[Review] Hải Sản Long Thùy: seafood soup

Hai San Long Thuy is a no nonsense kind of place, and the staff here are not going to spend hours fawning over you, making friends or asking for your phone number. Instead, they just want you to order your food, eat and leave, so they can serve the next batch of customers (it can get very busy here).

If this all seems uninviting, do not be put off. The seafood soup here is exquisite, full flavored and generously portioned. And the local hubbub and chitchat make for a lively atmosphere.

The red broth is sweet and sour with an aromatic fragrance, choc full of shrimp, squid and fried fish chunks, with plenty of vermicelli noodles (all for 50,000 VND) with the obligatory kumquats and a legendary homemade chili sauce on the side depending on your preference.

“Fish is one one of my favorite foods, and am constantly thinking of new places to go,” says local restaurant owner and food critic Han Giang. “But, honestly this is the one of the best seafood soups in the city. It’s pretty local, so I think it flies under the radar for a lot of foreigners, but it well worth worth checking out.”

They do a few other seafood dishes here (30,000- 80,000 VND), and while they are solid the it is the seafood soup here that the restaurant is famed for, and Chào would not order anything else. The fish has a reputation for being particularly fresh here, and there is occasionally a small wait to get in such is its popularity.

The soup is particularly good in the winter, and in some quarters it is believed to ward off colds as it rich in nutrients and omega 3. The surroundings might be a tad dingy and you are unlikely to go on a first date here, but the fresh seafood soup will linger long in the memory while being easy on the wallet.

24 Ngũ Xã, Trúc Bạch, Ba Đình
+84 96 357 73 21
7.30 p.m. – 9.30 p.m.