Let Vietnam Travel Consultant suggest you 5 famous street dishes in Da Lat, for a relaxing walking and discovering Da Lat by night!
1. Banh can
Another central dish that’s made its way up to the highlands, bánh căn is served in many different ways, but here in the mountains it’s simple, straightforward comfort food. Bánh căn are little rice flour cakes cooked in small, round ‘pods’ over hot coals. A quail egg is dropped in the middle and sprinkled with spring onions. Once cooked these little cakes are crispy on the outside with a bubbly, spongy consistency on the inside which makes them perfect for absorbing the salty-sweet dipping sauce.
2. Nem nuong
Dalat is one of a handful of places in Vietnam where nem nướng is a speciality. Nem nướng is a fresh, roll-your-own spring roll. Fill thin sheets of rice paper with a variety of herbs (including perilla leaf, sweet basil, chives, mint), add the nem nướng (grilled pork patty), then some chả ram bắp (crispy, fried sweet corn and rice paper rolls), pickled radish, carrot, and shallots, and roll it all up before dipping it in a thick, peanut sauce. Like all the best Vietnamese dishes it’s a brilliant balance of textures, flavours and colours.
3. Mì quảng
It is a central Vietnamese dish but it’s also very popular here in the highlands. On its way up from the coast to the mountains the dish has changed slightly. One big difference is the gigantic pig’s trotter in the middle of this soup! This trotter has been slow cooked until the meat and fat are so tender they melt in your mouth. Part of what makes mì quảng so unique are the thick yellow noodles. However, in the mountains this noodle is usually replaced by a thinner white one. Fortunately, Mì Quảng Thành offers the choice of either of these noodles. The broth is rich but not too sweet or salty, and the mint leaves, banana blossom and lime add crunch and tang to it. Very satisfying and cheap
4. Another Dalat favourite; bánh tráng.
A Vietnamese friend once described this to me as the ‘Dalat pizza’: bánh tráng is a thin circle of rice paper with various ‘toppings’ on it that’s grilled over coals until crispy. It’s a popular snack all over Vietnam, particularly with children. On cold Dalat nights, in the fine Dalat rain it’s warming and comforting to sit by the coal stove here – this is the first food stop whenever you visit Dalat.