Seaside flavor

Coming to the port city of Hai Phong, you can easily be seduced by the street food. All have a rich flavor like the sun, the wind and even… the people here.

If you can only choose one dish, say: Rice noodle soup with crab.

On the culinary map, when mentioning crab noodles, it must be Hai Phong, like Hanoi pho, Hue beef noodles or Saigon noodles. A bowl of crab noodles is presented attractively with dark red noodles, brown crab fat, bright red tomatoes, dark green betel leaf sausage, golden brown meatballs, golden fried shallots, green green onions... The chef must be very careful to serve diners a bowl of crab noodles that is smooth, rich, with the characteristic aroma of crab, just-boiled noodles and soft, sweet betel leaf sausage. The crab noodle soup at Ba Cu's shop on Cau Dat Street is very famous, but hidden in the nooks and crannies of Hang Kenh Market, Lua Hong Alley (Ton Duc Thang)... there are also crab noodle soup shops worth stopping by. Square spring rolls - the taste of Hai Phong
Perhaps because of its proximity to the sea, the people of this land have created square spring rolls - a delicious dish with a strong taste of the ocean. Crab spring rolls is another name for this famous dish, but the main ingredient, besides crab, must include shrimp. The best shrimp and crab are in Cat Hai. The "Phong" people always steam crab and shrimp for about 15 minutes to retain the sweetness. The shrimp and crab are then mixed with shiitake mushrooms, wood ear mushrooms, minced lean meat, chicken eggs, vermicelli, bean sprouts, and pepper. Spring rolls are wrapped into large, square pieces, then fried in a pan filled with fat or oil. Spring rolls should be eaten hot, otherwise the deliciousness will be reduced. The accompanying dipping sauce must be light but with a sour, salty, sweet, and spicy taste, and should be mixed long before eating, so that the ingredients such as fish sauce, vinegar, garlic, pepper, chili, and sugar have enough time to "blend" together. The accompanying raw vegetables must also be fresh, clean, and carefully selected. Nem cuon is certainly a delicious and sophisticated gift, from the making stage to the enjoyment. The standard finished product has a thin and crispy crust. If it is crispy but a bit hard, it is not perfect. It seems that this is the story of rice paper that connoisseurs still tell each other that they should choose the type of cake from Cheu village (Ha Nam) with a history of more than 700 years. Nem cuon is now on the menu of many restaurants in big cities, but if you have ever enjoyed nem cuon in Hai Phong, you will agree with me that the most impressive way to enjoy this dish is in Hai Phong. If you want to find a delicious nem cua restaurant, you can go to Cat Bi market, Co Dao market, Ba Cu restaurant (Cau Dat)... Red jellyfish salad - a delicious summer dish Red jellyfish, a salty gift from the sea, processed into salad has become a typical and attractive delicacy in this land. After preliminary processing, jellyfish is cut into pieces about 2 knuckles long with a bamboo knife made from bamboo shoots so that the finished product is not fishy but still retains its flavor. In Hai Phong, red jellyfish season is from about the first 4 months of summer and the fishing season ends around the end of June. Jellyfish vendors therefore only sell their goods until the end of August. Saying jellyfish salad is a summer dish also implies that in the hot weather, there is nothing better than "rewarding" cool slices of jellyfish. “If you can eat shrimp paste, you can eat red jellyfish salad”, gourmets say. However, with Hai Phong jellyfish salad, shrimp paste is not a popular dipping sauce like “bong”. Perhaps most of the people who do not know about “bong” are from the South. Bong - also known as bong vinegar or bong ruou is a popular condiment in the North. Its sour taste is naturally fermented from wine lees. The way to make bong is quite simple, cook sticky rice into sticky rice, then add yeast to ferment, add water and distill it into white wine. The remaining part of the rice wine is called hem.

People boil the rice wine first, then add in the yeast, ground galangal, sugar, cooked tomatoes and season to taste. To thicken the mixture, they need a little bit of knife powder. Finally, this dipping sauce is sprinkled with shredded coconut. A strange dipping sauce for an even more unique dish – red jellyfish salad.

Heritage Magazine