In case you are regarding Phở is Vietnam main food, this article is about to give you a second thought. Here we listed nine symbolic dishes representing the three main regions up and down the length of the country.
Vietnamese main food (Source: Google)
Northern Vietnam
1. Khang Gai Dried Meat
Khang Gai Dried Meat is a type of cut buffalo meat, sometimes served as beef or even horse. These are firstly stored and dried out through the ascending smoke from a hot burning stove placed on the ground. Coming over the Northwestern Highlands of Vietnam, chances are you would be offered this type of exotic food when gathering around the fire. The meat comes in a pure aroma and a hot spice of chili.
Khang Gai Dried Meat (Source: Google)
2. Phở
If you are the first-time traveler to the country, then Phở is something representing so well for the citizens. However, Phở was initially brought to life by Hanoians, dwellers of the current capital. Beef is the best main toppings, yet chicken, eggs and other varieties are frequently served and easily to be spotted out on the streets of Hanoi. If you ever come over the state, do not forget to check out the city’s most iconic brands such as Phở Lý Quốc Sư, Phở Thìn, Phở Bát Đàn and so on.
Phở (Source: Google)
3. Goat Meat
It’s time to move further to the East and pay a visit to Vietnam’s ancient capital during the 10th century, in Ninh Bình. Ninh Bình is home to the magnificent Tràng An Landscape Complex, Vân Long Lagoon or The largest Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia, Bái Đính Pagoda. Over here, you can choose to have to sauté goat meat, grilled goat meat, roasted goat meat, steamed goat meat, and even goat blood soup. The savor of goat meat brings an organic and crunchy feeling. Goat meat is served along with fresh wild veggies.
Ninh Bình goat meat (Source: Google)
Central Vietnam
4. Mỳ Quảng
Welcome to Danang, the best city to settle down in Vietnam, as well as a fresh and clean municipality in the Central land. This time, Mỳ Quảng is picked to represent the city as one of Vietnam main food, with its pure broth, ivory-like and tender strands of noodles and of course, a combination of pork rinds, lettuce, shredded banana blossoms, quail eggs, shrimp and a lot more.
Mỳ Quảng (Source: Google)
5. Grilled Rice Paper
Another name to be given is “Vietnamese Pizza”, a sensational street food offered by the windy and chilling highland, Dalat. This seems to be fancied and favored by most the Vietnamese natives. Let’s see what can we have inside! Beef jerky, eggs, sausage, cheese, green onion, sweeten dried shrimps and chili sauce. Do not forget to come over Dalat to taste the crunchy, sweet, fragrant and salty of this very gastronomy.
Vietnamese pizza (Source: Google)
6. Mini Pancakes
Bánh Căn and Bánh Khọt are the two different variations of a similar cuisine, mini pancakes. This can be found widely in various coastal cities in the Southern Central coast such as Phan Thiết. The pancakes are made out of rice flour, which is then fried or grilled in a small clay pot and scattered atop with quail eggs, ground pork, shrimps and sliced green onion. This would deliver a spectacular taste when eaten along with the cooked sweet fish sauce.
Mini pancakes (Source: Google)
Southern Vietnam
7. Broken Rice
The very first section of the Southern region in the country is where you usually land in after a long flight abroad, Saigon, with its Tân Sơn Nhất National Airport. Such a young, dynamic and cosmopolitan city like Saigon seems to find it hard to get itself a long-established icon. However, not many people are genuinely aware that their Cơm Tấm, or Broken Rice, has gradually become a new sensation in replacement for Phở or Bánh Mỳ.
Cơm Tấm (Source: Google)
Cơm Tấm is frequently served with grilled chopped pork. However, today brings you to an absolutely wide range of choices such as shredded pork skin, eggs, braised pork, cutlets, and the list goes on. On top of everything, Cơm Tấm cannot go without cooked fish sauce, a pinch of pickled carrots and cucumber.
8. Mangrove Crab
This type of brackish-water crabs is known as Bá Khía is native language, which derived from the Khmer community in the Mekong Delta. Before being dined, Mangrove crabs are mixed with sugar, garlic, chili, lime juice and a bit of raw fish sauce in order to trigger the very taste in the mouth.
Ba Khía is then cut into smaller parts and seasoned for roughly 15 minutes for a proper use.
Mangrove crabs (Source: Google)
9. Fermented Paste
Last but not least, that every candidate to end our list today is another creation of the Khmer citizens, Mắm, or Fermented Paste. The main element is usually fish, yet the locals could possibly come up with other variations, and shrimp is one of which.
Fermented hotpot (Source: Google)
Mắm is first long cooked and deboned, seasoned with additives such as sugar and chili. Mắm is the best if served in a hotpot. Ground lemongrass and sometimes milk is added into the boiled hotpot for a thick and savory taste.
Obviously, those nine names above are a few selections in a huge archive of Vietnam main food. An exact number of how many gastronomy creation Vietnamese have come up with for the past few millennia is totally a blur. However, these icons represent best for each culture across the country and hence, you would be surely mind-blowing if follow our instruction in each of your visits.
Yennie Nguyen
Check out other helpful Vietnamese food guides:
- What to eat in Central Vietnam? Footsteps to the table
- Vietnamese food-related superstitions | Six faulty hindsight
- Kimmy’s Chocolate – One of the Best chocolate is Made in Vietnam
