Signature dish from Mekong Delta!

I'm not a fan of bizarre food! But I'm always curious to see how people eat it!
As a habit, I always stop for at least few minutes next to any street vendor of all kinds of edible insects in Bangkok! Just to look!
It happened that we even made a bet with friends, who can eat scorpion, grasshopper, cockroach...will get some prizes! I did try a deep fried scorpion.

The feeling of a tasteless, disgusting thing in mouth, and especially, when the scorpion's legs stuck between the teeth and I could feel it with my tongue! I never forget!

Last week on the way back from Sóc Trăng, we decided to stop by in Cần Thơ for a quick dinner.
But it was not quick at all when we ordered a roasted vole (chuột đồng)!
Exactly, a vole roasted in clay container (chuột đồng quay lu) and it took almost one hour to roast it!

I've heard about this speciality long ago. It's a traditional and signature dish from Mekong Delta, but not many people have a chance to taste it in Sài gòn! I hope "vole" is a right word to describe the creature that we are going to have for dinner! Otherwise "mouse" or "rat" can spoil any great appetite!

Hope you will join us, like it or not.

The waitress was so nice, she kindly agreed to take us to the kitchen for some close-up shots! 

Actually I did take some photos when our vole still alive but then I decided not to post it up here! 

Many people said that animals can predict the last minutes of life...just look at their eyes! 

Anyway, very sorry for the cruel exposure!   

The vole in Mekong Delta has different names, depends on what they mostly eat?  Coconut vole ( chuột dừa - living on the coconut tree and eat only coconut!) or as we always say rice field vole (chuột đồng), living in the filed and eat only rice! We may have sugarcane, cassava or sweet potato vole!
Interesting!  

           Looks scary but that the way we do in the kitchen! 

What we tried is a special and the largest species of vole called "cống nhum"(or pig-rat) roasted in the clay container, I actually don't know why clay container ? (we call "lu" in Vietnamese, this container , as far as I know, designed to contain the water !). Is there any secret in this very Mekong delta oven that I don't know! But it's huge and looks mysterious!

       Special creative oven from Mekong Delta! Pig, chicken, duck and vole can be roasted 
                                                                                                       in this huge clay container! 

Ok, back to our table! I didn't try much as we - a group of four, ordered only one tiny vole for "testing"!
I got only a small piece! To be honest, the world "chuột" in Vietnamese is very closely associated with the city rat and it has more or less some psychological effect on me! I couldn't say how it tastes!
The other three members in our group said it's delicious and better than chicken!

Checking the menu, we find some other different dishes with vole - stir-fried in coconut sauce or grilled with lemon grass, chili and salt....If it tastes like chicken, the master chef should come up with many special recipes that if, one day, I dare to follow... that will be my day!