Rice is the staple diet of Vietnam. It is often said that all their three meals in a day consists of "rice and something else." If rice is not eaten then anything else eaten is not a meal but a snack. Vietnamese cuisine was influenced by several centuries of foreign rule, starting with the Chinese for over 1000 years from 111 BC followed by the Mongol invasions of Vietnam in the 10th century AD, when the Vietnamese national dish the "phở" (rice noodle soup) was concocted. This was followed by the Cambodian influence when Indian dishes made inroads into their cuisine and they learnt to blend spices with their dishes. Then the French brought their culinary specialties (particularly, salads and sautéing). In a dining table, in Vietnamese houses, rice is the main dish that is placed at the centre with other dishes arranged around it. The breakfast usually starts with a noodle soup, a rice gruel- the national dish "pho" – or it could be a "rice cake wrapped in a banana leaf", lunch is normally with rice vermicelli with something else (grilled meat or sea food) and dinner is also generally a repeat of the lunch dishes with rice as the central dish.