The organizers of the "Promoting Vietnamese culinary culture" festival cited the reason why traditional dishes are overshadowed by grilled skewers and fried fish ball stalls, including the weather factor.
On October 27, the Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Association provided additional information after the "Promoting Vietnamese Culinary Culture" Festival held last weekend at the Independence Palace. During the three-day festival, many tourists reported that they "could not buy traditional dishes that appeared on the culinary map", some dishes were "highly priced", the festival was "boring and only saw many stalls selling grilled skewers".
Stalls selling grilled skewers and fried fish balls attract customers at the Vietnamese food festival. Photo: Bich Phuong
Ms. Nguyen Thi Khanh, Chairwoman of the Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Association, said that grilled skewers and fried fish balls are street food and appear in the festival to serve many different customers. The festival has 90 booths registered to participate, of which only 7 booths registered to sell street food. In fact, during the 3 days of the festival, some booths registered to sell traditional dishes such as banh xeo and banh khot displayed fried fish balls and grilled meat skewers outside the booth. "Only when customers ask to buy traditional dishes do the chefs turn on the stove to prepare them," Ms. Khanh said.
The weather during the three days of the festival was also "unfavorable", hot during the day and stormy in the afternoon, which significantly affected the preparation of dishes at the booths. Organizing the festival was "pressured by timing", it had to take place on October 20 - World Chefs Day, to be meaningful, so the bad weather had to be accepted. The organizers and chefs "all wanted to bring many regional dishes to the festival" but the bad weather meant the number of typical dishes "was not as much as expected".
The festival's dining area is arranged on the lawns in the Independence Palace grounds. Photo: Bich Phuong
"Some chefs in the Central Highlands, Northwest, and Mekong Delta also want to bring their specialties to the festival, but preservation conditions do not allow it, and the flood situation affects their travel," said Ms. Khanh.
Responding to the fact that many dishes were priced high and not commensurate with their quality, a representative of the Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Association admitted that there were shortcomings in monitoring prices at the festival. In fact, there were cases where stalls sold to customers at prices higher than the prices listed with the organizers, such as registering a glass of sugarcane juice for 15,000 VND but selling it to customers for 20,000 VND.
"We acknowledge and appreciate all feedback from visitors to adjust and do better in future events," said Ms. Khanh.
Regarding the reason for choosing the Independence Palace - a historical site with an entrance fee - as the venue for the food festival, the organizers said that this location "meets the safety criteria". All gates are guarded by security forces. On the first day, some visitors who only came to visit the festival had to buy tickets, but the organizers took note of the situation and the next two days, visitors entered freely.
The three-day festival attracted about 50,000 visitors. The organizers noted that traditional food stalls such as Northern pho shops from Hanoi sold an average of 600 bowls a day. Western-style noodle soup and palm-frying cakes also attracted customers.
"However, the number of customers is not evenly distributed among the booths, some booths are empty, and some booths are not selling fast enough. The organizers will re-evaluate the booth structure and improve it for next time," Ms. Khanh shared.
Bich Phuong
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