Quote: (12-10-2014 02:02 PM)Sweet Pea Wrote:
All food is cheap, and that includes meat and seafood. To give you some concrete numbers to work with:
Breakfast: Bowl of mi quang without noodles, extra meat. $1.65
Lunch: Rice with beef, pork, and two kinds of fish. And I mean 4 servings of meat, not a couple bites like you may think. $2.60
Dinner: Entire grilled chicken, head and all, in some kind of Chinese spice rub and sauce. $6.60
Yeah, protein powder is expensive. You don't really need it though. I thought the main reason people used protein powder in the West was because it is the cheapest form of protein available. Not the case here.
JayJuanGee, seafood (hai san, don't feel like typing the special characters) and river/freshwater food (dac san) especially are very cheap by western standards. I think you'll be alright. You can order pretty much any noodle soup without the noodles.
If you want to eat a little bit nicer, my favorite restaurant's prices are about:
Clay pot rice: $0.40
Sauteed pork and Chinese sauerkraut: $1.65
Sweet and sour red snapper: $1.65
Pork and garlic in a savory tomato sauce: .......$1.65
Sour soup with fish: $1.41
Braised eggplant and sweet potato stalks: $0.94
These are pretty typical to a class of restaurant that I consider lower midrange. That's only if you don't want to leave it to chance with street food and risk getting really oily or salty food. That being said, the really cheap restaurants I go to are pretty damn good and not very greasy.
Thanks a lot SweetPea. If I could give you another rep point, then I would.. hahahahaha...
you have this knack for providing great detail and to provide a real sense of things on the ground.
I believe that I already read in this thread that many Vietnamese even believe that there is good food choices in the DaNang area, and in that regard, I would imagine that there is regional variability in terms of the kinds of foods that are available in each of the various regions and the prices for certain kinds of foods.
Were those prices and dishes that you outlined in the Da Nang region, or more broadly reflective of overall Vietnam? And, would you or anyone else be wiling to describe your perception of differences - for example, seafood may be more prevalent near the sea, but beef may be more prevalent inland, that is if there are certain areas in which beef are raised (or maybe the beef is imported from Australia or US or somewhere else?)
Edit: By the way, anyone have any issues with the water or drinking tap water? Do most people drink bottled water or maybe tea? I have a pretty strong gut, and I usually am fairly adventurous. Accordingly, I cannot see hydrating only on tea, and I am thinking bottled water is safest.... but a little tap water here and there, is that o.k. or no?