For the taste buds: Some gourmets like to eat bánh ướt with lean pork paste.
Just
10km from the city centre, Diên Khánh is one of Nha Trang’s most popular
tourist sites. Apart from relics of an ancient citadel, the site includes Thiên
Lộc Pagoda, Trịnh Phong Temple and beautiful landscapes of Chúa Mountain and
surrounding rivers and streams.
Home
to the local bánh ướt (steamed thin
rice pancakes) which is sold by shops along the 1A Highway, giving one street
the name Bánh Uớt Diên Khánh for more
than 50 years.
Nguyễn
Thị Liên, 72, a pancake maker in Diên Khánh, said that urbanisation had killed
off traditional baking in the village. Visitors wishing to enjoy an original
and tasty dish now had to wander around looking for a supply.
Village feast: Diners often finish off many dishes. Photos dulichnhatrang.com
Liên
said many rural makers, including hers, boast a large house and garden in which
they built an oven to make the dish - and added tables and tools. All very
simple, but visitors arrive not just to enjoy a good dish, but to relax in
comfort.
The
suburban version of the pancakes is different from that made downtown, in which
the pancakes contain salted and shredded shrimp and fried onions, with dipping
sauce made from mắm nêm (a type of
fish sauce, made from small fish or small shrimp).
Liên
recalled her mother often woke up early in the morning to go to the beach to
buy fresh fish such as tuna and amberjack (a kind of sea fish known locally as cá bò), soaking the insides with salt
and fermenting it for three days and then drying it in the sunlight for another
three days until it becomes a thick liquid with a special fragrance.
“My
mother’s dipping sauce became famous more than half a century ago thanks to her
skills,” said Liên, noting that she knew how to mix fried onion, garlic, spice
and the mắm ruột to become an
unforgettable dipping sauce.
Trần
Văn Hào, from Hà Nội, said he was lucky to enjoy the rural pancakes dipped in mắm ruột, which has no fishy smell and
is tastier than dipping in mắm nêm.
“It
is more enjoyable when minced mangos and tiny chilis are added,” said Hào,
noting that with a price of only VNĐ5,000 per plate, he could eat several
plates.
Appealing: The dish is known as the delicacy from Nha Trang
At
remote Thanh Minh and Phú Lộc villages, bánh
ướt makers offer added a special dipping sauce made from fermented fresh
ponyfish, giving the dish a distinct flavour. Young gourmet Hoàng Thu Hiền,
said apart from the sauce she liked the fermented ponyfish because it was tiny
but sweet and it gave her a good appetite.
Pancake
makers in these villages also offer soya sauce for vegetarians on the first and
middle days of the lunar month.
Tô
Thị Bảy, 64, said soya sauce made by original villagers was tastier and nutty
compared with others. “My recipe is to quick fry minced citronella, tomato and
fresh herbs and then pour the soya sauce and spice and stir well. Whether the
dipping sauce is tasty or not depends on each maker’s skills," said Bảy.
She
said she was trying to teach her children how to make a good dish, particularly
the dipping sauce, the soul of the food, in an effort to preserve the venture
created by her grandmother more than half of the century ago.”
Those
don’t have time to visit her bánh ướt shop in Phú Lộc Village, should enjoy the
dish at a shop near the Ông Bộ Bridge on the Nha Trang-Thành Road where guests
can also choose aromatic flavor dipping sauces of mắm ruột or mắm nêm.
By VNS