Old Quarter ReviewSay it at the stall
The phrases that protect a meal in the Old Quarter, on cards big enough to show across a counter. Allergies first, because in a busy stall a shown sentence beats a shouted one.
Know the hidden ingredients
Three ingredients hide in far more dishes than visitors expect. Fish sauce seasons almost everything, including many dishes sold as vegetarian, so vegetarian here needs the words, not the assumption. Peanuts appear in sauces, desserts and garnishes. Shellfish turns up as shrimp paste and dried shrimp in broths. Tell any seller about an allergy clearly and early, before the cooking starts, and show the allergy card rather than explaining across languages.
The cards are being checked on the street
Suzy is testing the exact Vietnamese wording with real sellers before this page opens, because a phrase card that a stall misreads is worse than none. The guidance above is safe to use today; the cards follow when the wording earns it.