Hot pot with pink tilapia in a northern style!

We have so many hot pots!
Fish hot pot, fish head hot pot, goat hot pot, sour spicy hot pot, mushroom hot pot, prawn hot pot, crab hot pot, flower crab hot pot, seafood hot pot.. it's never end as our imagination in eating seems have no limit!
Vietnamese love hot pot very much!
On the street, at home or in a classy restaurant - everywhere! As usual hot pot is always served at the end of every meal just before the desserts! we simply love veggie and veggie is a must for any hot pot! Depend on what kind of hot pot, we have a proper combination of various veggies!

             Hot pot with pink tilapia in a northern style! 

Besides that, we still have rice noodles or yellow noodles to go with hot pot...even instant noodles, like at Ashima - a famous and expensive mushroom hot pot place!
Today hot pot is not expensive, just a homemade in a northern style - lẩu cá diêu hồng nấu riêu!

         Usually we dip veggie into the soup or leave it there for a while then we eat! 

It's a simple one but very popular fish hot pot in a Northern style - hot pot with pink tilapia (lẩu cá điêu hồng nấu riêu), served with my favorite herb - dill (thì là) and parsley (rau cần).

            Dill - a special herb, widely used in Nothern Vietnamese cooking!  

I like fish, I can enjoy any kind of fish at anytime, anywhere! 

And I love the flavor of dill! Dill is a typical herb that is used only in Northern Vietnamese cuisine! Especially in famous fish cake Lã Vọng! 

I wonder what does it mean "riêu" in this name "hot pot with pink tilapia in a "riêu style"! 

It would be a sour taste of the soup! It, the sour taste, could come from different fruits: star fruits (khế), tamarind, some other fruits and mixed with special vinegar called giấm bỗng or fermented rice (mẻ)! 

The preparation for the hot pot's soup seems more complicated than I though!
I simply think the sour taste from tomatoes! But today talking to a lady from Hà Nội, she's in her 60s and she has no idea what does it mean "riêu"exactly, she explained whenever in Hà Nộ say "riêu", means something to go with rice noodles!? Or "riêu"means to boil the soup on small fire?

        Fish hot pot always requires a lot of veggies, one of them - Vietnamese parsley! 

             Usually we have hot pot with rice noodles or yellow noodles, some time instant noodles! 

As said we have so many hot pots in our food culture, so I hope will share with you more about this dish which has been called in the past "cù lao".
These days the word "cù lao" seems forgotten, it has been created by the form of the pot with a small cylinder right in the middle for flaming charcoal, surrounded by the soup (as an island), in order to keep the soup always hot!
Nowadays we either use electric hot pot or without that "island" so the old traditional cù lao has no more place on the dinning table and already "gone with the times!"