The food: Chicken and seafood hotpot

Where to find it: Quan Huyen Kien, Dong Xuan Square, Hanoi, Vietnam

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The soundtrack of Hanoi buzzes with car horns and popping motorbikes. The roadways swarm like a beehive in the Amazon.

Road rules? There are no road rules. For a travel and food documentary I’m creating, I filmed at a few bustling intersections in this city and witnessed a total disregard for streetlight signals or laws.

Red light or green light, every traffic signal means “go” in Hanoi.

The petrol-paced streetstyle applies to their food, as well. You don’t know street food until you’ve sampled a taste of Hanoi. Vendors literally crouched on the curbs of Hanoi’s Old Quarter district as we brewed my seafood, tofu and chicken hotpot dinner in a ginormous tin bowl. The same oil that motorists pour into their fuel tanks fed the fire for my hot pot.

The recognizable scent of burning motor oil oddly whets the appetite for a hearty meal. The hot pot melted together a fleet of flavors. But there was nothing delicate about this dish. We boiled everything: the squid, the chicken, the veggies. The hotpot yielded a meal as hearty the streets of Hanoi’s Dong Xuan district.

Hanoi is supposed to be a sleepy town compared to my next culinary destination: Ho Chi Minh City. What may I discover there? Soup boiled in motorbike helmets?