Posted by admin on July 12, 2011 under Food and Drinks, Vietnam Destinations | 
Ly Son Island is now well known for its juicy, nutritious Ca nuc (round scads) which are now available and brought in by boats in abundance to the mainland.
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| Steamed round scads (Photo: Thanh Nien) |
Ever since the Sa Ky Port-Ly Son high-speed waterway route opened for travel, the 18 mile distance has been cut short from three hours to only fifty minutes. Ly Son round scads are therefore available fresh as soon as they arrive on the mainland.
However, enjoying the round scads at the island soon after they are caught from the sea is even more enjoyable.
People of Ly Son usually process the round scads in two ways. One is by steaming them and serving with girdle cake. The other is by slowly simmering the fish on fire and eating it with hot rice.
After procuring the fresh fish straight from the boat, the round scads are washed thoroughly in a pan filled with fresh water, a scare commodity on the island during summer months, even when there is an abundance of round scads.
The fish gills and guts are removed to keep the silvery color of the fish scales to make it attractive in appearance when served.
Round scads are placed on a grill which is rubbed with a little oil to prevent the fish from sticking. The fish is then covered with a layer of spring onions before putting in a pot to steam.
About 20 minutes later, when a delicious aroma pervades the kitchen, the fish is taken out of the pot.
Each round scad is then rolled in a girdle cake with some slices of star fruit and served with fish sauce which is mixed with fragrant Ly Son garlic. The girdle cakes must be soft and pliable so as not to break while rolling with the fish.
The simmered dish is made by carefully marinating the fish before cooking it on a low fire until it dries out completely.
(Source: SGGP)
Posted by admin on July 7, 2011 under Food and Drinks |
In hot summer days after a nice swim in the sea it is customary to enjoy delicious seafood, such as fish, shrimp, crabs and clams in Quang Nam Province.
Boiled clams with salt and pepper is a delightful dish - Photo: Kim Loan
Simply cooked as they are, clam dishes require a skillful combination of hot spices like lemongrass, peppers, ginger or lemon leaves in order to be free from their fish smell, yet preserve their sweet taste.
After being caught, clams need to be soaked in rice water for two hours, cleanly washed and then cooked. If soaked too long, they will die.
Quang Nam has a coastline of 125 km with plenty of nice beaches such as Ha My (Dien Ban district), Cua Dai (Hoi An town), Binh Minh (Thang Binh district), Tam Thanh (Tam Ky town) and Bai Rang (Nui Thanh district).
The most popular and simple clam dish at these beaches is clams steamed with coconut milk. Visitors favor this dish for its delicious smell as well as its sweet taste.
Eating boiled clams with salt and pepper also brings the same charming flavor. The clam-boiled water can then be used for cooking a sapid pot of clam gruel, which combines the fat and sweet taste of clams with hot spices.
Nowadays, more sophisticated clam dishes can be found in luxurious restaurants. However, only when relaxing at the beach, breathing in the cool sea air can diners fully enjoy the wonderful taste of small clams.
(Source: SGTO)
Posted by admin on March 31, 2011 under Food and Drinks, Vietnam Culture, Vietnam Travel Stories |
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Visitors enjoy cần wine at a Muong residence
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The northern mountainous region of Vietnam has garnered praise aplenty for its sometimes rugged, and sometimes lush natural beauty. Among the other attractions it has is a none-too-closely guarded secret – homemade wines – for it is in the hospitable nature of the region’s residents to welcome visitors to imbibe the best spirits in the house. This week, we present a sampling of some of the flavors from the slopes.
Dien Bien’s chít wine
Visitors to Dien Bien Province will have the chance to try one of the most famous wines in the northwestern region, chít wine. The wine is made from a type of milk-white chít worm (taken from chít trees growing on the region’s limestone mountains) and pure distilled rice wine. The brew is believed to promote good health, beautiful skin for women and increased sexual potency for men.
According to locals, the chít worm season normally lasts from April to July, when the worms eat the tree stems and grow up to 5 centimeters long.
These worms are put together with other restoratives such as medlar seeds, ashweed, dried jujube and lotus seeds in pure distilled rice liquor with an alcoholic concentration of 40 to 45 percent. The brewing process often takes about one year.
Chít wine is a gold-colored liquid which has a cool and a slightly bitter taste. It is usually served along with local delicacies like chicken baked in a clay pot, fried frogs, hotpot and thắng cố, a type of soup made with the viscera of horse, cow or buffalo.
Hoa Binh’s cần wine
Drinking rượu cần or cần wine (wine drunk out of a jar with pipes) is very popular among many minority groups in Vietnam, from the northern region down to the Central Highlands. However, the Muong people in Hoa Binh Province are said to produce one of the best cần wines in the country.
A jar of tasty cần wine is meticulously prepared. The necessary ingredients, including yeast and glutinous rice, are carefully prepared. Yeast is made from cinnamon leaves mixed with rice powder. Glutinous rice is soaked and then mixed with rice and bran. The rice is then steamed, cooled down and mixed with yeast powder before being placed in ceramic jars and covered carefully. After three or four days, the covers of the jars are partially opened and water poured up to its neck. Long bamboo straws are plugged into jars’ mouth and the enjoyment begins.
Cần wine is usually drunk in groups. To welcome guests, a Muong family will stretch out a mat in the middle of the room, place a jar of wine on it and invite guests to sit around it. After exchanging greetings, the host invites everyone to drink the wine. It is not unusual that this drinking session is accompanied by singing and dancing, not to mention boisterous conversation.
Lao Cai’s Sán Lùng wine
Sán Lùng is a commune of Bat Xat District in the northern mountainous province of Lao Cai. And its name is now synonymous with one of the best wines the people here are producing. Unlike other peoples in Vietnam who make wine from mature rice, the Mong people in Sán Lùng soak paddy in warm water until it sprouts then use the sprouts to make the special wine. The sprouts are steamed, cooled and mixed with yeast. The mixture is put in a jar for five to six days until it starts exuding a sweet smell.
Sán Lùng wine has a special taste that cannot be produced in other places. People attribute this taste to the water source here. The wine looks clear and somewhat green, and has a sweet smell and nutty taste. Locals will tell you that it goes best with baked buffalo or baked fish.
Reported by Mai Linh – Thanhnien News
Collected by Vietnam hotel
Posted by admin on March 28, 2011 under Food and Drinks, Vietnam Travel Tips |
With its rich culinary heritage and an exciting street food scene, Hanoi is a wonderful city for many delicious dishes.
They say that the way to man’s heart is through his stomach; cook him a good meal and he’s putty in your hands. I’d argue that somewhat similarly, residents of Hanoi are happiest at mealtimes, and many visitors fall in love with the city because of its incredible food. It’s a place that gets to you through the stomach!
For foreign guests and residents, if you want to understand Hanoi and its people, I’d argue that you have to understand the cuisine and enjoy discovering new foods. If you love food, you will love Hanoi; understand how people eat, and you’ll understand their nature.
Vietnamese people love to share a meal. Solitude is equated to loneliness. Anyone dining alone will be told “an mot minh dau tuc”, literally, you’ll hurt yourself by eating alone. But for the solo diners amongst you, fear not, you can always slip into the busiest restaurant and enjoy the buzz of jostling with your fellow diners over a bowl of pho or a plate of sticky rice. You’re alone, yes, but alone in a crowd.
The first rule for discovering Vietnamese food in Hanoi, is make sure you follow the crowds; the busier the restaurant, the better it probably is. Certain family run establishments are considered the place to eat certain foods. At peak hours, it should be hard to find a space at Hanoi’s best restaurants.
The second rule is that the best restaurants serve one basic staple – it’s often a one-dish-joint serving a ‘gia truyen’-specialty, a recipe passed on from one generation to the next.
Many of these dishes were originally created elsewhere. As a thousand-year old capital, people from the provinces have always been drawn to Hanoi, so the city has absorbed recipes and cooking techniques from all over the country.
One can loosely define Hanoian cuisine – generally the capital’s residents don’t care for sweet or spicy savoury food; there is a preference for fresh ingredients and subtle, pure flavours, and the fish sauce is served less diluted.
Certain dishes are year-round staples, such as pho (the nation’s signature noodle dish served with chicken or beef), bun cha (noodles served with slivers and patties of charcoal-grilled pork) or banh cuon (rice crepes filled with pork and woodear mushrooms). Other dishes are seasonal, perhaps, tied in with a festival, for example, banh chung (glutinous rice cakes stuffed with mung bean paste and pork and wrapped in a green banana leaf) is mostly served at Lunar New Year. During Mid-Autumn Festival (Tet Trung Thu), you will see mooncakes, sweet and savoury cakes filled with various things, including bean paste, salted egg, or preserved fruits and meats.
Other foods are associated with the lunar calendar. Eating dog meat – served in seven different ways at dog restaurants – at the end of the lunar month is considered a good way to wash away any lingering bad luck that might have been affecting you. The dog restaurants on Au Co road are often heaving with customers, mostly men, as this protein-rich meat is also considered to be “good for a man”.
On the full moon of the first and the seventh lunar months, Hanoians often cook xoi vo (steamed sticky rice with split peas) and che duong (green bean and sugar compote). When worshipping ancestors, boiled chicken with lemon leaves is a must. For a wedding, you cannot be without banh com (Sticky rice cakes with green bean paste) or xu xe/ phu the (Husband and wife sticky rice cakes).
Hanoi people love seafood, too. The city’s favourite fish dish is probably cha ca, which is famously served by a gruff family at Cha ca La Vong restaurant on Cha ca street in the Old Quarter. It is featured in every guidebook ever written about Hanoi. However, cha ca is now available in other restaurants and locals in the know complain that the quality of food at Cha ca La Vong has waned.
Bun oc (noodles and snails), banh tom (prawn fritters), ca kho to (caramelised fish cooked and served in a claypot), and mien luon or mien cua (glass noodles served with eel or crab meat) are also much loved in Hanoi. You can find seafood restaurants serving all kinds of shellfish – crabs, lobsters, oysters, clams and scallops, which are often simply steamed or grilled and served with a mixture of lime, pepper, salt and an optional diced chili for dipping.
New dishes are constantly surfacing, too. In recent years pho cuon, sheets of banh pho, wrapped around either beef or shrimp, has suddenly emerged as one of the city’s most popular meals. However, the ultimate communal dish is perhaps lau (hotpot), always popular in wintertime. Friends and families gather around a steaming pot filled with a vegetable or meaty broth and toss in fish, meat, eggs, vegetables, squid, or prawns – just about anything at all!
It’s hard to write about food in Hanoi without feeling like you’re only scratching the surface. As the city celebrates 1,000 years since its birth, you could probably name a 1,000 dishes to honour the capital’s millennium.
The city’s culinary heritage has been noticeably influenced by a few old foes over the years. Some people argue that pho is the product of both French and Chinese influences. From the former came the notion of using beef stock and beef in the style of pot-au-feu; from the latter perhaps the noodles and the use of star anise and ginger. Using beef would have been quite extravagant 100 years ago, so one theory is that the Vietnamese only started putting beef in their noodle soup to please the French colonists.
The French certainly left their fingerprints in the Vietnamese pantry and beverage department – you can find banh my (crusty baguette) served with pâté. The words for butter (bo, pronounced ‘buh’), coffee (ca phe), beer (bia) and cheese (pho mat) are clearly derived from the French language.
Today, many French chefs are inspired by Vietnam’s indigenous ingredients and recipes. Restaurants such as La Badiane, Green Tangerine and La Verticale are creating a vibrant amalgam of French haute cuisine infused with local flavours and ingredients. These restaurants are something of a sub-genre but they are also encouraging some high-end travelers to venture further and discover more about Vietnam’s culinary arts.
As Vietnam’s reputation grows, more and more people are discovering the country’s incredible cuisine, much of which is exceedingly healthy. Visitors to Hanoi are enthusiastically signing up for cookery classes, in the hope of learning how to create a local dish or two. Rather than buying a conical hat or a silk ao dai as a souvenir that will be stashed away and never worn back home, tourists can now pick up some noodles and fish sauce in the local Asian market and whip up a delicious bowl of bun cha, they learned to make on their holiday.
That way they’ll remember Hanoi as they first experienced it – right in the stomach.
Timeout/VOVNews
Posted by admin on February 22, 2011 under Food and Drinks, Vietnam Travel Tips |
Grilled Cu Chi beef is among the delicacies of Ho Chi Minh City
Saigon’s famed picnic destination has been through a lot, but it’s still the best place for barbecued beef
Cu Chi was once known as the ideal picnic spot for Ho Chi Minh City office workers. Rich fruit orchards and fecund farms offered a wonderful gastronomical day trip for stressed out city folk.
During the war, the people of Cu Chi were harried by one of the most vicious campaigns of the entire war.
The Americans never could beat the tunnel-dwelling freedom fighters. But they did ruin Cu Chi as a dining destination, for a time.
Today, it’s back.
Families looking to survive after the victory invested in cattle and it has paid off, big time.
Now Cu Chi is the city’s prime source for cheap and tasty veal and beef.
Barbeque joints, catering to HCMC tourists now dot the district. Places like Bo To (young beef) Xuan Dao Restaurant serve the following local delicacies:
Boiled beef
Though it may sound bland, boiled beef makes for an ideal appetizer at the Xuan Dao. This isn’t your English grandmother’s boiled meat. This one is cooked in pure flavor.
| Consider a trip to the following restaurants:
Bo To Xuan Dao
Nguyen Giao Street, Highway 22, Cu Chi Town, Cu Chi District
Bo To Cu Chi
38B Dinh Tien Hoang Street, District 1
Bay Quyt
9B Le Quy Don Street, Phu Nhuan District |
Makers of the dish start by creating a base broth flavored with boiled bones, black cardamom, ginger and onion.
The bubbling liquid is served with tender beef slices and diners are invited to boil them to perfection.
The meat is then rolled with fresh herbs and rice paper and dipped into a special sauce.
Fried beef skin with fresh turmeric
In Vietnam, beef skin fried with fresh turmeric is often prescribed for those suffering from a weak stomach. Whether or not this prescription works for you, the appetizer makes for a delicious accompaniment to a cold beer.
Thinly sliced beef is fried up with battered bits of turmeric, onion, celery, roasted peanut and chili.
The crisp meat slices are wrapped up in vermicelli, cucumber, bean sprouts and herbs and dunked into a flavored fish sauce. Voila!
Grilled beef
One of the joys of dining at a place like Bo To Xuan Dao is the pleasure of grilling up your own meat.
A whole cut of raw beef is placed on the table accompanied by a knife and cutting board. After cutting the meat to their liking, customers are invited to marinate the strips in a bowl of fish sauce, chili, garlic and lemon juice.
Traditionally, the meat is cut thin and thrown on the fire for a couple of minutes. To each his own.
Porridge with beef shin
Perhaps the most renowned Cu Chi District is porridge with beef shin.
The sinewy meat is partially stir-fried in flavorful spices and then simmered in coconut juice. Finally, the leg is boiled in bone broth.
Once tender and tasty, the beef is served with a rice porridge flavored with green bean, white bean, taro, cassava, green papaya and turmeric.
All of the items combine to create wonderful textures and a host of competing flavors.
The delicacy is so popular that it has spread throughout HCMC. Customers who can’t make it to Cu Chi can enjoy the delicacy in downtown Saigon.
Reported by Nguyet Anh (Thanh nien news)
Posted by admin on December 25, 2010 under Food and Drinks, Vietnam Travel Tips |
Hoi An boasts some of the best food I’ve eaten on my trip thus far. For whatever reason, this little town claims a few delectable dishes as unique to their town alone. The first is White Rose, a simple but outstanding meat and shrimp dumpling steamed in a rice dough that somewhat resembles a white rose.
White Rose dumplings
Second is Cao Lau, a noodle and beef soup with bean sprouts and fresh herbs mixed in when it arrives at the table. The noodles are only available in Hoi An because they are made from a particular water source that gives them their unique texture. The noodles are a bit doughy but the dish is truly delectable because the meat is marinated and tastes a bit of cinnamon. And the fresh herbs are amazing…mint and basil, I believe.
Cao Lau served with rice crackers.
Finally, crispy rice pancakes, known as “Banh Xeo”, which consist of a fried pancake, kind of like a rice crepe, with bean sprouts and shrimp inside. The dish is served with all sorts of fresh herbs which you put inside the pancake and then wrap in a thin piece of rice paper. It’s topped off by dipping in an amazing spicy peanut sauce. To die for.
Crispy rice pancake with fresh herbs, ready to be rolled
A rolled pancake, ready for dipping!
Hoi An also makes a delightful fried won ton, showing the Chinese influence on this old port town. I for one am glad, because they are darn good.
Okay, they look a bit funky, but are basically fried yumminess wrapped around a meat center with veggies and sauce on top
During this trip I’ve also grown a slight obsession for squid, which I eat nearly every day. I’ve tried just about every type of squid you could imagine and my favorite thus far came from a food stand in Hoi An called “Mr. Hung.” I ordered squid grilled in a banana leaf with onions, garlic and lemongrass. It was so tender and delicious that I ate the entire thing. The ladies cooking the food made fun of me and said, mostly through sign language, that if I ate squid like that everyday I’d get fat!!
My squid is somewhere in that banana leaf, which is in a wire basket being grilled on an open flame….heaven.
The final dish…
Both Betsy and I agreed that Morning Glory was the best restaurant we visited in Hoi An. The food was simple, fresh and absolutely amazing. The proprietress of the restaurant cooks family food the way her mother taught her. I want to live at her house! She said that fresh herbs are such a strong cultural influence that many Vietnamese will start to feel homesick if they cannot have fresh herbs everyday. It’s true that most food comes with a plate of herbs which makes a huge difference in the quality of the dish.
Betsy ordered this interesting dish at Morning Glory…a shrimp coconut curry actually cooked in a young coconut. The sauce was slightly sweet and unbelievably flavorable.
The Vietnamese do not eat sweet breakfasts like we do in the states. One staple of their diet is “congee” which is a rice porridge with either fish, chicken or pork. It’s savory and quite good! The coffee here is also fantastic, albeit a little strong. It will seriously put hair on your chest so they dilute it with sweetened condensed milk! And it comes with a little coffee filter perched on the cup. Seriously delicious.
Congee for breakfast with a cup of coffee in the background. I love the little coffee filter so it can brew right at the table!
Another item that is everywhere in Vietnam is “pho,” pronounced “fer.” This is a simple noodle soup, traditionally with beef but you can get it with chicken or veggies, that is once again served with a pile of bean sprouts and fresh herbs you mix in at the table. Fantastic.
“Pho”, aka noodle soup, with a plate of fresh herbs and some fresh coconut water. You can’t get much healthier than that!
Finally, I tried a traditional Vietnamese dessert called “Che” which is basically a sweet green bean soup. It’s actually made with mung beans and is only slightly sweet but quite good! No wonder the Vietnamese are so slender! They even eat veggies for dessert!!
Eating my sweet green bean soup, served cold in a glass
I reluctantly leave the food of Vietnam behind…and will seek out Vietnamese restaurants in the states as soon as I return!
Posted by admin on December 24, 2010 under Food and Drinks, Vietnam Travel Info |
VietNamNet Bridge – Goi ca trich (herring salad) served at Tieu Ngu Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City. The dish can be found on the menu of every seaside shack and luxury restaurants in Phu Quoc island.
Nestled in the Gulf of Thailand, just off the southern coast of Cambodia, Phu Quoc in Kien Giang Province is often described as Vietnam’s “pearl island.”
Indeed, Phu Quoc is prized for its unspoiled beaches and stunning natural vistas. Every year, hordes of international tourists flock to explore its red clay back roads and pristine beaches.
Few of them know, however, that one of Vietnam’s most tranquil spots is also home to some of its most pungent flavors.
Phu Quoc is a major producer of nuoc mam (fish sauce), but it also turns out some deliciously fishy dishes.
Herring salad
It would be a pity to visit the island without tasting goi ca trich (herring salad).
The residents of Phu Quoc fish all year long. So it’s no surprise that a kind of Vietnamese ceviche serves as the island staple.
Many families toss fresh-caught herring with lemon juice, chopped chilies and thinly sliced onions for lunch or dinner.
Herring is notorious for its fishiness. But the freshness of Phu Quoc’s terrestrial ingredients balances the pungent fish flavors wonderfully.
Locals wrap the “salad” in the island’s thick and pliant rice paper. Fresh forest vegetables and shredded coconut are also rolled into the mix.
Once rolled, these delicious items are typically dipped into the local fish sauce – which is made entirely from anchovies. Nuoc mam Phu Quoc is prized for its “cockroach wing color,” mild flavor and year-long fermentation process, which begins on the boat, the moment the fish are caught.
Goi ca trich is typically served with a dipping bowl of finely-ground chili, garlic and roasted peanuts floating in a splash of the island’s fish sauce.
While the prospect of eating semi-raw herring may daunt some diners, the combination of flavors here should put you at ease. When properly rolled up with all the fixings, the herring tastes crisp and sweet and the vegetables add a pleasant crunch. The fresh coconut meat is usually the greasiest part of the roll!
Goi ca trich can be found on the menu of every seaside shack and luxury restaurant in Phu Quoc.
Thanks to a boom in tourism, the dish has made its way to Ho Chi Minh City.
Herring junkies in the southern hub should consider paying a visit to Tieu Ngu Restaurant, which features 30 herring dishes on its menu.
How do you wash down fish salad?
Sim (rose myrtle fruit) may offer the best compliment to the salty spice of goi ca trich.
The wine is derived from ripe myrtle fruits, which grow wild in Phu Quoc’s primitive forests. The fruits have a guava-like flavor, and are chock full of sugar and seeds.
Sim wine is typically made by grinding the fruits with sugar, and letting them ferment until the liquid turns a lush pink.
Because of its sweetness and low alcohol content, sim wine is typically a ladies’ drink. But when eating fermented fishy things, it is suitable for everyone.
Customers can enjoy authentic herring salad at the following restaurants:
• In Phu Quoc (Kien Giang Province)
VUON TAO
Cua Lap Hamlet, Duong To Commune
SANG TUOI
Number 3, 30 Thang 4 Street, Duong Dong Town
TRUNG DUONG
Quarter 1, 30 Thang 4 Street, Duong Dong Town
• In Ho Chi Minh City:
TIEU NGU
780 Su Van Hanh Street, Ward 12, District 10
Source: Thanh Nien
Posted by admin on December 7, 2010 under Food and Drinks, Vietnam Travel Info |
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 Northwest Vietnam has some of the country’s most striking vistas. The rugged terrain is home to jagged mountains, rich tropical forests, ethnic minorities, and an abundance of wildlife. |
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| The region is also famous for the hearty, rustic cuisine of the people of the Northern Highlands. The unique, pungent flavors of the mountains are slowly finding their way to popular restaurants in cities. Today, the highlands’ take on roasted fish, com lam Tay Bac (Northwest rice cooked in bamboo tube) and ga den H’mong (H’mong black chicken) can be enjoyed in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi restaurants.
Roasted Highland carp
Carp abounds in the rivers and lakes of the northwestern highlands.
In the mountains, humongous bighead carp are often roasted in the traditional style. The fish is cleaned and rubbed with salt. The body is then stuffed with chopped garlic, onion, coriander and mac khen – the region’s trademark condiment.
Mac khen, also known as ‘jungle pepper,’ is a seed known for its naturally salty, piquant flavor. The seed has been used for centuries, particularly by Thai tribesmen as a natural alternative to salt.
Traditionally, the fish is speared with a skewer and roasted over hot coals to release its strong flavors combined with the herbs.
Com lam Tay Bac
Com lam Tay Bac is sticky rice cooked in a bamboo tube.
The dish originated in the forests, when tribesmen had to make long journeys through the woods.
Even today, locals soak rice with a little glutinous rice, and stuff the mix into a cloth bag to take with them on long walks through the forest.
In the woods, they fill a small segment of bamboo with the soaked rice mix and cap the ends tightly with leaves. The tube is placed above fire to steam and imbue the glutinous rice with the gentle flavors and fragrance of bamboo.
Ga den H’mong
Ga den H’mong or “black H’mong chicken” is derived from a special sort of bird. The chicken, known as a “silkie” in the West thanks to its wispy white tufts of feathers, has been celebrated as a remarkable dining experience in kitchens across the world.
According to a 2007 New York Times article, it has even become something of a delicacy in the Big Apple.
The small, lean bird is traditionally stewed whole in medicinal leaves and comes out entirely black, from claws to beak. The bird’s tender meat is known for its rich, gamy flavor.
Its traditional preparation is known to imbue the bird with invigorating health properties.
An urban take on northwest flavors
With the rustic cuisine of the highlands coming to restaurants in HCMC and Hanoi, urban diners can enjoy the heartiest flavors of the mountains, and be transported to a different place altogether. The following restaurants feature authentic decorations and staff costumes, which give diners the feeling of being in an exotic locale.
For a genuine highlands experience, have your meals with ruou can (traditional mountain wine). The beverage is prepared by fermenting sticky rice or corn and a combination of medicinal herbs and roots in earthen jars. Ruou can is sipped through long slender straws of bamboo tubes.
** Discover the new mountainous flavors and culture at the following restaurants:
Hoa Ban
101/45 Nguyen Huu Tho Street, Nha Be District, HCMC
Tel: (08) 6 299 1068
Khen La
17B Mai Thi Luu Street, District 1, HCMC
Tel: (08) 3 824 2432
Bac Ha
104/74 Nguyen Chi Thanh Street, Hanoi
Tel: (04) 2 240 9839 |
Posted by admin on October 30, 2010 under Food and Drinks |
Whether it’s drunk plain, combined with herbs, or even with snakes and other small animals, the Vietnamese have turned rice wine into the focal point of every party
By Adam Bray
Mot! Hai! Ba! Do! (One! Two! Three! Drink!), shout my friends and I as we lean forward to sip sweet, golden rice wine in unison through long bamboo straws in Phan Thiet City. Between rounds we tear off bits of salted, dried squid dipped in a blend of sour tamarind and soy sauce; unwrap pickled pork in banana leaf; and slurp the semi-formed fetus from hard boiled quail eggs. These and other essential drinking snacks are appropriately called moi, or “fish bait.”
When I go out drinking with other men (it’s not yet acceptable for Vietnamese girls to drink alcohol), or di nhau (go on a drinking session), it’s essential that we all drink equal portions. Unlike in the north, we pass around a communal glass here in the south. Despite the potency (40% ABV), I can’t stop anxiously recalling the high rates of hepatitis and TB here in Binh thuan Province.
There are three major kinds of rice wine in Vietnam: the conventional distilled variety known as ruou gao (literally “rice alcohol”), wine brewed in large ceramic jars called ruou can (party wine), and distilled alcohol infused with plants and animals, known as ruou thuoc (medicine wine).
Ruou gao or ruou de (plain rice alcohol)
Distilled rice wine is known as ruou gao in the north and ruou de in the south. Most rice wine is made in small home distilleries using either normal or sticky rice. The white rice is first cooked and mashed, then water and yeast is added before the mixture is left to ferment. The resulting broth is eventually distilled to produce alcohol.
Consumption of Vietnamese rice wine has serious risks. Toxins leached into the alcohol from the still, or small amounts of rubbing alcohol (added intentionally to improve appearance) often cause blindness or even death.
In Lam Dong Province, traditional home distillery owners also raise hogs. The rice mash that is left over after distillation (pictured above) is happily consumed by the animals, which as a result, spend most of their time lying around intoxicated and quickly fatten-up.
Cham men drinking ruou can in Mui Ne, Binh Thuan Province, procured from their Raglai neighbors (a sister tribe residing in the mountains).
Ruou can (party wine)
Ruou can is my personal favorite, and traditionally made by Vietnam’s hilltribe minorities for special occasions like weddings and the New Year festival. Ruou can is very different from ruou gao because it is not distilled. Instead, brown or black sticky rice, herbs, tree bark, and other natural flavorings are packed into a large ceramic jar and allowed to ferment for at least couple of weeks.
Just before the party, liquid is added to the moist mixture — often coconut juice, soda water or beer — and allowed to sit for an hour or more. For extended drinking sessions, the full volume of liquid may be replenished twice. The resulting beverage, drunk through long bamboo straws, is sweet and potent with a complex flavor. The pallet spectrum includes coffee, honey, chocolate, anise, cloves and cinnamon, all depending upon the unique ingredients added by each hilltribe.
Superstition plays a part in the production of ruou thuoc. “Traditionally, a prized wine should be buried at the northeast corner of a three-way crossroads and left underground for 100 days to obtain optimum balance with nature,” says Ha Le Hung, pictured here with snake wine — a variety of ruou thuoc at the Forest Restaurant in Mui Ne, Binh Thuan Province.
Ruou thuoc (medicine wine)
“There are more than 100 kinds of ruou thuoc,” says Ha Le Hung, a local expert and owner of the Forest Restaurant in Mui Ne. “Each is prescribed for a different ailment — one for old men with back problems, another for women after childbirth, one to aid digestion or circulation and so on.” Enhanced male sexual virility is a dominant, recurring theme.
Ruou thuoc, or medicine wine, is a potent form of distilled rice alcohol infused with herbs, fruits, spices, and wild animals like snakes, geckos and seahorses. Many endangered species are poached for use in ruou thuoc, including bears for their bile, and dear for antlers, hooves and fetuses. Some herbal varieties are indeed tasty and may have health benefits derived from traditional Chinese medicine. I find others taste horrid and most certainly provide only superstition-induced placebo effects… not that I need to boost my own virility, of course.
A broad selection of ruou thuoc, with whole geckos, snakes, sea horses, deer legs, deer fetus, birds, and baby monkeys is on display at a Buon Ma Thuat, Dak Lak Province rice wine shop. Single shots can be purchased with the addition of a beating cobra heart, spleen, or topped off with a teaspoon of warm cobra blood.
Ruou Thuoc, particularly ruou ran (snake wine), is a popular souvenir item, despite being illegal to import in some countries. These souvenir bottles on display at a Saigon shop should never be consumed, as the rice alcohol is often “enhanced” with rubbing alcohol or formaldehyde.
Source: CNNgo
Posted by vietnamtravelblog on August 15, 2010 under Food and Drinks, Vietnam Travel Stories |
Ah Bia Hoi. No trip to Northern Vietnam is complete without at least a couple glasses of the stuff. Forget Saigon, 333, or any of the other local beers. Look instead for a small, street-side shop selling locally brewed versions of this light drink.
Bia Hoi means simply “fresh beer”. It’s unpasteurized beer made daily in Hanoi. It’s incredibly light for a beer, usually clocking in somewhere around 3%… compared to a Trappist Belgian it’s downright wimpy…. but out in the humid, congested streets of Hanoi a 3% beer seems just right.
And it’s cheap. Man is it cheap. Locals drink the stuff at some crazy low rate… around 1,500 Dong or maybe as high as 2,000. I think we were gouged with a foreigner tax and forced to pay around 3,000 Dong a glass. That’s right… less than 0.20 cents USD!
On our last trip to Hanoi, we all headed over for some Bia Hoi after our filling local Vietnamese meal. Each of us had about 4 glasses of the stuff (7 of us drinking as one in the group was pregnant) and our resident eggs benedict expert from the brunch group, Joe, fell in love with the glasses (the Bia Hoi was served to us in these interesting bubble glasses) bought a set of 8 glasses to take home…. I think all in all even with the purchased glasses we didn’t spend more than 8 USD.
We were at a local place for sure. The chairs and table were plastic and maybe 7 inches off the street. My chair nearly buckled as I sat down, obviously unaccustomed to such large passengers. Once seated near the locals though things slowed down. The busy streets seemed to make a bit more sense. Everyone was smiling at each other and moving at their own pace. The shop owners seemed happy we had chosen to join their little local watering hole and brought us snacks of boiled peanuts (nastier than they may sound). We politely choked them down and then immediately rinsed our mouth with another swig of Bia Hoi… maybe this was their cunning plan all along 
After my second or third Bia Hoi I noticed some locals smoking from a long wooden pipe. During our trip, I’d seen many Vietnamese workers tucked into alleyways and side streets smoking from something similar. I don’t know why I decided I had to try it, but I did… Before I knew what I was doing I was up, extra Bia Hoi in hand, and using my best charade skills to try and trade a Bia Hoi for a turn at the wooden pipe.
Turns out, Bia Hoi is a good currency for the street… that or the locals just wanted to see a foreigner cough his lungs up… which is exactly what happened. The trade was approved and I was loaded a fresh bowl of some reddish, earthy tobacco. It was definitely some form of tobacco, but had a unique flavor from anything I’ve smoked previously. The wooden pipe offers no filtration and serves basically as staging ground for a foot and a half column of smoke. My years of study in college hadn’t prepared me for this. Soon I was coughing my lungs up on the sidewalk like a home schooled freshman. Thankfully Lyan had borrowed my camera and documented the whole ordeal so I can relive it.
I sat with the guys for a bit, sharing Bia Hoi and the wooden pipe. The four Bia Hois and coughing fit had combined to give me a pleasantly light buzz. If only the Banh Mi place had been nearby it would have been perfection. That afternoon was one of the rare (these days when everything is so commercialized and packaged) travel experiences that somehow goes past tourist traps and guidebook recommendations and actually becomes a real moment of sharing culture and experience.
Normally we’d recommend a place and give you an address, but these places are all over Hanoi. Just ask your hotel or a local restaurant where the nearest Bia Hoi can be found. They’ll point you in a direction. Find a place, have a set and start drinking. Say yes to whatever else happens around you and see where things go
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