Hoi An beyond the 'banh mi'

Try the chicken rice and soupy noodle bowls in this charming Vietnamese port town

- Rituparna Roy

It's only 6pm, and we've started thinking about dinner. The scenes give in as we stroll past food stalls and coffee shops bustling with locals and tourists alike, devouring soupy noodle bowls and fried snacks cooked over charcoal fires.

We are in Hoi An, a Unesco World Heritage site in central Vietnam, where you don't really need an excuse to eat. We skip the boutique stores and tailoring shops, and plonk ourselves on plastic stools to eat com ga, the ubiquitous chicken rice, and also a Hoi An speciality.