Plastic chairs: Vietnam's most accurate restaurant rating system

Forget Michelin stars. In Vietnam there's a far more trustworthy scale, and it's right under your backside.

Plastic chair scale:

Green plastic chair, 20 cm high, the table is also a plastic chair → Excellent dish. This place has survived on exactly one dish, and they've been making it for twenty years. Red plastic chair with backrest, stainless steel table → Very good. The shop has enough money to buy chairs with backrests, but not yet enough vanity to switch to wooden chairs. • Wooden chairs, wooden tables, with a ceiling fan → Good, but prices are starting to be set for tourists. • Upholstered/padded chairs, air conditioning, menu with photos → Be careful. A menu with pictures means the restaurant doesn't expect you to know what you're ordering. • A menu with pictures and in English, Korean, and Chinese → You're in a tourist area. It's still edible, but don't expect local prices.

Why is this rule true: a sidewalk stall doesn't have high rent costs, doesn't hire staff, doesn't decorate. All of the customer's money goes into the ingredients. Whereas at a fancy restaurant, part of your money is paying for the chair you're sitting on.

Secondary indicator, even more trustworthy than a seat:

• A restaurant that only sells one dish → it's almost always delicious • People standing in line waiting during peak hours → it's delicious • The owner doesn't ask what you'd like to order, just asks "how many bowls?" → it's really delicious • Tables are set up all the way out to the sidewalk and nobody thinks that's a problem → you've found the right place

The price you pay: low seats, cramped space, and you'll sit thirty centimeters from a stranger. But that's exactly what makes it special.