How much does it cost to eat in Nha Trang, how much money to take for food?

The price range for food in Nha Trang is very wide, depending on your appetite. You can eat cheaply like locals and budget travelers in local canteens and spend no more than $2 per meal, or you can spend up to $100 per person each time if you order crabs, lobsters, and wash it all down with expensive wine. And it's even more impossible to say how much money you need to take for food for the entire trip, because you need to consider how long you will be there, in which area you will stay, and whether meals are included at the hotel.

For reference, here is price information from personal experience:

Seafood

Seafood in Vietnam is not exactly cheap. The talk of "pennies" is all exaggeration by bloggers or reviews from inexperienced tourists. After all, seafood has become expensive worldwide. The price on restaurant menus or directly on aquariums is usually indicated per 100 grams or kilogram, and additionally the dish includes a side dish, usually rice and vegetables. For orientation, here are the minimum prices in an average tourist cafe:

• Fish – from 390,000 VND/kg (about $15 per kilogram)
• Shrimp – from 450,000 VND/kg ($18)
• Tiger shrimp – from 1,450,000 VND/kg ($58)
• Lobsters – from 850,000 VND/kg ($34)
• Oysters – from 49,000 VND/piece ($2)

These are prices specifically in a tourist cafe, even more like a restaurant. And in a local cafe somewhere in a village near Nha Trang, they can be significantly lower, while in a restaurant with ambiance and live music, for example, they can be even higher. But at least here everything is very fresh, and you can try all sorts of "sea creatures" that you can't find at home at all. Usually, everything served here is caught in the morning, and by evening it is still alive swimming in the restaurant's aquariums.

Daily meals for tourists

• Simple breakfast at the hotel (scrambled eggs, toast, fruit + drink of choice) – from 100,000 VND ($4 USD)
• Simple breakfast at a guesthouse or cafe outside the hotel – from 60,000 VND ($2.4)
• Chicken rice dish at a tourist cafe – from 80,000 VND ($3.2 USD)
• Chicken rice dish at a non-tourist cafe near the beach – from 50,000 VND ($2)
• Chicken rice dish at a non-tourist cafe in the city center – from 30,000 VND ($1.5)
• Drinks (cola, sprite, etc.) – from 15,000 VND per 0.33L ($0.6)
• Local beer – from 20,000 VND per 0.33L ($0.8)

Thus, a simple lunch or dinner at an inexpensive tourist cafe with drinks will cost from 130,000 VND ($5), while at a non-tourist cafe the same can be had for 50,000 VND ($2).

You can eat like this in Nha Trang for 60,000 VND

Where to eat very cheaply in Nha Trang

If you need to save money, you can choose cafes not for tourists but places where locals eat. In them, the same dishes as in tourist cafes cost half as much. Of course, in terms of presentation and cleanliness, they are far inferior to tourist ones; they even have menus in Vietnamese, and sometimes there is no menu at all because they only prepare one or two dishes. Sitting in them can also be very uncomfortable because the plastic tables are very low. And we fully understand that not every vacationer will agree to sit in them due to sanitary concerns and inability to communicate. But during our trips, we most often eat cheaply precisely in such establishments for locals, and we don't experience any particular difficulties.

And in such a place in the center you can eat for 30,000 VND

Inexpensive local cafes should be sought not on main streets or along the promenade, but in small alleys and away from the promenade and beach. For example, we ate daily at a local cafe on Durong Luong Dinch Cua street, excellent chicken rice for 30,000 VND, but this place is almost four kilometers from the promenade, so it made sense to go there to eat only by rented motorbike. If you don't want to go that far, you can find many inexpensive establishments not far from the tourist area on streets near Somoy market (Cho Xom Moi market on the map).

Finally, for ultra-budget meals, you can buy groceries, semi-finished products, or ready-made dishes at large supermarkets and convenience stores like WinMart. You can cook a lot even with a simple immersion heater, and you can also check out