Vietnamese cuisine is famous for its unique use of fresh, fragrant, and aromatic flavors. For decades, its food traditions have been preserving the beauty of the country's culture and the respect for people. With the long, narrow country shaped like the letter s , each region has its own unique and blended cuisine as its specialty.
One of Vietnam's favorite dishes is Beef rice noodles or Bún bò Huế . This dish is from the beautiful and ancient city of Hue in central Vietnam. Since this dish is famous for being a royal cuisine, its taste is a mixture of spicy, sour, salty, and sweet. This variant of beef rice noodles has an added lemongrass and shrimp paste with a medium-cooked beef shank added to the hot broth. The dish is topped and finished by adding a different selection of fresh herbs and vegetables such as banana blossom, mint, lettuce, salad, onion, and lemon according to one's taste or preference.
Another cuisine is the special Vietnamese pancake, popularly called Bánh xèo . It has a yellow outer layer and is filled with boiled pork strips, shrimp, bean sprouts, and spring onions. Although some people may prefer to use chopsticks to directly eat Bánh xèo , the best way to enjoy it is using your hands. Fresh vegetables can be added when serving the dish; lettuce, Vietnamese perilla, basil, and bean sprouts are the most common.
After the first bite, the exquisite taste of this crunchy crust, savory fillings, sweet and sour dipping sauce (with a perfect blend of spices including fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, garlic, and chili) will make one fall in love with this delicacy. Fish sauce is the heart of Vietnamese cooking and is essential and gives more taste and flavor to many of its cuisines.
Watch the video below prepared by the Vietnamese students of NTOU on how to prepare their famous dishes.