too. It seems a bit expensive by local standards (142,000d or $9 for two) but you get an unlimited amount of rice noodles on the side and with all the oil and greens, it makes a tasty accompaniment. Wash it all down with one of Vietnam's best bottled beers, Ha Noi. This brew is not as watery as most of the country's concoctions and actually has some hop bitterness that goes well with the spicy fish.



Cha Ca La Vong: Braised fish sauteed with fresh herbs By jenniferchin - members.virtualtourist

I love looking for little restaurants / bars / cafes in strange places that I have never been before. Armed with just the address and a vague idea of where it is located, its an adventure itself looking for that elusive place.

So I got lost along the way. However, helpful locals seeing a lost tourist (ie : me) generously pointed me to the right direction.

The restaurant is a small place. Up the slightly steep staircase, I come into a bustling atmosphere with many tables filled up already ! I was alone, so I had no problems sharing a table with an old couple. Everyone there is smiling and busy focusing on the food - this is a great sign !

While the guest sit down at the table, the waiter starts laying there some seasonings: a bowl of well - stirred shrimp paste sauce mixed up with lemon and a few drops of liquor to give it flagrancy, and decorated by a few slices of red fresh pimento (chilli), a plate of grilled ground nuts of gold yellow color, various species of mint vegetables from Lang village; onions in small white slices having the form of tuberose.

Added to this is a plate of soft noodle in thin small and white threads. To many customers, the sight of such seasoning already greatly stimulates their appetite. A few minutes later, fried fish, yellow in color and flagrant in smell, put on a plate of anethum vegetable is brought in. But that is not all. A few seconds more a cauldron of boiling fat is brought in and the waiter start pouring some boiling fat on each bowl of grilled fish, thus producing a flagrant smoke and sputtering noise.

Further, some drops of coleopterous are dropped on the bowl giving it a special smell which is unforgettable to connoisseurs. Grilled fish are usually chosen from certain species of fish: pimelode, sturgeon,etc

Cha Ca La Vong: Hanoi flavour By JonnyVN - members.virtualtourist

First went here 12 years ago, before the air cons were put in, been taking people here ever since they put a drop of what they said was beetle semen in there to "help me through the night" (I was with me girlfriend). White fish cooked on charcoal burner in saffron oil and lots of greens, eaten with cold rice noodles and shrimp paste. I know lots of people literally turn their noses up at shrimp paste but once you get past the smell it tatses wonderfull.

There is only one.....Cha Ca

 

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