Sapa tourism is not only famous for magnificent beauty of nature, the fresh cool climate, but also a place has many special foods with bold flavours of the northwestern mountains. We will give you some review typical dishes in Sapa which impressed all of the tourists visiting here.
- Why is Sapa one of the best choices when you travel around Vietnam?
- There is a fascinating beauty that every one wants to conquer
Thang co (Thắng cố):
Thang co is the traditional food of Hmong people and it has been cooked for hundreds years.
Thang co is a type of soup which is made of horse meat, horse's viscera and bone. You might feel a little panic-stricken when hearing these ingredients but that feeling will be blown away once you taste it. People use 12 spices from cardamon, ginger, citronella, anise and cinnamon twig to make that delicious soup. The horse meat and bone with spicies are stewed in a big hot pot within a couple of hours.
To elevate its flavor, they serve it with fresh vegetable and special red hot pepper named Muong Khuong. You aslo can try Thang co with corn cakes, especially corn wine Bac Ha or San Lung (try it if you can!).
Black chicken:
Black chicken is a kind of small chickens with dark skin. People here usually graze black chickens naturally so they all are fleshy and tasty.
There are many different ways to cook these chickens but the best one is chicken applied honey then grilled directly on charcoal. Honey makes chicken have a special flavor and smoky from charcoal. It's more delicious if you eat chicken with a mixture of salt, pepper, lime juice and sliced lime leaves.
People in flat country often stew black chicken with herbs to be a remedy.
7-color sticky rice (Xôi 7 mà u):
If you arrive Sapa on Tet Holiday (Lunar New Year), you'll see 7-color sticky rice in every family. It's one of traditional food of Nung minority.
It looks simple to make this sticky rice but it is not! You have to go deep inside the forest to get different leaves to make color for each part of rice. Each color symbolizes different meanings. For example, light green is a symbol of spring-the season when every flowers blossom and have a new life. Plum is the color of blood. It symbolizes tenaciousness and bravery of our heroes who sacrificed in the War...
This sticky rice should eat with black sesame on top and delicious grilled pork. It's healthy because all leaves from the forest are remedies. The 7-color sticky rice brings luck to people on Tet holiday.
Bamboo sticky rice (CÆ¡m lam):
The Vietnamese have many ways to cook rice. Therefore, you can taste several kinds of rice along the way.
Bamboo sticky rice in Sapa is a special version of rice. The difference from the others is that rice is absolutely cooked in bamboo sections. Local people spend hours collecting the bamboo, then cleaning and cutting them into small sections at about 30 cm in length.
They mix rice with a little salt and stuff it up bamboo sections. To cook rice, they need bring fresh and sweet (a little) water from streams. It's delicious, cheap and popular that you can find bamboo sticky rice everywhere in Sapa from expensive restaurant to street food counters. I recommend you to eat this rice with grilled pork or Sapa Cap nach Pork to have a great meal.
With unique and fancy dishes, Sapa is competent for successful and memorable Vietnam holiday packages. Come to hunt for the mist as well as the wonderful food of the destination in the Northwestern Vietnam! Lots of delightful surprises await you.