Other than a steaming bowl of bun bo hue, the only specific thing on my list to eat in Hue was to sample the royal cuisine. There's two places that seem to specialise in this - Hoang Vien and Tien Gia Vien. Tien Gia Vien seemed to have reviews that seemed more favourable to me and so it was on my list. Funnily enough during a private tour of the city, our driver decided to take us somewhere for lunch - which happened to be Hoang Vien. I was a little skeptical at first as the first table I saw were an all middle-aged European tourist group. As the next 5 tour buses of the same arrived, it was decided this was not the place for lunch. The surprised driver couldn't understand why we didn't want to eat here, but after some negotiation took us to a little cafe in a side street behind a petrol station, the place he eats lunch. That was a great meal.
The next evening dinner was booked at Tien Gia Vien. The neighbourhood was quiet and the place is in a little side alley. During a January night, the place was relatively empty with only a few couples there. I can imagine this wouldn't be the place, the type or food nor the price for any kind of locals, but there was refreshingly no tour groups.
The staff spoke English well enough to explain the dishes to me.
- Bunch of carrot & papaya flowers
- Dance of the Phoenix
- Pineapple Lantern of Assorted Appetisers
- Surprise Soup of Hue
- Vietnamese Spring Roll in the form Peacock
- Big Steamed Prawn
- Sweet & Sour Papaya in the form Dragon
- Meat, Pork with Potatoes in the form Elephant
- Cantonese Rice in the form Tortoise
- Dessert: Dragon Boat includes Fruit
The setting is lovely, the food artistry is beautiful and the flavours themselves are fine. I prefer the street tastes generally but this is something a little more refined, a little less heavily flavoured and nice as a change. And you get to play with the food to create new hybrid beasts!!