Eating your way through Hoi An

Some places you visit for the sights. Hoi An you visit for the food, and the sights happen to be extraordinary too. This lantern-lit former trading port on Vietnam's central coast has a culinary identity all its own — dishes you genuinely cannot get done properly anywhere else — and the most rewarding way to experience it is to plan your days around your stomach.

The dishes that belong to Hoi An

Three things are unique to this town, and you should eat all of them more than once. Cao lau is the headline: thick, chewy noodles said to require water from a specific local well, topped with pork, crisp croutons and herbs. White rose dumplings — delicate translucent parcels of shrimp — are made by only a handful of families who supply nearly every restaurant in town. And banh mi here has a fair claim to being the best in the world; the bread is lighter, the fillings fresher, the balance just right.

Eat at the stalls, not the riverside restaurants. The prices halve and the flavours double.

Where to actually eat

The restaurants lining the river are pretty and overpriced and aimed squarely at tourists. The good stuff is a street or two back. Follow the crowds of locals at lunchtime, look for plastic stools and a single specialised dish, and trust the places that only make one thing. A vendor who has cooked the same bowl of cao lau for thirty years is not going to disappoint you.

The central market is worth a slow morning. It's chaotic, fragrant and the best place to taste your way through small plates without committing to a full meal anywhere. Buy a coffee — Vietnamese coffee is its own reason to visit the country — and let the morning unfold.

Take a cooking class, but the right kind

Hoi An is full of cooking classes, and the better ones start at the market with the chef explaining ingredients before you ever touch a wok. You'll come away able to recreate at least one dish at home, and more importantly with a sharper sense of what you're tasting for the rest of the trip. Skip the slick hotel versions; pick the family-run ones.

End every night with something sweet

Find the che carts near the Japanese Covered Bridge as the lanterns come on. Che is a category more than a dish — sweet Vietnamese dessert soups of beans, jelly, coconut milk and fruit, served warm or over ice. It's the perfect full stop to a day of eating, and at a few thousand dong a cup, it's the cheapest joy in town.

Give Hoi An three nights if you can. Two to eat through the essentials, and one more to go back to whichever stall surprised you most. You'll leave already planning the meal you'll order first when you return.