Eating Viet Nam: Dispatches from a Blue Plastic Table

A journalist and blogger takes us on a colorful and spicy gastronomic tour through Viet Nam in this entertaining, offbeat culinary travel memoir, with a foreword by the legendary Anthony Bourdain.

 Growing up in a small town in northern England, Graham Holliday wasn’t keen on travel. But in his early twenties, a picture of Hanoi sparked a curiosity that propelled him halfway across the globe. Graham didn’t want to be a tourist in an alien land, though; he was determined to live it. An ordinary guy who liked trying interesting food, he moved to the capital city and embarked on a quest to find authentic Vietnamese cuisine. In Eating Viet Nam, he chronicles his odyssey in this strange, enticing land infused with sublime smells and tastes.

Traveling through the back alleys and across the boulevards of Hanoi—where home cooks set up grills and stripped-down stands serving sumptuous fare on blue plastic furniture—he risked dysentery, giardia, and diarrhea to discover a culinary treasure-load of Vietnamese street food that was truly foreign and unique. Holliday shares every bite of the extraordinary fresh dishes, pungent and bursting with flavor, which he came to love in Hanoi, Saigon, and the countryside. Here, too, are the remarkable people who became a part of his new expat life in Vietnam, including his wife, Sophie.

A feast for the senses, funny, charming, and always delicious, Eating Viet Nam will inspire armchair travelers, curious palates, and everyone itching for a taste of adventure. 

Part food memoir, part travelogue, this is one man’s hilarious and heartfelt journey into the soul of a nation’s cuisine.

• A Foreword by Anthony Bourdain: The late culinary icon introduces Graham Holliday’s obsessive quest for the perfect bowl of noodles, setting the stage for an unforgettable adventure.
• From Tourist to Local: Follow an ordinary guy from northern England as he moves to Hanoi, determined not to just visit, but to live—and eat—like a true resident, navigating the chaos of expat life one blue plastic stool at a time.
• An Unfiltered Food Guide: Go beyond the tourist traps into the back alleys of Hanoi and Saigon, where the best food is served cheap, fast, and with a real risk of dysentery.
• More Than a Food Memoir: Witty, heartfelt, and full of sharp observations, this story is as much about the remarkable people, strange customs, and vibrant culture of Viet Nam as it is about the food.