The Taste of Vietnam

Vietnamese cuisine is a flavorful affair that is a fitting tribute to a very bountiful country with a lengthy coastline and fertile soil. The result is dishes that draw expertly on the fresh produce. Unlike American dining, the Vietnamese table features a healthy spate of spices and sauces allowing diners to season their meal to personal taste with fresh squeezed lime, pepper, salt, chili, fish sauce, soy sauce, peanut sauce and a few others. These fresh ingredients are further improved with the French Imperialist influence that infuses much Vietnamese cuisine.

So Pho

My personal favorite Vietnamese dish is, in fact, a local mainstay, known as pho bo, or beef noodle soup. Pho bo is made made by placing thin strips of uncooked beef and noodles in a broth base to cook. The soup can be tailored to an individual's taste by adding mint leaves, soy sauce, Vietnamese fish sauce, and chili paste. The result is an explosion of flavors unique for such a simple dish.

Pho bo is also the dish that fed a generation of Viet Cong soldiers during the war, and now in more peaceful times, continues to evolve as high-end restaurants increasingly use thin prime cuts of beef, fresh chilis, fresh limes and the nuoc mam, trademark Vietnamese fish sauce, to give the broth a complex flavor. Often a breakfast dish in Vietnam, I started most of my days in Saigon with a steaming bowl of pho and some coffee, more on that delicacy in a minute.

Other Favorites

Another highlight of my Vietnamese dining experience was the goat barbeque. While Korean barbeque has been gaining prominence among gourmands, the less known Vietnamese goat barbeque will likely follow suit at some point. In Vietnam, these barbeques often consist of open coals at the table, with diners able to order various cuts of goat (breast, thigh, etc) to cook and season.

With an extensive coastline, especially for such a small country, Vietnam makes the most of seafood with a variety of dishes that season simply with cashew nuts, ginger and garlic. The fish claypot is a catch all term for fish stewed in a sauce and served in a hot claypot - this became my go-to dinner at most restaurants and it never failed to impress.

Ubiquitous at Vietnamese restaurants in America, fresh spring rolls in Vietnam are actually a DIY affair and great as an appetizer or light meal. Stiff rice paper, noodles, prawns (or pork), mint, greens, pineapple and peanut sauce are brought out for diners to assemble. The rice paper is dipped into water to soften it and then filled with a pinch of each ingredient and rolled up into a complex mix of flavors that takes a citrus kick, a nutty tang and the crispness of mint and mingles them on your tongue.

Liquid Refreshment

It's not just the food in Vietnam that is delectable. In this hot and humid country there are plenty of ways to quench your thirst. From vendors in the street chopping off the tops of coconuts and putting a straw in for the freshest possible fruit juice to the local draft beers, known as bia hoa, the Vietnamese are liquid connoisseurs.

Undoubtedly my favorite beverage in Vietnam was the coffee. Second only to Brazil in coffee production, the Vietnamese local brews are extra strong, and for tourists, like myself who can't handle the black stuff, they cut it with condensed milk. The result is a sweetened version of fresh coffee. Put it on ice and you have my high-octane refreshment of choice, known in Vietnamese as ca phe sua da.

Only for the Brave

Some Vietnamese cuisine requires the brave tastebuds of a culinary adventurer. For men who want some extra virility, the Vietnamese swear by snake wine. A walk through a city market, such as Saigon's Ben Thanh, will reveal dozens of bottles of wine with a once-live, now-dead snake coiled in it. In the rural areas the tradition of drinking snake wine is even more intense, involving a visit to a snake farm. Once there a range of snakes, including poisonous varieties of cobra, are farmed so drinkers can take their pick. Once a snake is selected, the farm owner plucks it out (no six figure salary could convince me that was a job worth having!), slits the throat, gathers a shot glass of blood, drops it in some wine and serves the sometimes still beating heart on the side. Supposedly, if a man can choke all that down, he's in for one hell of a night!...

Another dish foreigners often struggle with is dog. Many Vietnamese eat dog as a regular part of their diet. The dishes known as thit cay and thit cho feature dog, so if you can't stomach eating man's best friend, avoid restaurants with either of those on the menu.

To read more about Vietnamese cuisine and travel, read Megan's feature Saigon, Vietnam :: Then and Now...