Vietnamese Food Trivia
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41 free Vietnamese Food trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Vietnamese food is built on balance: five tastes, five colours, hot ingredients against cold ones, and a bowl of fish sauce on every table. This quiz starts with the dishes everyone knows, phở and bánh mì, and digs into where they actually came from: a textile-market province south of Hanoi, a French baguette stretched with rice flour, a 1958 Saigon bakery, and the 'pilotless' meatless phở of the postwar years. From there it travels the country: bún chả and egg coffee in Hanoi, bún bò Huế and its lemongrass broth, the lye-water noodles of Hội An, sizzling bánh xèo and coconut worms in the Mekong Delta, plus fish sauce grades, Tết's square rice cakes, royal court banquets, yin-yang food pairings and a few eating idioms that mean something else entirely. It suits cooks, travellers planning a trip and anyone who has ever argued about the right way to garnish phở. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Vietnamese cuisine and the individual dishes, and each question shows its supporting sentence after you answer.
30 of 41 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Potatoes are called khoai tây in Vietnamese, a name that literally means what?
Western yam
Western yam: foods the French brought often took a native name plus tây, 'western', so asparagus became măng tây, 'western bamboo shoot'.
Q 02Phở is thought to have been born in which province southeast of Hanoi?
Nam Định
Nam Định: vendors from its village of Vân Cù peddled phở in Hanoi, and families from that village went on to run many of the capital's phở shops.
Q 03Cơm tấm, a southern Vietnamese favourite, is made with what kind of rice?
Broken rice
Broken rice: these leftover grains from milling were once hard to sell because of their imperfections, yet became one of the south's signature street dishes.
Q 04Why was beef historically uncommon in Vietnamese cooking before the colonial period?
Water buffalo were needed for farm work
Water buffalo were needed for farm work, so beef only caught on under French rule, the era when phở, a beef soup, was born.
Q 05One theory traces the word phở to which French dish?
Pot-au-feu
Pot-au-feu shares its 'feu' sound, though a rival theory points to the Chinese beef noodles ngưu nhục phấn, whose last syllable also sounds like phở.
Q 06How is rượu cần, the rice wine of Vietnam's hill peoples, traditionally drunk?
Through long straws from a shared jar
Through long straws from a shared jar: as the drinkers sip, the host keeps topping up the jar with water.
Q 07Why was subsidy-era phở from North Vietnam's state shops nicknamed 'pilotless phở'?
It came with no meat
It came with no meat: with food rationed under the state subsidy system, shops simply ladled broth over the noodles.
Q 08Which accompaniments mark out southern-style phở from the northern original?
Bean sprouts and hoisin sauce
Bean sprouts and hoisin sauce: phở reached the south with northern migrants after the 1954 partition and picked up the region's love of extra garnishes.
Q 09Along with cloves and black cardamom, which spice is a hallmark of the phở broth spice bag?
Star anise
Star anise: before the long simmer, cooks also char whole onion and ginger over an open flame and add them to the pot.
Q 10What does the name bánh mì literally mean?
Wheat bread
Wheat bread: bánh covers cakes and breads and mì means wheat, so the popular story that the name comes from French pain de mie is false.
Q 11The shredded pickles (đồ chua) in a classic bánh mì are made from which two vegetables?
Carrot and daikon
Carrot and daikon: the tangy pickles are there to balance the richness of the pâté and mayonnaise.
Q 12Where did Lee's Sandwiches, credited with popularising bánh mì among Americans, begin?
Northern California
Northern California: the Lê family began by selling bánh mì from a food truck, and their catering business came to supply more than 500 trucks before Lee's Sandwiches grew into a chain.
Q 13What is waiting in the cup when the coffee drips through in a classic Vietnamese iced coffee?
Sweetened condensed milk
Q 21What does the name bánh xèo refer to?
The sizzle of batter in the pan
The sizzle of batter in the pan: diners tear off pieces, wrap them in lettuce and herbs, and dip them in sauce before eating.
Q 22What are Vietnamese gỏi cuốn rolls wrapped in?
Rice paper (bánh tráng)
Rice paper (bánh tráng): the brittle sheet is dipped in water to soften, then rolled around pork, prawns, herbs and rice noodles.
Q 23Vietnamese fish sauce (nước mắm) is made mainly from which fish?
Anchovies
Anchovies: packed with salt into big barrels, they ferment for months, and the liquid drained off becomes the sauce.
Sweetened condensed milk: fresh milk was scarce and spoiled quickly in the heat, so the tinned kind, which needs no refrigeration, became standard.
Q 14What is the small metal drip filter used to brew Vietnamese coffee called?
Phin
Phin: cafés often set the glass in front of you with the filter still dripping, and you wait for the coffee to finish brewing.
Q 15Which coffee species, dark-roasted, is the standard for Vietnamese coffee?
Robusta
Robusta: with about twice the caffeine of arabica it tastes harsher, which is why Vietnamese cafés so often serve it with milk.
Q 16Egg coffee (cà phê trứng) was created in Hanoi in 1946 in response to what?
Wartime dairy shortages
Wartime dairy shortages: bartender Nguyễn Văn Giảng whisked egg yolk in place of milk, and the drink proved so popular he left his hotel to open his own café.
Q 17Salt coffee (cà phê muối), said to have begun in Huế, tops the drink with what?
Salted cream foam
Salted cream foam: the salt is said to tame the coffee's bitterness while bringing out the sweetness of the milk beneath.
Q 18Bạc xỉu, mostly milk with a splash of coffee, originated in the 1950s among which Chợ Lớn community?
Cantonese-Vietnamese
Cantonese-Vietnamese café owners cut the coffee and added more milk, making a drink for people who found coffee too strong.
Q 19Which Hanoi dish did Barack Obama eat with Anthony Bourdain in May 2016?
Bún chả
Bún Chả Hương Liên still sells a 'combo Obama' and has photos of the visit on its walls.
Q 20Hủ tiếu Nam Vang, a noodle soup popular in southern Vietnam, is named after which city?
Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh: Nam Vang is the Vietnamese name for the Cambodian capital, and the soup grew out of that city's rice noodle soup, kuyteav.
Q 24Which two places are Vietnam's most famous fish-sauce producers?
Phú Quốc and Phan Thiết
The latter has a fish sauce museum and is regarded as the birthplace of the Vietnamese product.
Q 25The quality grade printed on a bottle of Vietnamese fish sauce measures what?
Nitrogen per litre
Nitrogen per litre: it tracks the protein drawn from the fish, which gives good sauce its sweet aftertaste behind the salt.
Q 26Which two flavours dominate the beef noodle soup bún bò Huế?
Lemongrass and shrimp paste
Lemongrass and shrimp paste: in Huế itself the soup is simply called bún bò, and only elsewhere is the city's name added.
Q 27How do the noodles in bún bò Huế differ from those in phở?
Thicker and rounder
Thicker and rounder: noodles from a Huế village of noodle-makers are credited with helping make the soup famous.
Q 28Cao lầu, a chewy pork-and-noodle dish, is a specialty of which town?
Hội An
Hội An: local legend says the noodles need water from one ancient town well, which is why the dish is rarely made anywhere else.
Q 29What gives cao lầu noodles their springy texture and greyish-yellow colour?
Rice soaked in lye water
Rice soaked in lye water: cooks also cut some of the raw noodles into squares and fry them crisp to scatter on top.
Q 30Phở tái tops the noodles with which kind of beef?
Rare slices
Rare slices: phở began as boiled beef, noodles and broth, and inventive cooks later added the raw-beef version.