“Com hen Song Huong” is a dish served at room temperature, made with mussels and leftover rice. It is a complicated recipe that includes sweet, buttery, salty, sour, bitter and spicy flavors.
Com hen Song Huong (or Com hen in short) is the very simple and low-priced specialty of Hue, the ancient citadel of Vietnam. Accordingly, the way of serving this special kind of food is of great ancience, simplicity and deliciousness.
Com hen has a sweet-smelling flavor of rice, onion, and grease, as well as strange tastes of sweet, buttery, salty, sour, bitter, and peppery-hot. You have to arrive to Hen river-islet in the Perfume River to have the original Com hen. However, you can find out the dish on some streets in Hue City. It requires 15 different raw materials to prepare for the dish, including mussel, fried grease, watery grease, peanuts, white sesames, dry pancake, salted shredded meat, chilly sauce, banana flower, banana trunk, sour carambola, spice vegetables, peppermint, salad, etc.
Com hen is always attractive to many customers since it is tasty and, at the same time, economical to anybody.
What makes this simple kind of food popular is revealed in the great endeavor to adopt and process its main ingredient – mussel. Mussels are sea species, which must be dipped in water for a long while before being processed. Accordingly, people often say that com hen somehow expresses the strenuous work of the maker.
Where to find it? Very easy as it is popular everywhere in Hue and these days, elsewhere in Hue restaurants in Vietnam. More favorably, it is a low-priced specialy, thus you could eat it in luxurious restaurants in Hue or even in vendoring mobile shops on the streets.
“Visiting Hue could not miss Com hen, or else you have not come to Hue ever!” is the most common remark of visitors elsewhere to Hue. So, please come and enjoy it yourself!
Source: http://www.vietnam-beauty.com/
26 Jul 2009
Perfume River mussel cooked rice - Vi Da Village
Hue beef noodle – the typical culinary art of Hue!
Hue beef noodle takes its origin from the Royal Hue City of Central Vietnam. The broth is from cooking beef bones for a long period of time as well as a variety of different spices including lemongrass.
How does it taste? Well, having a bowl of Hue beef noodle, you will easily recognize that it is completely different from Pho since the former’s beef broth is much more spicy.
How to make it? Learning how to make a clear broth from bone and meat is quite a difficult task. After being selected from the market, the fresh beef will be shredded, boiled and taken out of the water to obtain a delicious clear broth. A typical version of Hue beef noodle must include pork, roast beef, pig’s blood, Vietnamese salami, Hue’s style salami, shrimp sauce and chopped lettuce.
The interesting thing is that, the amount of salt put in the beef noodle recipe varies between seasons. For example, during summer, Hue beef noodle soup is served with soy bean, mint and different kinds of lettuce while in the winter, the recipe is saltier added with lemongrass and fish.
The best Hue beef noodle comes from the street vendors who work from dawn to early morning. In Hue, when night lights are on, you can enjoy a good bowl of this noodle soup at restaurants in front of No. 84 Mai Thuc Loan Street. This hot dish represents just a few of the treasures of Hue's traditional cuisine. Clam-rice and the flour pies like beo (streamed flour cupcakes), nam (wrapped shrimp pies) and loc (tapioca and shrimp pies), for examples, are part of the ancient capital's culinary heritage.
Where to have Hue’s beef noodle in Ha Noi?
You are in Hanoi, and wondering if such a Hue’s specialty appears in Hanoi or not. Don’t worry, Hue beef noodle come up quite often in many streets of Hanoi from morning till night. It’s better to ask your hotel to recommend a place nearby or you can refer to the following reliable addresses:
No. 4 Ly Thuong Kiet Street, Hanoi
No.467 Đoi Can Street, Hanoi
No.7 Thai Phien Street, Hanoi
No.22 Phan Boi Chau Street, Hanoi
No.175 Lang Ha Street, Hanoi
No.G23 Huynh Thuc Khang Street, Hanoi
Source: http://www.vietnam-beauty.com/
1 Nov 2008
At a snail’s pace
A visit to the Mekong Delta’s biggest city wouldn’t be complete without trying oc nuong muoi tieu.
The oc buou (freshwater apple snails) are soaked in either water that has been used to wash rice or filtered water with sliced chili slices for about 30 minutes to give them a more pleasant texture. The snails are then dried in a basket for
five to 10 minutes. The next step is to grill them over red-hot coals, turning their mouths to the coals so that the shells will not break and the meat won’t burn. The coals are fanned often to maintain the heat.
When the snails begin to smell appetizing, they are taken from the grill and their covers are removed. Then a mix of lemon juice, sugar, pepper, garlic and fish sauce is poured into the shells before they are grilled for another five minutes. The spices are the most important factor in making the dish tasty and fragrant.
The grilled pepper snail tastes best when the meat is well-done and just a touch crispy.
Fresh snails are best, as the meat in pre-boiled or steamed snails is not as sweet.
The snails should be tasty enough not to require any extra dipping sauce though many do enjoy them with some extra Vietnamese coriander on top.
Sitting in a Can Tho restaurant enjoying grilled salt and pepper snails on a rainy day while listening to traditional southern music is a real treat for out-of-towners.
Song Que Restaurant grilled salt and pepper snails are known as the best in the region. According to the restaurant’s manager An Tam, Song Que was the first restaurant in Can Tho to serve the specialty.
A traditional southern music band performs every night and customers can ask to hear their favorite songs.
Song Que is located at 18/9/53B Tran Phu Street, Ninh Kieu District.
16 Sept 2008
Restaurant like home
Oc Bo has a friendly atmosphere afforded by its simple decoration and design. It also provides large tables for 10 in quiet corners.
Oc Bo serves Mekong Delta specialties such as garlic snails, seafood spring rolls, grilled fish and cuttlefish, crab curry, fish and seaweed salad.Diners can also enjoy special dishes such as sake hotpot, seafood fried rice and various kinds of cold beer.
Affordable prices and smiling waitress are other reasons to make Oc Bo a dining destination. There’s even a guitar for anyone interested in playing it.
Address: 450/1 Le Van Sy Street, Ward 14, District 3, HCMC
Prices: VND30,000-40,000 (US$1.80-2.40) a dish
Sapa street grills
The 100 meter stretch of grills is on Ham Rong Street, in the shadow of an old stone church, near the bustling Western backpackers’ quarter.The stalls open at dusk. Here, locals traditionally sold the charcoal grilled dishes in small baskets, but a variety of new stalls have appeared.
The dishes are spiced and prepared differently, so you can mix and match.
Aside from the common favorites such as corn, sweet potatoes, cassavas, birds and chicken, you can enjoy other dishes, from grilled sour tofu and grilled round rice cake with tiny shrimps to grilled chicken eggs and grilled violet sugarcane.
Heo cap nach (carried-under-the-armpit pig) is the most famous item on the menu.
The meaning of the name is a little strange but easily explained: ethnic people raise their pigs freerange and carry them to market under their arm to ensure the pig’s meat is sweet and tender.
Although the majority of customers are tourists, the grill street continues to be a meeting place for locals because of its friendly and cozy atmosphere, delicious and diverse foods, and reasonable prices, VND3,000-10,000 (US$0.20-0.60) per dish.
Sellers accept both Vietnamese and American money.
Sapa has luxury restaurants that serve foreign and Vietnamese cuisines.
Many tourists, however, prefer the dimly lit stalls, as a way, perhaps, to reveal the hidden corners of their mind when in a foreign land.
Restaurant introduces pho-ndamentals
Pho Hoa Hoi Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City serves up 40 kinds of regional pho recipes from all over Vietnam.
Owner Thien Trang had the idea of opening up the pho-catessen in the bustling southern metro after over-hearing a group of kids having an enthusiastic conversation about pho and its regional differences in the north, south and Mekong Delta.Twenty-something Trang spent six months researching the diverse varieties of pho and perfecting their flavors.
Now her shop serves 40 kinds of the dish including dry pho, pho rolled with shrimp paste, stir-fried pho and Nha Trang-style pig’s leg pho.
Hoa Hoi means anise, which is one of the most important ingredients in pho broth, says Trang, who many locals know as “pho girl”.
The establishment also serves anise juice, a popular delicacy from the northern highlands.
Trang hopes to begin opening franchises in the next two years.
Address: 21A Bui Thi Xuan St., Dist. 1, HCMC.
Price: VND29,000-VND39,000 (US$1.8-2.4) per bowl of pho.
8 Sept 2008
What do you know about banh khot?
Possibly no one knows when banh khot (a somewhat small Vietnamese pancake) appeared in Vietnam’s cuisine and people are sure if the popular and cheap dish is the specialty of the southern coastal province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau.However, many Vietnamese know that the neighbors of HCMC, especially Vung Tau City, are well-known for having many stalls selling delicious banh khot.
A banh khot stallholder on Ba Cu Street in Vung Tau City, who has been named Ms. Muoi by guests, said that the general method to make banh khot is the same at every stall, but each one focuses on different details to create specific characters to attract more guests.
Rice, cold rice after being cooked or rice crust at the bottom of the pot, shrimp, ground dried shrimp, nuoc mam (fish sauce) and vegetables are the main ingredients of the dish.
Muoi said that first she mills the mix of rice and cold rice after being cooked into flour before pouring the flour into a mould that has nearly 50 small holes in the shape of a half circle.
After that, she adds dried shrimp and fresh shrimp to the holes. Diners can eat the dish after the mix’s skin becomes yellow. “Rolling the banh khot with vegetables and using fish sauce is the feasible way to enjoy the banh khot,” she said, adding that a banh khot dish contains 8-10 pieces.
The owner of the Banh Khot Goc Vu Sua stall on Nguyen Truong To Street, which is said to serve the most delicious banh khot dishes in the city, has a different specific detail to attract diners.
“In the flour mix, besides rice, we also use rice crust from the bottom of the pot so that the cake becomes crisper,” the owner said. “Moreover, for the vegetable, we use many cabbages. The combination the slight bitterness of the cabbage, banh khot’s crispness and the fish sauce’s saltiness is wonderful for diners.”
The stall is now some 21 years old, the same age as the owner’s daughter, who is being trained to inherit her mother’s stall.
Available for breakfast or light meals
Because of the popularity of the dish in small pieces, the banh khot can be eaten for breakfast. “Especially on weekends, when people are off work, the mornings are peak times at our stall with many diners coming here to enjoy banh khot for breakfast,” the Banh Khot Cay Vu Sua’s owner said.
When traveling to other banh khot stalls from Banh Khot Co Hai on Ky Dong Street to Banh Khot Ms. Muoi on Ba Cu Street or others on Hoang Hoa Tham Street, they are found to be just as busy.
In the afternoon when school or work is finished, friends can drop in at a stall to enjoy banh khot pieces as a light meal.
The Banh Khot Rach Dua Stall on Ba Muoi Thang Tu Street, about 5 km from the city’s downtown, can be an interesting option because it only serves banh khot in the afternoon. Although it is a good distance from downtown, many residents and tourists visit there to dine because of its quality.
At night, especially on weekends, is also a favorite time to enjoy banh khot. During the trip around the Vung Tau City, tourists can visit a banh khot stall to enjoy the dish while relaxing in the quiet atmosphere and cool wind from the sea.
It is said that besides seafood, which is already famous there, tourists can enjoy a banh khot tour when visiting Vung Tau to understand more about the specialty.
A banh khot dish includes 8-10 small pieces. Prices start from VND10,000-15,000 a dish.
Some banh khot stalls in Vung Tau:
Banh khot Goc Vu Sua: 14 Nguyen Truong To Street, Vung Tau City, tel: (064) 523 465.
Banh khot Ba Hai: 42 Tran Dong Street, Ward 3, Vung Tau City.
Banh khot Ba Muoi: Ba Cu Street, Ward 4, Vung Tau City.
Season for vegetarian food enjoyment
Vegetarian food, which is made from a variety of vegetables and fruit, is now a favorite not only amongst Saigonese but around the world.Nowadays it is easy for vegetarians to buy their favorite foods at supermarkets, stores and especially at Vietnamese vegetarian restaurants in HCMC.
Let's take a tour around the city and enjoy some of the healthy dishes which are made entirely with vegetables.
Foreigners who are used to vegetarian diets can find familiar items at Viet Chay Restaurant, which has over 400 dishes of vegetarian food prepared in various ways. Viet Chay is a peaceful space with unique architecture made of wood and glass and gentle melodies of Zen music, suitable for anyone seeking purity and tranquility.
Diners can order Viet Chay's Bat Tran course or choose from Viet Chay's noodle soup, Russian Salad, Spaghetti Bolognese, Indian Curry, Japanese Sushi, fried rice with American style, Schezuan style stir-fried tofu and many other dishes for VND10,000-40,000 during the week from 7 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. at 339 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia Street in Ward 7 in HCMC's District 3.
The restaurant's slogan is "Nourish compassion" meaning that eating vegetarian food not only keeps us healthy, but also avoids killing animals, protects the environment, and sows the seeds of love and mercy.
Vegetarian food is also served at Hoa Dang Restaurant at 38 Huynh Khuong Ninh in Da Kao Ward in HCMC's District 1. The restaurant is decorated with yellow lanterns and small bamboos, suffused in the harmonious melodies of symphonies to create a cozy space for customers.
The food here is prepared from natural vegetables without sodium glutamate. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are served here, with specially dishes Hoa Dang vegetable chicken salad, Thailand papaya salad, Germany soup, Zakouskies cake, pizza cheese, tomato sauce, French rice, Hoa Dang hot pot and barbecue macaroni with seafood available from VND5,000 to VND170,000. Fruit juice is served without sugar as a complement to the natural, healthy foods.
In addition to these two western-styled restaurants, Van Canh restaurant is now serving over 100 dishes for buffet parties during this month to mark the occasion of the Buddhist Ullambana Day Ceremony. The restaurant's typical dishes include fish paste hot pot, vegetable chicken and shrimp curry, and its lotus specialties, such as lotus salad. Buffets are priced between VND100,000 and VND140,000 per ticket, with one free ticket with the purchase often tickets.
Van Canh's fare is suitable not only for vegetarians but also for people on a diet and anyone following a strict regimen. "In America, I eat a lot of meat which has a lot fat. Vegetarian food here is very good, both for the health and the economy as it is made from vegetables," Dale E. Washington, president of Tan Hung Joint Stock Co. told the Daily when he had lunch at Van Canh Restaurant. The tables are decorated with views of Vietnamese green fields with rice plants and the ambiance is enhanced lyrical melodies of Vietnamese songs. Diners will feel part of the natural environment. Van Canh is located at 73-75 Pham Ngu Lao Street in HCMC's District 1.
A Dong Tuu Lau at 22-23 Hai Thuong Lan Ong Street in HCMC's District 5 is famous for Chinese-styled vegetarian food called Cho Lon or China town. The vegetarian dishes are mainly served to a Chi-nese clientele. Thus, the restaurant is decorated in red, a color that is considered lucky, especially red lanterns, which create the special character of the restaurant.
The buffet is prepared for the convenience of Chinese businessmen and priced at VND90,000 per ticket for adults and VND45,000 per ticket for children. The 65 choices include sauteed abalone, seafood spring rolls, salt-fried shrimp, and shrimp curry. Diners will be served free beverages of lemon juice, ginseng tea or daisy tea. A discount of 10% is offered Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and one free ticket is given when buying 10 tickets.
Some additional vegetarian restaurants are listed below:
* Buffet program at the Broccoli of the Can Gio Resort on August 14 with around 14 dishes for vegetarians. A ticket costs VND87,000 per adult, and VND65,000 per child. Buy 10 tickets get one free.
Address: 30/4 beach, Long Hoa Ward, Can Gio District, HCMC. Tel: 08 874 33 35
* A Singaporean style buffet program at the Dong Khanh with 30 dishes. A ticket costs VND139,000 per adult, and VND99,000 per child. Buy 10 tickets get one free. The program runs until September 1.
Address: 02 Tran Hung Dao B Street, District 5, HCMC. Tel: 08 923 64 04.
* Buffet program for vegetarians with 60 Vietnamese dishes at the Tan Cang Tourist Park on August 15 to 17. A ticket costs VND120,000 per adult, and VND70,000 per child.
Address: A 100 Ung Van Khiem Street, Binh Thanh District, HCMC. Tel: 08 5128 775.
* A free buffet party of delicious and healthy vegetarian food will be served for everyone in the society from August 11 to 17, 2008 at Suoi Tien Amusement Park on the occasion of the Buddhist Ullambana Day Ceremony.
Address: Km 18, Hanoi Highway, Thu Duc District, HCMC.
10 Aug 2008
Some typical Vietnamese cuisines
Like so much else in Vietnam, the cuisine reflects long years of cultural exchange with China, Cambodia and, more recently, FranceAs elsewhere in Southeast Asia, rice is the main staple, though bread--especially baguettes introduced by the French-is ubiquitous and usually very good. Dishes are generally served at the same time rather than by course, and eaten with long-grain rice, nuoc mam or fish sauce, and a wide range of fresh herbs and vegetables. Meals are generally eaten with chopsticks or, if European food, with knife and fork.
Some of the more popular Vietnamese dishes include Cha gio (known as nem Saigon in the north): small--spring rolls' of minced pork, prawn, crabmeat, framushrooms and vegetables wrapped in thin rice paper and then deep fried. Cha gio is rolled in a lettuce leaf with fresh mint and other herbs, then dipped in a sweet sauce. Chao tom is a northern delicacy: Ground up shrimp is baked on a stick of sugar cane, then eaten with lettuce, cucumber, coriander (cilantro) and mint, and dipped in fish sauce.
Another dish eaten in a similar fashion is cuon diep, or shrimp, noodles, mint, coriander and pork wrapped in lettuce leaves. Hue, a city associated with Buddhism, is famous for its vegetarian cuisine and for its banh khoai, or 'Hue pancake'. A batter of rice flour and corn is fried with egg to make a pancake, then wrapped around pork or shrimp, onion, bean sprouts and mushrooms. Another Hue speciality is bun bo, or fried beef and noodles served with coriander, onion, garlic, cucumber, chilli peppers and tomato paste.
Soups are popular, and generally served with almost every meal. Mien ga is a noodle soup, most popular in the south, blending chicken, coriander, fish sauce and scallions. Hu tieu is chicken, beef, pork and shrimp served with a broth over rice noodles mixed with crabmeat, peanuts, onion and garlic. Canh chua, a sour soup served with shrimp or fish head, is a frablend of tomato, pineapple, star fruit, bean sprouts, fried onion, bamboo shoots, coriander and cinnamon. Perhaps the best known of all Vietnamese soup dishes, often eaten for breakfast or as a late night snack, is pho, a broth of rice noodles topped with beef or chicken, fresh herbs and onion. Egg yolk is often added, as may be lime juice, chilli peppers or vinegar. Pho is generally served with quay-a fried piece of flour dough.
6 Aug 2008
Bring home the unique flavours of Vietnam
Cha Ca La Vong, the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam, serves one dish. It's so well known that customers wait in line in a narrow street.
Customers have to climb narrow, uneven stairs to a small room with a low ceiling and sit cafeteria-style on folding chairs pulled up to Formica tables.
The payoff is a delicious fish, marinated and fried in oil with fresh greens. Patrons help themselves to the fish in a pan sizzling on a tabletop burner. Each serving comes with rice noodles and sauce -- a beer is de rigueur. (Cha Ca means fried fish.)
Now cookbook author Nancie McDermott shares a facsimile of this famous dish in her new cookbook, Quick & Easy Vietnamese: 75 Everyday Recipes (Chronicle Books, $19.95 soft cover, 168 pages). The book follows her splendid Quick & Easy Thai and several other excellent books on Southeast Asian cooking.
McDermott, a onetime Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand, has the knack for capturing vibrant flavors with simple, easy-to-follow directions. And she does it with a reasonable ingredient list.
We tried McDermott's version of the Cha Ca La Vong fish. We used red snapper instead of the called-for catfish or tilapia. The result was delicious -- and close to what our taste buds recall. Next time, I will double the marinade (with fish sauce, ginger, turmeric) to have more sauce for the finished dish.
Cooks who savor the foods of Vietnam can thank McDermott for making this wonderful cuisine accessible. Although Vietnam is part of Southeast Asia, its geography and political history make its cuisine unique.
As McDermott writes, "noodles rule" in Vietnam the Vietnamese eat them morning, noon and night. Anyone who's struggled to cook rice noodles will appreciate McDermott's easy method: Simply soak the thin rice noodles in warm water for at least 15 minutes, drain and put in boiling water, immediately remove from heat and let stand for 10 minutes, drain well and set aside until needed.
McDermott organizes her recipes into 10 food categories, such as salads and vegetables, soups, beef and pork. She includes 11 suggested menus, a list of mail-order sources for ingredients and a glossary.
What do you know about banh khot?
Possibly no one knows when banh khot (a somewhat small Vietnamese pancake) appeared in Vietnam’s cuisine and people are sure if the popular and cheap dish is the specialty of the southern coastal province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau.
A banh khot stallholder on Ba Cu Street in Vung Tau City, who has been named Ms. Muoi by guests, said that the general method to make banh khot is the same at every stall, but each one focuses on different details to create specific characters to attract more guests.
Rice, cold rice after being cooked or rice crust at the bottom of the pot, shrimp, ground dried shrimp, nuoc mam (fish sauce) and vegetables are the main ingredients of the dish.
Muoi said that first she mills the mix of rice and cold rice after being cooked into flour before pouring the flour into a mould that has nearly 50 small holes in the shape of a half circle.
After that, she adds dried shrimp and fresh shrimp to the holes. Diners can eat the dish after the mix’s skin becomes yellow. “Rolling the banh khot with vegetables and using fish sauce is the feasible way to enjoy the banh khot,” she said, adding that a banh khot dish contains 8-10 pieces.
The owner of the Banh Khot Goc Vu Sua stall on Nguyen Truong To Street, which is said to serve the most delicious banh khot dishes in the city, has a different specific detail to attract diners.
“In the flour mix, besides rice, we also use rice crust from the bottom of the pot so that the cake becomes crisper,” the owner said. “Moreover, for the vegetable, we use many cabbages. The combination the slight bitterness of the cabbage, banh khot’s crispness and the fish sauce’s saltiness is wonderful for diners.”
The stall is now some 21 years old, the same age as the owner’s daughter, who is being trained to inherit her mother’s stall.
Available for breakfast or light meals
Because of the popularity of the dish in small pieces, the banh khot can be eaten for breakfast. “Especially on weekends, when people are off work, the mornings are peak times at our stall with many diners coming here to enjoy banh khot for breakfast,” the Banh Khot Cay Vu Sua’s owner said.
When traveling to other banh khot stalls from Banh Khot Co Hai on Ky Dong Street to Banh Khot Ms. Muoi on Ba Cu Street or others on Hoang Hoa Tham Street, they are found to be just as busy.
In the afternoon when school or work is finished, friends can drop in at a stall to enjoy banh khot pieces as a light meal.
The Banh Khot Rach Dua Stall on Ba Muoi Thang Tu Street, about 5 km from the city’s downtown, can be an interesting option because it only serves banh khot in the afternoon. Although it is a good distance from downtown, many residents and tourists visit there to dine because of its quality.
At night, especially on weekends, is also a favorite time to enjoy banh khot. During the trip around the Vung Tau City, tourists can visit a banh khot stall to enjoy the dish while relaxing in the quiet atmosphere and cool wind from the sea.
It is said that besides seafood, which is already famous there, tourists can enjoy a banh khot tour when visiting Vung Tau to understand more about the specialty.
A banh khot dish includes 8-10 small pieces. Prices start from VND10,000-15,000 a dish.
Some banh khot stalls in Vung Tau:
Banh khot Goc Vu Sua: 14 Nguyen Truong To Street, Vung Tau City, tel: (064) 523 465.
Banh khot Ba Hai: 42 Tran Dong Street, Ward 3, Vung Tau City.
Banh khot Ba Muoi: Ba Cu Street, Ward 4, Vung Tau City.