We saw or heard of cooking schools in Hanoi, Saigon, and Hoi An. You’ll learn a bit, but a lot of them seem to be more about the show – you do a little cooking, but you watch a lot and don’t end up taking home a ton of reusable info.

There’s a woman named Miss Vy, who runs the Cargo Club in Hoi An. Her regular classes have a good reputation, though there’s still a lot of demo time and a pretty big class. We’d heard you can talk her into doing private classes, and she actually rescheduled a regular class to give two of us a morning of completely hands on cooking. We made a ton of stuff (invite friends to come help eat it after!), asked a hundred questions, and learned a ton. Do it – i can’t recommend it enough!