Food & Drink

If you stroll down Cau May just south of the stadium (or town square or town pentagon), there are foreigner-friendly places as thick as the evening mist. But the top pick in our book is at the bottom of the street: the Highland Bakery. It has a pleasant, low-key atmosphere, with reasonably-priced western food, baked goods like onion bread, and an absolutely scrumptious chocolate tart that is more like fudge than anything we've tasted in Southeast Asia. WiFi is also available, along with very good coffees, so laptop users can get wired while they get wired. The only pity is it doesn't open nearly early enough for a bakery.

Viet Emotion Restaurant Tapas Cafe remains a popular option. Go here for a good selection of western brekkies, very pricey hotpots, goose with orange sauce or mint, a 400 gram Basque country beefsteak for just under US$20, and some reasonably-priced pasta and risotto, as well as sandwiches and hamburgers. For cheese lovers, goat and feta varieties are on the menu. And, lest we forget, the specialty here is tapas. Swill it down with some delicious dark Dai Viet Beer.

The Pine Restaurant is the lone, purely Vietnamese offering on the Cau May mall, with noodles and rice dishes, but especially Vietnamese-style hot pots on the menu.

Just up the hill to the right of the Pine are two places worth mentioning. The Gerbera offers pizzas and western dishes that attract a steady crowd. The Mimosa has a pleasant, elegant atmosphere and is a francophonic-friendly joint, with food to fit the French palate -- deer, rabbit and frog can be found on a lot of Vietnamese menus, but here they are prepared the French way. If you're Italian, don't try the pizza here -- you won't be happy. The rest of us will be content with a belly full of cheese and bread. Good mountain views are available if you eat al fresco.

Back down on Cau May street proper, Nature Bar has a very nice atmosphere, with dark wood everywhere, including the A-frame ceiling, and a very comfortable common area around an open fire for cold winter evenings. The menu promises much the same grub as you'll find elsewhere.

Nearby, the Sapa Lotus offers intimate, candle-lit dining (even when there's power for the lights) making it a good choice for some quality time with your significant other -- you can pick up a set of imported Australian lamb chops here for US$10. The T-Bone Steak House, under the same ownership as Delta Italian, is all about imported Aussie beef, but expect to pay Aussie prices for the privilege. Further down the street is Delta Italian Restaurant itself. Even the owner, Tung, admits the prices here are pricey -- but he attributes that to the cost of transport up to Sapa. You'll get the full range of Italian dishes, including pizzas that are good but would be more satisfying if they were cheaper. Still, you can't beat the gorgonzola gnocchi to fulfill that carb and cheese craving. Tung is a wine nut, so a variety of vintagesare found on the menu here. On the horizon in July 2008, the Bombay Palace should be opening across and up the street from Delta. The mighty Tung has imported no less than three well-trained Indian chefs to cook up the meals.

Getting away from the Cau May gauntlet, the Gecko Restaurant on Thach Son near the post office is Sapa's first French restaurant with a genuine French owner and a menu mostly featuring hamburgers and Italian food. Their signage emphasises how reasonably priced their meals are, but actually -- not so much. Another guidebook casualty. More true to its reputation is Baguette and Chocolate, just up the hill on Thac Bac. The atmosphere is cosy, with a big fireplace to curl up next to on a cold day, and a very good variety of tasty pastries and desserts to keep your tummy warm as well. It's part of a training project to teach job skills to disadvantaged youth, but forget about all that, it's a good place in its own right. You might take them up on one of their picnic baskets if you're headed out on a trek. And finally, down at the end of Fansipan is Viet-Phap-Y (which means Vietnamese, French, Italian) Restaurant. It is much ballyhooed elsewhere, but forgive us if we didn't get the chance to eat at absolutely every restaurant in Sapa yet -- let's just say it's top of our list of places to try on our next visit. It offers French and Vietnamese set menus along with wood-fired pizza and a bunch of other stuff that looked really good. For a very fancy meal, don't forget about the restaurant in the Victoria Sapa hotel, which sits at the top of the town above the park. Expensive by local standards, of course, but we reckon the steaks are a better deal here than at the T-Bone, and you won't pay more than you would for a splurge back home.