Local Market Tour with Boat Ride to My Grandma's Home Cooking Class

Thom, our guide, was just wonderful. Our detailed tour of the central market was informative and fun. We got to sample many different herbs and fruits. We took our bikes on the ferry to an island where we rode to Grandma’s house. We appreciated seeing Vietnamese people moving through their day. The cooking class was great! We made interesting and tasty dishes. Thom’s talent as a cook clearly visible. Would recommend to anyone. Learned some things we will use at home. Great day and tour.

Très jolie journée avec Diem, notre guide / chef francophone, incroyablement souriante et enthousiaste ! Découverte du marché et de ses produits avant une petite croisière en bateau qui vous emmène sur une île, dans un endroit charmant en pleine campagne. Recettes délicieuses, accessibles mêmes au plus novices. Un conseil, commencez la journée le ventre vide, le menu est aussi copieux que savoureux ! Merci pour cette belle journée !

It was nice to be shown around the Hoi An day market with the local people and a detailed explanation from our guide. The stay in the countryside was also really relaxing. The cooking class was nice because we used the local recipes and learned how to make everything from scratch (including rice paper). The food was more than enough so you won't be hungry. Our guide spoke English okay. It was sometimes hard to understand but if you indicate that you did not understand something, they'll try their best to repeat or make you understand another way.

To get in touch with locals, learn local methodes and take a look to the country side of Hoi An, you should do this cooking class. By visiting the local market, you get a lot of information about local food and farmers. After that you make a boat and cycling trip to the villages where you finally cook a great menue of vietnamese food. It was no problem to have vegan and vegetarian options and it tasted really good. Thank you, Mesa, for your effort!

We signed up for the Market Tour with the boat ride to the cooking class. The activities were well-thought out and the small group (6 adults) made for a relaxed environment. The market tour was informative and it was a great way to learn about not-so-obvious uses for familiar items, and sample/ask questions about foods we'd seen prior to our visit to Hoi An but didn't know the names of. The class itself was hands-on and we cooked 4 different dishes, but we also enjoyed some quick breaks to wander on the back roads of the small village, and our lovely host shared details about growing up in the area and day to day life. After running around so much on our short vacation and feeling rushed on other tours we'd been on, this was a welcome change - and we have already made some of the dishes at home! Definitely recommend!

The boat ride is long, but it was also nice to feel like we got to go somewhere completely different. There were 9 people in our cooking class but only myself and my brother did the market tour before -- everyone else missed out. I've done market tours in southeast Asia before, so I'm familiar with a lot of things, but she also found some stuff I haven't seen, and we got to taste a number of things. (steamed sticky rice treats in banana paper, fruit, coffee) Getting to meet Grandma at the class was really special (She's 97!!) and we made lots of yummy food, with good vegetarian options for me so I felt included in everything.

It was a pleasure to meet grandma and see the island she lives on! I also really liked getting to make rice paper and rice milk the traditional way! Our teacher was great and super friendly and we made tons of good food. Highly recommend!

The market tour and the cooking class was great, our guide was very nice and explained us a lot of things about Vietnamese culture and cooking. I recommend it to all foreigners who want to discover more deeply the Vietnamese culture !

Vi was very friendly and helpful

We had a lot of fun during the trip - from learning a lot of new things! First, we learned about the typical local veggies & fruits and some of the extra delicious, yet quite local and hard to find snacks on the market tour. We even came back to the market after the class to buy some of the “banh it” sweets :) we got interesting info on how the market works, particularly the fish market. Then we took a boat to Grandma’s place on a small island really off the beaten path (40 min boat ride!). I loved that the class was situated there and that we got to see some of the rural life. Making rice milk and our own rice pancakes was very interesting and fun! Also seeing the 94 yo grandma was impressive! The 4 dishes were all good, particularly loved cooking on the charcoal “grill” in the garden! The food was more than enough and we did some real recipes, not the typical, boring Pho Bo. Really liked that the recipes can be done more or less 1-to-1 also at home in Europe. Our teacher (Vy) was great, with quite good English and good teaching skills. She really put an effort to make everyone feel satisfied and happy. On the ride back I talked with her lengthy about life in Vietnam, her private life and really, really enjoyed her openness! It was a pleasure to do that course and we can recommend it highly!

I really enjoyed the class and the market tour too. It was great to learn so much about Vietnamese food and how to cook. The lesson was easy to follow and I will try some out at home.

From the moment we left the office with Vi, our family of four had a ball. She showed us all the produce at the market & made sure those feisty market ladies didn’t get cross at us. The cooking lesson itself was really well organised & the food was superb. Having the class on the island made it a special experience. Grandma put in an appearance & amazed my 9 yr old. I ate everything we cooked & couldn’t eat another morsel for 24 hours!

What a great day from the informative market tour and leisurely boat ride to the yummy cooking class and learning about the family. Thom was wonderful and it was a pleasure spending the day with her and our group. Can’t wait to try the recipes at home.

It was good that each of us had our own cooking station and we eat what we cooked. The venue was lovely and meeting grandma was a nice touch! The whole process of making rice crepes was an eye-opener. So much work, skill and time involved in cooking each delicate piece! Overall great fun and an interesting day out. I would also like to commend the cooking instructor as well. She was charming and very knowledgeable about the use of local herbs.

I’m a French cook and I was so excited to go for a cooking class and it was awesome. Our guide was the sweetest girl ever!!!! The food was so great and so glad to learned this great and tasty food.

Everything was delicious!

Very nice host and a good experience overall

This was the best thing we could have done in Hoi An. It was a different view of Hoi An, displaying the rural side of the city that most tourists don't get to see. The food was spectacular, and it was great to make the food that we were enjoying in the rest of Vietnam. The staff was superb, could have not asked for more dedicated and considerate service. Totally recommend!

We saw a lot of the rural hoi an and how the people living off tourism dwell there, very interesting. The class takes place in a hut, with a jungle feeling all around, the tools and ingredients however left nothing to be desired. Our guide Phuong was very knowledgable and a lot of fun. Thank you!

Our day started with a boat ride to the local market. Our guide Phuong was super lovely and knowledged about the local food and culture. She explained us during the market tour what ingredients Vietnamese people usually use for thei cooking and also what benefits different herbs ands ingredients have. We then bought some of the ingredients that we would later user for the cooking class. After the market tour we went on a longer boat ride to the island where the cooking class took place. It's a very local farmer island with few people living there. Absolutely great and relaxing environment to get away from the busy old town in Hoi An. The food we made was delicious and the team really friendly and helpful. Grandma was there as well and showed us how to make rice milk. Overall it was a great experience and I highly recommend to take a cooking class while you are in Hoi An as it really is a must do! Thanks again to Phuong!

Wonderful adventurous boat ride to little island with beautiful scenery. We visited some people in the local village and learned more about the history of the food. Then we started to prepare and cook several dishes. The best part was that we got to enjoy those absolutely delicious meals. My Grandma's Home cooking was our highlight during our trip in Vietnam.

I did this tour on the recommendation of one of my friends. My wife and I were staying in Hoi An for the week. We had the best experience ever learning how to cook Vietnamese Cuisine. We started the day with a market tour followed by the cooking class. Then, the guide took us to a small boat and we took a ride to see the lovely rural side of Vietnam. We learned how to make rice milk, then we made spring rolls, green papaya salad and tuna clay pot crispy pancakes. We felt so grateful for this genuine local experience.