Banh Trang Trang Bang - Trang Bang Girdle Cake

Up to 22nd highway from Tay Ninh, 4-km from Saigon, that is Trang Bang town, the country of special food: fresh rice paper in fog and soup cake. You can find both of them anywhere, but nowhere make them better than Trang Bang because it is make from special local rice.    They roasted flour into cake, a little thick. The specialty is that it is roasted at 4-5 hour, then bring to dry under fog until it is soft, they put it in a sealed bag. We can eat anytime without water dripping it is still flanked and soft. Trang Bang people use this cake to eat with shrimp, meat, salad, coriander, gill, blit, and drong. In the Tet holidays, they can use with roasted salty meat, egg and sour mustard. The flavor of the cake with shrimp, meat, sauce, herb, chili, condiment make you never forget.   Flour for soup cake of Trang Bang is made of rice flour, not other flour. The fiber's size is larger than noodles. We can cook with pork, alery and carrot. In the bowl, we put in some meat, garlic, shallot, condiment and fish sauce. It is very cool to eat and drink this soup, and also flavor. Over hundred years, this dish is in Trang Bang and famous so far.

Loc Du village and its cooks, who make the best cakes, were featured on National Geographic and American public broadcaster PBS last year.

Nguyen Thi Dut, who has been making banh trang phoi suong ‒ which, despite its name, is a kind of rice paper ‒ for 30 years, says: “It takes time and careful effort to make this special cake. The process includes several steps of steeping and grinding rice, adding salt to the powder and coating before finally drying the cakes under the sun and leaving them in the dew to soften.”

Banh trang Trang Bang is made from high-quality white rice, and is thicker than any other rice paper made around the country.

Despite being very dry, it is soft enough to be rolled with shrimp, meat, salad, coriander, herbs, chili and dill.

The flavor of the rice paper, together with the stuffing inside, makes for a delicious treat.

It is usually dipped in fish or soy sauce.

Though famous internationally, the art of making banh trang phoi suong might well be dying out since a family earns very little by making it despite the hard work involved.

To make 1,000 cakes, a 10-member family has to work from dawn to late into the night but still earns just VND300,000.

Phan Van Tro, a village official, says: “Most of the families that have made the cakes for the last 30-50 years are living in old, ramshackled houses. None of them has become rich.”

“We feel sad to see the young generation take up other jobs since they realize it has just cultural value and cannot support them,” he says.

But Trang Bang still has over 360 families making banh trang phoi suong.

Crab Spring Rolls (Nem cua bể)

If you fall in love with “nem rán” (Vietnamese spring rolls), nem cua bể, is bound not to let you down for the first try. Known as a specialty of Hai Phong, a beautiful coastal province, nem cua be seems not only to satisfy your taste but also bring you a little sunshine, a little sea breeze and even a little hardship of coastal locals. With the same cooking method as “nem ran”, nem cua be, however, distinguishes itself by its materials.

The main ingredients include ground crab meat, ground crab tile, lean pork, egg white, kohlrabi, carrot, ear mushrooms, bean sprout, rice paper and vermicelli. First, mix most ingredients together, apart from crab meat and egg white; add pepper, fish sauce, and then combine all things to make a sticky paste for stuffing. While other Vietnamese rolls are of tube shape, nem cua be is wrapped into square shape; thus, the wrapping process entitles special rice paper, leathery and soft plus a lot of culinary skills. Additionally, a little beer sprayed on rice papers is a secret for soft wrappers. Next, drop spring rolls into boiled oil, and wait until they turns golden brown and particularly appetizing.

This dish is served with rice vermicelli, lettuce, chopped cucumber, and a sour spicy sweet sauce. Minced carrot and kohlrabi tenderized by salty water, soaked into vinegar, also are eaten with nem cua be. Crab meat flavor is so special, sweet, fragrant but not too greasy. Savoring the dish gradually, you are certain to feel that the name nem cua bể is step by step embedded in your mind, gastronomists.

“Bun goi da” in Soc Trang

“Bun goi da” is a special noodle soup which is one of the most appreciated by visitors to Soc Trang Province.

The strange dish is originated in My Xuyen Town, Soc Trang Province. Leaving the city of Soc Trang some 5 km to My Xuyen Town, you can see a board "bun goi da" suspended before the small stall. While waiting for the dilicious dish moved out, you can view the cool green trees, smelling the fragrance of delicious dishes.

The best “bun goi da” is served at a small and shady stall in a quiet street at old Bai Xau, a site which used to be buoyant port serving the 6 Southern provinces. The shop-owner Trinh Thi Nu, is a retired school teacher in Can Tho City. She takes a very good care to ensure the best quality of the dish which requires a number of ingredients including rice noodles, pork, prawns, soybean paste, sliced red chilli and some herbs. Having put these things into a decoratively presented bowl, a flavoured hot broth, the most important thing to decide the taste of the dish, is added to the mixture.

“Bun goi da” is even more appealing with some fresh vegetables. It has been one of the favourite dishes for both locals and visitors in Soc Trang Province. Each bowl is a mere 12,000 to 15,000 VND. For many years, “bun goi da” have made the journey to Ninh Kieu District, Can Tho City, help to improve people’s living standard. Moreover, “bun goi da” is also served in Hoang Cung Restaurant of Saigon - Can Tho Hotel. Although the price is 20,000 to 25,000 VND for a bowl of “bun goi da”, the luxurious seat will help you delight in watching the street and the bowl of “bun goi da” is much more delicious.

Not only the favourite for many visitors, “bun goi da” is one of traditional dishes in Soc Trang Province. Once enjoying and you can feel the typical fragrance of the dish.

Snake wine in Vietnam

What is it? Bottles of "medicinal" rice wine with dead cobras preserved inside. You got a problem with that? Sometimes you'll see a pickled gecko or sea horse instead of the standard coiled reptile. One container I found was packed with bees.

Where can you buy it, and how much? Available nearly everywhere in Vietnam, snake wine is often made by villagers filling up leftover brandy or Perrier bottles. The jug I bought at the Hanoi airport contained three lizards and cost 335,000 dong, or almost $21. (Okay, I admit, this tempting item cost slightly more than my souvenir price ceiling. But I couldn't resist.)

Why would you want it? Scary for drinking, great for display. The snakes are preserved in action poses; the wine is as pink as a nice rosé. "That," someone told me, "is because of all the blood in there."

Reminds you of Vietnam because: In a country known for old-world superstitions, this is the perfect elixir. "Makes man strong!" said my guide, Tuan, when I asked why you would drink this. But when I downed a glass, there was no Viagra effect. I felt sleepy, not strong. The taste was mysteriously bland, like licking envelope flaps or stamps.

Downside: Might leak in your suitcase. Also, the bottle I bought listed "ethanol" as its main ingredient

Banh Phu The- Vietnamese Conjugal Cakes

Stories that when King Ly Anh Tong went to war, the wife of the husband's love him to the kitchen manually making cakes for her husband. King find delicious food, to think of a couple named cake is Phu The cake(husband and wife cake).

Phu The cake pack in the phrynium, not garish colors, restrained in style but take off cake bringing white porcelain disk that will enjoy to make astonished. The black sesame as a suspension of the gold shell cakes throughout, the delicious cake circle, square shape with coconut leaves as the square of the circle of Yin and Yang philosophy

This is reflected in the form of bread made of the box is based in two parts: in the box, also called sound box - small, low case and the cake outside the box, also called positive list, larger a little box up on the sound, making the cover. In addition, positive-negative philosophy also shows quite clearly how the cake.

To create a Phu The cake, people settle thin powder on campus, located on the top, emtank remaining flour onto the show as cherish, protection as conjugal affection. Not the case, Phu The cake also include it in the philosophy the team recreate a fine last year's color wheel: white powder by filtration and coconut rice, yellow of gardenia use for skin cake and green bean fine grinding of kernel cake, black of seseam, green leaves and red of bamboo string .

It is the harmony between people with land, with heaven, the harmony between the people, between the husband and wife.

The meaning of harmony Yin and Yang with delicious taste sweeter make that cake mate also requires many wonder. Flour used as a cake is made from sticky rice milling, and then get to the filter, the pressure to drain and then dried. When processing, it is not using water mixed with food color water that use water of gardenia dedicated knead flour to keep bread with gold colors throughout nature.

The processing kernel of cake take care. We use green beans ripe steam it, then add white sugar, coconut rice, lotus seeds and the five tastes . To add to the delicious cake, the processing of any hillock green papaya, soaked alum and minced with flour and bread to more brittle for cake.

When you should enjoy the Phu The cake, addition of sticky plastic, brittle of papaya, the rich green beans also have more fat in the coconut rice, the fragrant lotus seeds , and the sweetness of sand white sugar... all right together create a very own taste of Phu The cake, has once tasted will not forget, feedback will remember, remember forever, such as emotional mate sustainable sweeter.

Today, many pre- wedding and wedding cake still choose Phu The cake as offering the meaning of Yin and Yang of it. Instead of coconut leaves used as a cake box as before, it is replaced by the glazed paper, forced by color ribbon.

Fresh air between pleased joyful wedding day, sweeter flavors, delicious cake and the meaning of "square circle" heaven and earth as harmony, one hundred year durable forever that gifts are meaningful that Phu The cake gives bride and bridegroom in the most important of life's

Vietnamese tea

...is what you often here when walking along Hanoi streets, near a lamp post, under the shade of a tree, or next to a door where there is a low table with glass pots containing different kinds of candies, roasted ground nuts, and sugar coated cakes. This is a complete description of a make-shift tea shop, which is a very popular part of Vietnamese street life.

The owner skillfully lifts the cap of the tea cozy, takes out the tea pot, and then pours the hot tea into a small cup. The owner then hands the cup of steaming tea to the customer. Unlike northerners, who prefer hot steamy tea, people in the south would like to add ice cubes to their tea cups/glasses due to weather difference.

Tea drinking - an indispensable habit.

Vietnamese people have a nice habit of drinking tea. They drink it everywhere and at any time: at home, at workplaces, even in tea shops on their way to work, or at formal meetings, weddings or funerals. They also place it on altars as an offering to their ancestors on worshipping occasions. Whenever the locals feel thirsty, they are likely to look for this drink, in both summer and winter. A cup of iced tea in a hot day in summer not only refreshes your mind but also detoxicate your body. On the contrary, in winter, a sip of hot tea makes you feel warm inside and better able to cope with the outside cold temperatures.
Yet, tea drinking is not a recent trend in Viet Nam but attached to an ancient history as follows;

Tea drinking - from history to daily life...

Viet Nam is one of the largest and oldest tea-producing countries in the world. The Vietnamese have been growing tea for over 2,000 years. As early as in the 11th century, tea was used as a symbol to convey the essence of Buddhism. During the period of the Tran Dynasty from the 13th to early 15th century, tea assumed a philosophical value for the Vietnamese. In the 15th century, the Vietnamese polymath Nguyen Trai (1380-1442) lived as a hermit, renouncing the outside world for a life of "tea, poetry and the moon".
While tea has a special philosophical value for scholars and a long tradition in Vietnamese history, it has its own place today in the life of ordinary people living both in the cities and in the countryside. In the past, peasants could not afford expensive tea, so they grew tea on their own. Nowadays, tea is used to bind people together, for example, the peasant often invites his neighbor around for a chat over a cup of tea. They drink tea initially to thank the host for his hospitality, then throughout several tea sips, they open  heart more, to share their feelings, to speak about the family, the company and finally to feel the nature savor of the cup of tea.

Besides a normal thirst-quenching beverage, tea is also considered a delicate and meaningful one. In the past, it used to be the leverage for poets’ inspiration. Up to now, the habit of leisure tea-drinking has helped refresh and polish the drinkers’ minds. Moreover, a person's character can be assessed by his or her tea drinking ways. Vietnamese people consider those who drink concentrated tea to be finely-mannered; and those who can pour tea into bowls arranged in a circle using a coconut scoop without spilling a drop will certainly enjoy the admiration of their tea-drinking peers.

Kinds of tea

Viet Nam has grown many and various types of tea such as che Tuyet, che Moc cau, che man, che chi … Each one is combined with a particular kind of flower: che man with chrysanthemum; che bup with hoa soi flowers; high quality che man and che bup with lotus, narcissus or jasmine. Some connoisseurs go so far as to row out to the middle of a pond to place small amounts of tea inside lotus buds in order to perfume it. An example is cum tea, grown by the Tay ethnic minority. Cum tea plants are allowed to grow until the buds are mature, then they are picked, and roasted in a pan until they are dry and the buds begin to curl up. The tea is then wrapped up in palm leaves to keep it fragrant.

The Vietnamese like to mix tea with flowers to make it more aromatic. Tea with lotus is very precious for Vietnamese people. This kind of tea was formerly reserved to the Kings. According to the predecessors, when the lotus blossoms in the afternoon, they put a sachet of tea in the pistil and then, they tighten it with the sheets of lotus. In the next morning, they take dew remained on the sheets and in mixture with the sachet of tea in the pistil. After having poured into the cup, the soft and fresh odor of lotus dominates the whole room.
The tea culture has sticked to the life and the heart of Vietnamese people for generations. And when they drink tea at a small mouthful, the tea savor makes them more off-hand and closer to one another. This has formed the culture of the vicinity and the affection between neighbors.

Sugar-cane juice - Great for summer

Sugar-cane juice  is a type of drink commonly found in Vietnam as a refreshing drink during the hot Vietnamese climate.

In the hot weather like Vietnam, people know sugar-cane juice as a natural beverage that is delicious and cheap. Therefore, sugar-cane juice is so popular in Vietnam and is available at most small street stalls, often sold alongside other popular beverages. The juice is served from distinctive metal carts with a crank-powered sugar cane stalk crushers that release the juice.

There used to be a vendor that would make freshly squeezed sugar-cane juice. Previously, sugar-cane juice was sold in small plastic bags filled with ice and tied at the open end with an elastic band around a straw. Buyers could then suck the drink out through the straw. There has been movement to selling sugar cane-juice in white foam cups and it’s got a slight lime taste to it as commonly seen in Vietnam today.

Moreover, at the present, there is a system of 20 high quality sugar-cane juice stores named Fruit Shake has  been occurred in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. After March 2007, There appears a lot of super-clear sugar-cane juice stores  with price from 7000VND-8000VND (less 0.5 USD). Sugar-cane juice in Fruit Shake with many flavors becomes a high-class beverage in Vietnam.

Now, you can feel free to enjoy a glass of sugar-cane juice (considered the second best drink in the world after the orange juice) and you do not have to worry whether it meet the standard of food safety or not.