Ha Giang Loop Food: What We Actually Ate in 4 Days
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Most Ha Giang Loop posts are about the roads. Ours had the roads too, but it also had duck noodles eaten over a river full of fish, two very different hotpots in one day, a homestay dinner served on one giant tray, and one coffee stop that went badly over time.
This isn't a list of the best restaurants in Ha Giang. It's what we actually ate over four days in November 2024, in order. You can walk into most of these places. One of them you can't, and I'll explain why.
Everything we ate, at a glance
| Day | Meal | What we had | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Breakfast | Duck noodle soup | Bún Vịt Làng, Vĩnh Tươi |
| Lunch | Lẩu (hotpot) | A friend's restaurant (private) | |
| Dinner | Black-bone chicken hotpot with buckwheat | Dong Van | |
| Day 2 | Breakfast | Bánh cuốn, five-color sticky rice | Old town street, Dong Van |
| Coffee | Coffee, croissant | Old Town Coffee; Café Cực Bắc, Lô Lô Chải | |
| Dinner | Vietnamese barbecue | Meo Vac Clay House | |
| Day 3 | Breakfast | Phở bò, bún sốt vang | Meo Vac Clay House |
| Lunch | Shared home-style dishes | Roadside restaurant on the way to Du Gia | |
| Dinner | Mẹt tray dinner | Tom's Du Gia Homestay | |
| Day 4 | Breakfast | Bún chả in broth | Noodle shop at the edge of Du Gia |
| Lunch | Clay pot fish, pork belly, fish soup | Ha Giang city |
Day 1: Duck noodles in Ha Giang city
Our first proper food stop was Bún Vịt Làng, Vĩnh Tươi, a duck noodle shop just outside Ha Giang city. We left the city early and rode straight there for breakfast, because this area is famous for its duck noodles. The restaurant sits right over the water, a bit like a stilt house, which already makes breakfast feel different.
The noodles are made in-house: thick and springy, closer to bún bò Huế than the thin rice noodles most people picture. Add the herbs, mix, and season to taste. Hạ's nephew stirred in the red chili sauce until his bowl turned red. When you're done, whatever's left goes straight into the water below, and big fish, something like snakehead, come up and finish it off.
Our trip was in 2024, so check prices and opening hours before you plan a detour around it.
Day 1: Lẩu at a friend's place (not a tip, sorry)
Lunch on day one wasn't in the plan. A high school friend of Hạ's saw her Facebook post and sent us the address of his restaurant, about 10 km from where we were supposed to eat. So we went.
Lẩu is Vietnamese hotpot: a pot of broth bubbles in the middle of the table, everyone cooks meat, fish and greens in it, then eats them with noodles and dipping sauce. Ours had a beef-bone broth, beef, banana flower, a salmon-like fish from Sa Pa, and a very big chicken he'd raised himself. This isn't food you'd get in an ordinary restaurant. He didn't hold back on anything: great ingredients, cooked with real care. Easily the best meal of the trip.
I'm not naming the restaurant. It takes bookings only, mostly for banquets, and we were there as his friends, not as customers. The full story of that day, including a second reunion that evening, is in this post.
Day 1: Black-bone chicken hotpot in Dong Van
Dinner in Dong Van was hotpot again. The tour had a different lunch planned, and because we'd swapped it for our friend's lẩu, we ended up with two hotpots in one day. I'd happily do it again. This one was completely different, and very Ha Giang: black-bone chicken hotpot with buckwheat. The buckwheat goes into the pot, so the plant you've seen flowering on every hillside all day ends up in your bowl.
I didn't write down the restaurant's name, so I can't send you to the exact place. Look for lẩu gà đen (black chicken hotpot) on menus around town.
Day 2: Bánh cuốn for breakfast
Dong Van is small, and so is the breakfast menu. We went to one of the bánh cuốn shops on the old town street, where the signs promise two things: bánh cuốn and xôi ngũ sắc, five-color sticky rice.
Bánh cuốn is one of Hạ's favorites: rice batter steamed into thin sheets, then rolled around minced pork, wood ear mushroom and shallot. They make it right in front of you. It's honestly a bit of a pain to make at home, because it takes a lot of work, which is exactly why it's worth ordering here. This place was a good one.
Ours came with xôi ngũ sắc, which was really good too, and a bowl of bone broth that was rich and clean at the same time. I asked for a refill.
If your Vietnam food list so far is phở and bánh mì, add this one.
Day 2: Old Town Coffee, Dong Van
A café inside a traditional house. Think of a hanok café back home in Korea. The coffee was cheap, around 30,000 dong (just over a US dollar), we said "just a quick one", and an hour later we were still sitting there. Hạ loved the place and wouldn't stop taking photos. Upstairs there's a terrace looking over the old town, and that morning the staff were rehearsing a traditional dance.
Day 2: Café Cực Bắc, Lô Lô Chải
After the Lung Cu flag tower we went down through Lô Lô Chải and stopped at Café Cực Bắc, the "Northernmost Café". We had coffee and a croissant. Coffee was 25,000 dong and a beer 20,000 dong, about a dollar each. Like in Laos, the French left good croissants behind in this part of the world. We didn't stay the night in the village, which is the one thing I'd change about the trip. More on that in the loop guide.
Lunch was back in Dong Van town. No photos of that one, sorry.
Day 2: Grilled pork belly in Meo Vac
That night we stayed at Meo Vac Clay House in Pavi Hmong Village, and dinner was Vietnamese barbecue: pork belly and other cuts grilled at the table. The surprise for me was the bread. In Vietnam they often grill slices of white bread right next to the meat. Similar to a Korean barbecue, and at the same time not quite. After a long day on the back of a motorbike, it was exactly right.
Meals were part of our tour, so I don't have a restaurant name for this one.
Day 3: Breakfast at Meo Vac Clay House
Breakfast at Meo Vac Clay House came with a rule printed right on the menu: choose one dish only. The choices were bún (rice vermicelli soup), phở, egg noodles, or a "plate of goods" with a baguette, two crepes, a sausage, a fried egg and fruit.
We went for noodle soup. One was phở bò, beef phở, with a pile of green onion on top.
The other was bún sốt vang, rice vermicelli with beef stewed in a red wine-style sauce. It's richer and a little sweeter than phở, and a good pick on a cold mountain morning.
Day 3: Lunch on the road to Du Gia
Lunch was at a roadside restaurant on the way to Du Gia: fried fish and a spread of Ha Giang home cooking, a bit like a Korean baekban, where rice comes with a spread of small shared dishes. The back of the dining room opens onto a terrace, and from there you look straight out over rice fields and hills.
During lunch I sent the drone up. November is after the harvest, so the rice terraces around the restaurant were already cut and drying, with a small river and village running through the valley.
This is how a lot of Vietnamese meals work: rice for everyone, a bowl of soup, and a few dishes in the middle that you all share.
On the side: green beans, stir-fried cucumber with carrot, and plenty of rice.
Day 3: A feast at our homestay in Du Gia
Day three was the slow day. We ended it in Du Gia, at Tom's Du Gia Homestay, in a cozy two-level room, and dinner there was easily the biggest spread of the trip. It was our last night on the loop, and we celebrated the end of the trip with it.
This style of meal is called mẹt, after the traditional round tray it's served on. Instead of separate plates, everything came on one huge tray lined with banana leaves: boiled chicken, crispy pork, fried tofu, spring rolls, small fried fish, a shredded salad topped with peanuts, cucumber and boiled greens. In the middle sat a dish of salt and pepper with lime, and a bowl of dipping sauce with garlic and chili.
Day 4: Bún chả at the edge of Du Gia
On our last morning we rode out to the entrance of Du Gia village and had breakfast at a local noodle shop with "Cơm Phở" painted on the front. The counter was full: thin-sliced pork belly, pork liver and offal, meatballs grilled over charcoal, blood sausage, chicken and goose. The broth was simmering in a pot over a wood fire.
I had bún chả. Not the Hanoi version with a separate bowl of dipping sauce, but rice noodles in broth topped with charcoal-grilled pork. Proper, old-school Vietnamese noodle soup flavor. Stir in a little of the chili sauce on the table and the broth turns red.
Phở, bún and bún chả were each around 35,000 dong (about US$1.40). We were on the road by 8.
Day 4: Last lunch in Ha Giang city
We finished early to catch a bus back to Tuyên Quang, so our last meal was lunch in Ha Giang city. The restaurant had its ingredients on show at the entrance, from pork belly and chicken to frogs and eel. We were sent upstairs, apparently where the good tables are.
The table: fish braised in a clay pot, beef with mushrooms and onion, pork belly stir-fried with spring onion, a plate of stir-fried greens, and a fish soup.
The soup is a very Vietnamese one, packed with herbs. Honestly, it's not a flavor most Koreans go for.
Rice came in a clay pot too. It looks like Korean dolsot rice, but don't expect to pour water in at the end for nurungji. That's not a thing here.
If meals are included in your tour
Ours were: lodging and three meals a day were in the price. A few things worth asking before you book:
- Which meals and drinks the price actually covers. Coffee stops may not be part of it.
- Any diet you need. Sort it out before you book, not when the shared pot lands on the table.
- Whether you can swap a stop. Our guide was fine with our lunch change, but not every operator will be.
That's deliberately a short list. I'd rather show you what we actually ate than pad it out with ten "must-try" dishes we never tried.
If you'd rather not sort out guides and meals yourself, you can compare Ha Giang Loop tours with meals included, with prices and reviews, on Klook here.
The route, costs and how we booked are all in our 4-day Ha Giang Loop guide.
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