Australians in Hanoi : when street food tours are safely exotic

Over the last decade, as my interest in 'exotic' foods has grown, I have sampled street food in iconic culinary destinations in both the Global North and the Global South. These experiences have been varied in terms of the affective registers they have summoned in me, and sometimes resemble the clichés invoked to describe them in travel literature. So, while parts of Manhattan felt effortlessly cosmopolitan, Modena in Italy was a charming yet hidden foodie treasure, Paris was as interesting for its supermarkets as its street crepes and café displays full of tarts, and Melbourne remains a source of cross- border culinary envy (for Sydneysiders like me) by virtue of its more sophisticated offerings tucked away in laneways.