Nvidia CEO enjoys Vietnamese street food in Hanoi

"Skipping luxury dinner parties at high-end hotels and restaurants, Huang chose street food dishes with flavors and experiences that are hard to be found anywhere else," said Hoang Anh Tuan, a diplomat and member of the delegation that accompanied Huang on his first visit to Vietnam from Saturday.

Huang, who was there ostensibly to explore business opportunities, dressed quite comfortably in a T-shirt and black jeans as he walked the old streets of Vietnam's historic capital.

He first decided to try a busy sidewalk restaurant on Luong Ngoc Quyen Street in the backpacker district.

He sat on a plastic chair and enjoyed snails and rolls while drinking beer with the staff members he brought on the trip.

Jensen Huang (2nd, R) and his staff sit at a Vietnamese sidewalk restaurant on Luong Ngoc Quyen Street in Hanoi, December 2023. Photo courtesy of Hoang Anh Tuan Facebook page

The chief executive then visited a restaurant on Hang Non Street to enjoy pho bo (beef noodle soup) and drink coconut water.

He also tried egg coffee at Café Giang, one of the oldest coffee shops in Hanoi on Nguyen Huu Huan Street, and took photos with Hanoians.

The coffee shop is named after its founder Nguyen Van Giang, known as the creator of the city's famous egg coffee. Giang invented egg coffee in 1946 when he was working as a bartender at Sofitel Legend Metropole Hotel.

The culturally unique Vietnamese beverage is a blend of coffee and egg whites, folded with sugar and drunk hot or cold. It was the perfect alternative to cappuccino when Western embargos had made milk scarce during revolutionary times.

Huang is not the first world-famous tech CEO to demonstrate a love for Vietnamese street food.

Sam Altman, American chief executive of OpenAI, said he fell in love with Vietnam's banh mi, so much so that it became a staple of his diet, as he spoke online at AI Day 2023 held in HCMC last week.

In 2015, Google CEO Sundar Pichai also chatted intimately at a sidewalk lemon tea shop in Hanoi and enjoyed Vietnamese cuisine.