Evening street snacks

This is the layer visitors usually miss, because it is not on the beachfront: from around 15:00–17:00, carts and pavement stalls set up inland and run until about 22:00. Everything is priced per item, from 3,000₫ a skewer to 25,000₫ a serving.

Three things worth ordering. **Skewers** — prawn, chicken, quail egg, rolled beef over charcoal with a tamarind dip, chosen one at a time so you can try several. **Grilled rice paper** — a sheet crisped over coals with egg, spring onion and dried beef, often called Vietnamese pizza, which is not a bad description. **Rice-paper salad** — shredded sheets tossed with green mango, dried beef, quail eggs, herbs and shrimp paste.

The densest clusters are around Bach Dang, the Mac Dinh Chi junction and along 23 Thang 10 — all inland, one or two kilometres from Tran Phu beach. Which is also why a snack here costs a fifth of what it does on the seafront.

This is where local students and young people eat, so plastic stools, standing room, cash. Most stalls have no English menu — pointing is quickest. And because everything is grilled to order, choose a busy stall: skewers going out constantly are not sitting on the rack.