Plastic chairs: Vietnam's most accurate restaurant rating system

Forget Michelin stars. Vietnam has a far more trustworthy scale, and it's right under your seat.

Plastic chair scale:

Green plastic chair, 20 cm high, and the table's plastic too → Exceptional dish. This restaurant exists because of just one dish, and they've been perfecting it for twenty years. Red plastic chairs with backrests, stainless steel tables → Very good. The restaurant has enough funds to purchase chairs with backrests, but hasn't yet achieved the self-sufficiency needed to switch to wooden chairs. Wooden chairs, wooden tables, ceiling fan → Good, but starting to charge tourist prices. Padded chairs, air conditioning, picture menu → Be cautious. A menu with pictures means the restaurant doesn't expect you to know what you're ordering. • A menu with pictures and English, Korean, and Chinese → You're in a tourist area. Still edible, but don't expect local pricing.

Why is this rule true: a sidewalk stall has no big rent for premises, doesn't hire staff, doesn't decorate. All of the customer's money flows into the ingredients. Whereas at a nice restaurant, part of your money is paying for the chair you're sitting on.

Secondary indicator, even more reliable than a chair:

• Shop only sells one dish → almost always delicious • People queuing and waiting during peak hours → delicious • The shop owner doesn't ask what you want to order, just asks "how many bowls?" → very delicious • Tables set out all the way to the sidewalk and nobody thinks it's a problem → you've found the right place

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