A traditional Vietnamese family meal consists of a soup, a few main dishes, accompanied with pickled firecracker eggplants or pickled vegetables. The balance between saltiness, sourness, and freshness is important. The men in the family often enjoy
traditional rice wine before the meal.

A home-cooked meal in Hanoian style is rather simple, but still meets all the basic requirements.

A typical dish on the home-cooked menu is boiled pork cut in thin strips with both the skin and fat layers intact, to be dipped in
fermented shrimp sauce and eaten with pickled firecracker eggplants. Adding some sour slices of starfruits would make the dish
perfect. Another typical Hanoian dish is fresh tofu bought from Mơ Market, which is deep-fried until golden, and then soaked in fish
sauce with spring onions – a popular childhood dish that any Hanoian would remember.

However, the most sophisticated dish is cua đồng soup (a type of fresh water crabs found mostly in Vietnam). Although it is a simple
dish to make, the difficult part is to get the crab innards to create a layer on the surface of the soup. The dish is considered delicious
when you can smell its beautiful fragrance from afar.

A family meal is usually cooked by the women in the family, who often tackle the task with their heart and soul. Any Vietnamese
who live far from home always misses having traditional family meals cooked by their beloved mothers and grandmothers.