The Rice noodles.The Bamboo shoot and the Duck!

This is not a title of the popular Vietnamese movie "blah blah.blah...and the Duck!" (*). This's a famous dish with rice noodles and bamboo shoot cooked with duck! We simply call "bún măng vịt"!
One of our national symbols is Lotus, but by some how I prefer Bamboo than Lotus. I always have special feeling to this tree, when seeing its color, shape and its strength in the windy days!
That's special feeling in me like the confidence, the proudness...China, Japan has a lot of bamboos. Taller. Stronger (!?). So maybe our highly ranking people don't like the idea to vote bamboo as another national symbol !
Anyway not about the symbol today but about our fabulous dish "bún-rice noodles-măng-bamboo shoot-vịt-duck"!

            Rice noodles with bamboo shot and duck! 

             Different from other noodles, bún măng vịt should be topped by Vietnamese mint (rau răm)!

How we have this bowl of bún măng vịt...it started from week ago, when I and my friend's family went to Trị An for second time...just to kill a boring weekend in the city, to get a fresh air near to the lake...On the way there I told them that I would love to visit the local market ...not only me but my friends wife, his mother-in-law as well! I got something for my mom and we all found very fresh bamboo shoots there! And the idea to cook "bún măng vịt" came to our mind!

              Besides bamboo shoot. the muscovy duck is a good choice to cook this dish! 

How to select a good bamboo shoot, I would love to follow the advise from my friend's wife: buy the bigger and the shorter! There is many good things with bamboo, that I love! From a simple bamboo salad with pork meat, sesame...served with rice cracker to a famous dried bamboo named "măng lưỡi lợn" (literally means bamboo pig's tongue) that we stew with pork knuckle for an official meal during our traditional New Year by Lunar calendar!

According to Northern Vietnam tradition, the New year official meal should have at least 6 dishes: giò, nem, ninh, mọc, bóng, nấm! And the third one (ninh) is the stew dish: pork knuckle with bamboo!
Bún măng vịt - not only bamboo but duck is also important! It should be a Muscovy duck (vịt xiêm) so the meat is more tender and doesn't have an usual thick fat layer under the skin that many of us always try to avoid these days!

I like the combination of bamboo shoot, duck meat and flavorful Vietnamese mint, the ginger fish sauce, the taste of the soup and the feeling to chewy the tender, tasty bamboo shoot in my mouth! Squeeze some lime juice, add some fresh chili and dip the duck meat to ginger fish sauce ...everything can make me feel heavenly good in the hot summer days!


------------------------------------------------------------
(*) The famous Vietnamese drama film with the original title "Rebelled hot boy, the story of Cười, the Prostitute and the Duck" or English version "Lost in Paradise" directed by Vũ Ngọc Đãng! I didn't see the film but heard it's OK!