(VOVworld) – The Old Quarter of Hanoi is a must – see place for any tourist to the capital city which is well-known for ancient houses, rows of shops, stores offering handcraft items, and typical cultural customs. After touring the capital’s tourist sites, tourists can seek out numerous street eateries to sit, have food, drink any kind of beverage, and chat at reasonable prices. Draught beer is the drink that particularly attracts foreign tourists. Let’s join on a tour of the Old Quarter with VOV’s reporter To Tuan.

The sign here says 4000 dong per glass (Photo: priceoftravel.com)

The first stop foreign tourists often choose when they visit Hanoi is the downtown area including Ta Hien, Luong Ngoc Quyen, Hang Bac, and Ma May that are famous for many restaurants and bars for foreigners. Taxi drivers in Hanoi say that the two Vietnamese words backpackers speak the most are ‘Bia hoi’ or draught beer. The tourists even ask to take them to shops at the crossroad area of Ta Hien and Luong Ngoc Quyen, known as the international intersection. Draught beer here has been listed in guidebooks for tourists to Vietnam and even introduced on the leading TV channel CNN. The life around the international intersection area is always busy and noisy but extremely attracts foreign back-packers who prefer drinking beer at street shops. Brasseries there become packed with customers coming and going, ordering glasses of beer and bowls of food, chatting and drinking toasts, especially when it gets dark. Nguyen Thi Lan is the owner of the Hai Loan brasserie, one of the most delicious beer shops there ‘I started the business 9 years ago but at that time there weren’t many foreign customers like now. From 2005, the cheap beer along with the joyful atmosphere became attractive to a lot of foreigners. Many foreign tourists who visit Hanoi often seek out the Old Quarter and our shop.’

Hai Loan brasserie like others in the downtown are very small and furnished only with a number of tiny plastic stools arranged in a pile at the corner of the pavement. When customers arrive, they automatically grab a stool, sit in neat rows, order and together enjoy the beer that they joke the fizzy iced tea. The brew turns more special if it’s served with roasted peanuts, a specialty of the Old Quarter. Mardoch Sam, a British youth, has lived in Vietnam for a couple of years. He says whenever he has free time, he calls for friends to his familiar brasserie. Sam says he likes this place as the life changes all the time, different day by day. Despite not good command of Vietnamese, Sam tries to express his feeling ‘I like to drink beer and have drunken the draught beer at this shop for many years. It’s cheap and delicious.’

It’s in true sense of the word ‘international intersection’ as people of various walks of life, nationalities, and complexion all come there sitting side by side, drinking or sipping beer, and chatting. Each enjoys the downtown Hanoi draught beer in his or her own way. But drinkers still can find a quiet place for themselves. Ronald Subden is a professor on cuisine from Canada: ‘It is in the guide book. The guide book says to come here. I think the beer is absolutely delightful. Bia hoi is just first class, refreshing, not too alcoholic. I think it’s good and very, very friendly.’

On top of back-packers, brasseries also attract businessmen and foreign students to either enjoy beer or celebrate birthday parties and especially during holidays. Brasseries start to be busy when the sunset falls but come extremely alive from 9 - 12 p.m. Many who come late have to resign to roaming the streets for a while to wait until others leave. Friendliness and simplicity of draught beer brasseries in the Old Quarter have made their reputation.