Sóc Trăng - the land of the mixed culture!

How much we wish to have shinkansen as in Japan or TGV as in Europe!
Not to shorten our travel time in Vietnam (!?) but to avoid all kinds of trouble with the Police on the road!!! Unluckily we got a trouble with them during our day trip to Sóc Trăng by car!
Ridiculous trouble!

We were stopped by the Police on our way to Sóc Trăng, the speed limit for car on that normal road, no hospital, no school, no construction site... near by - is funny 40km/h! Our speed was nearly 50! At the end we have to leave our documents with them for fine which we have to pay after one week in ...Cần Thơ!

Anyway not to spoil our day, we tried to leave it aside and continued our journey!
Our destination is Sóc Trăng, a small town in Mekong Delta, 240 km away from Saigon but we need nearly 4 hours to reach there!


Sóc Trăng is a special soil!

Special because here, the three biggest communities - Vietnamese, Chinese and Khmer survive together for hundreds of years! Despite the differences in living style, language, business, belief...people living here always shoulder to shoulder to flourish this land!

Sóc Trăng is a Viet version of original Khmer name Srok Kh'leang (literally means a silver treasury), it was also renamed "Moon River" (Nguyệt Giang) in the past, during Nguyễn dynasty, but finally the current name Sóc Trăng remained!

            A young boy of Khmer origin playing a traditional musical instrument 

                                                                                                    at Chùa Dơi (Bat's Pagoda) (*) 

Talking about Soc Trang, the first two dishes came to my mind are bún nước lèo Sóc Trăng (rice noodles soup in Soc Trang style and bánh pía or bánh lột da (peeling off skin cake!). 

If the noodles represent the Khmer flavor then "bánh pía" - the Chinese origin!   

            Bún nước lèo Sóc Trăng, rice noodles soup in Soc Trang style! 

The soup is similar to famous rice noodles with fermented fish soup (bún mắm), deep sweet, rich flavor of fermented fish! Simply topped by cooked snakehead fish, shrimp and roasted pork ! I would say it's another variation of bún mắm! But it's lighter! 

Originated from Cambodia, if our neighbor prepares the soup with their special fermented fish (mắm bò hóc - prahoc), here in Sóc Trăng the local Khmer community or other Vietnamese replace it with more locally favorite fermented fish. Prahoc could be too strong for Vietnamese taste!    

              Rice noodles bún gỏi già, personally I don't like it! Strange taste!  

We also tried another rice noodles called "bún gỏi già" (or và), but I personally don't like it. As a brown soy bean sauce and tamarind sauce has been added to the soup when it's served. Very strange taste, with some peanut! I was excited to try in the beginning but then a bit disappointed!

                 Bánh pía filled with sweetened green mung bean (or taro), salted egg yolk, durian flavor!  

Super hot sate noodles with deer meat!

I'm not a big fan of hot, spicy dishes. But I love to try! From time to time!
I remember when I was in New Delhi in my business trip, staying in the hotel, where the buffet was full of curries! I did try curried chili ! You can imagine how spicy is it from the look!
I mention that because what you are going to taste today is really hot!
Saté noodles with deer meat! 
Not far! Easy to find a stall! At 126  Công Chúa Ngọc Hân, district 11!
The small shop, as family business, simple and empty as when I arrived there, it was still early for business!
I did order my saté noodles with deer meat!

               Is it look spicy to you? 

In the beginning I didn't know it's hot! Very hot!
Different from another saté noodles I tried, it's purely saté without any peanut paste that they usually put in the soup to make it thick and tasty! According to the chef - saté should be hot, not hot - not saté!
I agree!

             The clay pot with saté sauce, very spicy but tasty!

After filling my bowl with soup, another big spoon of saté sauce is added on the top!
But before that some slices of deer meat will be slightly cooked in the boiling water (like medium rare!).
The deer meat is very tender, tasty! I like it! Better than beef!

Specialities from the seaside (bánh căn Phan Rang)

It took me almost two hours to reach this place where they serve specialities from Phan Rang.
And it's just in Saigon! Can you believe that? No traffic! No rain! No any accident! Two hours!

It's far but not that far to steal from me that much time!
Simple reason! In the middle of my way I found that I left my phone at home. No address of the eatery place. No idea about phone number of my friends who is waiting for me there! Damn!

Back home again on my bicycle! Got my phone! And continued my journey, this time on my super fast scooter, to 'bánh căn, bánh xèo Phan Rang" at 570 Lê Quang Định, Go Vap district in Ho Chi Minh City!

But at the end I'm happy with my new discovery!

Phan Rang is a town in South Central Coast of Vietnam, very near to our famous beach resort paradise Nha Trang, that's why it's easy to find these specialities in Nha Trang and I heard the best time to have bánh căn & bánh xèo is early in the morning, especially in the cold rainy days!  

           Very impressive clay mold for bánh căn! Look like a kitchen toy for girls! 
              Or jokingly as some remains in Qin Shi Huang's tomb (mộ Tần Thủy Hoàng) in Xian, China!

            Similar to bánh xèo, but Phan Rang's version it's much smaller, with cuttlefish, shrimp 
            and pork. No green mung bean!           

             At first glance, I thought that I'm going to have a tiny sunny side up! 

             Bánh căn looks similar to bánh khọt in South but different in color and ingredients! 
            White color, made from rice powder with either chicken egg or quail's egg! 

The taste of the national flower !

The idea for this post "The taste of the national flower..." came to my mind just by chance when I saw a street vendor of fresh lotus seeds this afternoon on the way to Chinatown.

One or two years ago, there was a big argument between the members of National Assembly, what would be our National items? Finally, after a long debate, lotus (water lilies) was selected as one of our national symbols! Same as India and Egypt!

               Lotus seeds is a must ingredient for many finest delicacies

The lotus's beauty has been recognized for centuries in the history!
Every one of us surely remember a famous folklore (or proverb) when we were still on the high school bench.

  " Trong đầm gì đẹp bằng sen,
     Lá xanh, hoa trắng lại chen nhị vàng 
     Nhị vàng, hoa trắng, lá xanh
     gần bùn mà chẳng hôi tanh mùi bùn"
 (literally means 
     "What could be pretty as lotus in the lagoon, 
      Green leaves, white flowers with golden stamen
      Golden stamen, white flowers with green leaves 
      Growing in mire, but not foul of mire") (*) 

I'm curious about the food culture related to this symbolic flower!
Bad thing that I'm not a master chef, so I'm not able to suggest what kind of dish can be created with the lotus!
Good thing that I'm a pretty good observer!

Let's start from what I bought this afternoon on the street!

               Lotus seedpod on the street! 

Fresh lotus seed...what I can do with this?

Street food buffet at a chic hotel in Saigon!

The first idea to gather all street foods at one place came from "Ngon"restaurant. It was more than 10 years ago! Huge success! I haven't been back there for long and since Ngon moved to their new location!
Now the restaurant looks better from outside, so from the inside the choice of street food should be more diversified, hopefully!

There was some other attempts to create the same concept eateries, but by somehow only Ngon survives till now, together with a mini street food buffet at a chic boutique hotel - Bong Sen on Dong Khoi street!

Here they call "Buffet Gánh", Gánh means those traditional carrying baskets for street hawkers as seen in the photo!  

I've been to this buffet long ago, even long before the hotel was reconstructed. It was on mezzanine at that time but now moved down to the lobby level. I came back there last week!

How we eat fruits in Viet Nam?

I wonder who was the inventor of those magical mixture of ingredients for eating fruits!
Not every fruits! But many!

I remember my student time! Sitting with some friends from Cuba in the train on the way back to our city, after one month working in the farm, we talked about many things, just to kill time and we ate green apple. With salt mixed with sugar !?

Cuban seemed surprised and asked why salt & sugar? I said "for better taste!"

              Ready-to-eat mango Keo stall near to Ben Thanh market. 
                 Do you notice two big pots of salt & chili and chili saté on the right hand side? 

That's true!  But I can't remember why salt & sugar. Usually no sugar!!!

Anyway it reminds me how we eat some fruits, even sweet but especially green, sour ones in Vietnam we always need special dips!

Sweets from Chinatown!

   Can you guess what's this? 

   Inside banana leaves? 

   I'm sure you can! If not continue reading...