The light broth infused by the essence of its ingredients. The soft, pearly white rice noodle. A slice of a perfectly, sometimes precooked, beef. The aromas of the herbs. Vietnamese take great pride in this rice noodle dish.
And when they travel to other countries, they bring it with them. Pho restaurant is now a common thing around the globe, yet still attracts quite a number of gourmets. Banh mi Source: Luxury Travel Vietnam. Nothing reflects the nature of a cuisine better than its street food. If not, then why would Gordon Ramsay — a world-renowned chef awarded with 16 Michelin stars, willing to travel all the way to the far south of this small Southeast Asia country to get a taste and how to make a bowl of noodle on a tiny boat?
Because street food is directly related to common people, who play a major role in the formation of a culture. And with pho as a symbol of Vietnamese cuisine in general, there is also banh mi which is the most outstanding representative of Vietnamese street food. Proving this is as easy as pie. The author can be a famous connoisseur or just a traveler. All they have in common is their recognition of banh mi as Vietnamese number 1 street food.
Banh mi is a phenomenon everywhere it reaches. And in Vietnam, all it takes is a minute walk from your hotel to the nearest alley to get a bite of this global food trend.
Right in its birthplace, there are already so many different kinds, from pork skin banh mi in the south, to fish stick banh mi in the middle region, … Every banh mi maker has their own recipe, making a list of hundreds of variations that can only be found in Vietnam.
Banh mi has followed Vietnamese footsteps to travel the globe, building famous brand such as Banh Mi Saigon in New York, Banh Mi Boys in Toronto, Banh Mi Ba in Prague, … Though you can even make your own banh mi at home, it will get nowhere near to taste as good as one from its home country. Nem, a kind of spring rolls Source: Luxury Travel Vietnam.
You can either eat it as a quick, delicious meal to satisfy your rumbling tummy or enjoy as a fancy delicacy. Maybe This is probably because of the combination of colors of spring rolls. Just take a bite, feel the chewiness of those rice papers, the juiciness of the pork and the sweetness of the shrimps, dipped in savory sauce with a hint of spice, the freshness of raw vegetables, all come together to create a symphony of flavors. Spring roll Source: Luxury Travel Vietnam. Spring rolls without the presence of its dipping sauce would only half as good.
The savory fish sauce deepens the flavor of the vegetables and fillings. From spring rolls, you can sense the balance of elements from ancient philosophy. Should one flavor outpowers one another or become absent from the dish, the balance would be destroyed, leaving nothing but unsatisfied gastronomers. It varies depending on the climate and geography of different regions, with each version comes with different fillings.
Everyone can even select their own preferred fillings. Therefore, within the same meal, sharing the same name but every roll has its distinguished flavors, or even having different dipping sauces. This dish possesses every distinctive feature of Vietnamese cuisine. The existence of the Red River Delta Civilization in the North of Vietnam dates back pretty far, all the way back to around the 2 nd century B. C, bringing along an exquisite culinary culture.
Instead, because of their special food palate, their dishes generally have a mild flavor, with a light touch of acerbity, but the colors are extremely vibrant. This harmony is the foundation of the delicacy within Northern cuisine. Being rather reserved, Northern dishes adamantly follow the recipes of their predecessors, as they value traditions and customs, and they are convinced that the recipes are the best, because of the experience accumulate throughout generations.
Bun cha Source: Luxury Travel Vietnam. As every family has their own recipe, hundreds of variations are brought about. Moving down the map is the Central region, or the Middle region, where spicy is a distinction of its dishes. Due to these conditions, the good people there have adopted a habit of eating sparingly, in small bowls and dishes. Central region inhabitants have a taste for spiciness and savoriness.
Their dishes are eye-catching presented, with the main colors being red and dark brown. What special about the culinary culture here is the harmonization between two styles: imperial food and street food. As a result, dishes in this region are carefully prepared, cooked with complex techniques and possess fancy aesthetic.
While the imperial cuisine is undeniably sophisticated, street food is rather frugal to compare with, yet it is more or less as incredible. This co-existence and parallel development have given Central cuisine its diversity. Bun bo Hue, mi Quang, cao lau, and hundreds of variety of banh such as banh dap, banh beo, … are dishes that have fully represented the culinary culture of the Central region.
With perfect geographical conditions, food of the south not only retains special characteristics of other ethnic groups such as Champa, Chinese but also many other countries. In addition, it clearly shows the influence of the French during their colonization in the past, with the perfect example being Banh mi.
Southern dishes are generally sweet, juicy with the use of sugar, coconut juice and other exotic ingredients and spices from Mother Nature. Moreover, with abundant natural resources and their open-minded personality has created diversity in their cuisine.
From unusual ingredients to lesser-known cooking techniques, … form trademark dishes of the South. From sauces such as snakeskin gourami sauce, three-striped crab sauce, … to out-of-this-world dishes such as fried field-mouse soaked in coconut juice, stir-fried large flying fox marinate with bean curd cream, coconut worm, date palm worm, hay-grilled naked snakeheads, ….
Vietnam is home to more than 54 ethnic minorities, each of which possesses its own unique traditions and customs. Consequently, this leads to various different culinary culture. Though they lack the diversity in ingredients due to living in remote areas such as mountains, deep forest, …. It would be wrong to underestimate their cooking techniques. Take, for example, the five-colored sticky rice. Colors used to dye this dish is found in local flora: white from the glutinous rice, red from gac fruit, green from pineapple or raspberry leaf, purple from com den or sau leaf, … Smoked buffalo is another example: buffalo meat must be marinated with a complex concoction of various spices: jungle pepper, diced chili, special wine, cape yellowwood seeds, … then hanged and smoked day after day for two long months.
Many other dishes such as pa pinh top, black banh chung, grilled piglet with Vietnamese curry leaf … To conclude, they all reflect complex and unconventional cooking methods, taking part in diversifying Vietnamese cuisine.
As you can see at this point, Vietnamese cuisine is among the most amazing. There are facts that might still come to most travelers as a shock, and the following is just to name some specifics:.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, no doubt. Vietnamese have the same idea. It provides energy for you to make through the day, thus, Vietnamese rarely skips breakfast. Foreign travelers are especially impressed with how Vietnamese have their first meal of the day in moderation and how nutritious it is. Scarcely do travelers find Vietnamese have cereal, salad or sweet food for breakfast.
Both the French and Southern Chinese influence on Vietnamese cuisine shows in the tendency towards clearer soups and sauces. For example, the Vietnamese signature dish Pho is made with a meaty, rich clear beef broth. In these clear soups, the simple tastes of the principal ingredients is showcased. You can taste every element distinctly, from the cilantro to the lemongrass to the long-simmered beef bones and the fish sauce.
This is different to Thai cuisine, which often strikes a balance between featuring the main ingredients and emphasizing the flavour of the broth or the sauce. Kelly Dunning is a Canadian freelance travel writer. She lives a nomadic lifestyle with no fixed address — working from the road since with her partner Lee, a web-designer from England. They have traveled to over 50 countries and they offer travel tips, stories, and inspiration on Global-Goose.
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