Bitter melon stuffed with salted egg

Eating bitter melon is very cool in summer, anti-inflammatory effect, cooling. Egg yolk is rich in protein and vitamins to give us more energy. So, you try viewing offline.

Bitter melon, salty egg, If left to its own, it is too bitter and too salty, what you eat is also very hard so hard. But with little variation, combining creative dishes you will have a strange taste, harmonious and very nutritious

Ingredients :

• 2 Bitter melon fruit
• About 8 salted egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon honey

Method:

Egg yolks into a bowl, To steam .

Using a spoon mashed yolks of this section.

Bitter melon washed, cut in half. Using a spatula or sharp knife to winkle the intestine.

Place the pot halfway with water on stove, add salt, bring to boil. Put Bitter melon to stitch for well done. Fish out and then drop into a bowl of cold water. Doing so will reduce the bitterness of the melon.

Using a small spoon to stuff egg yolk into the melon pieces.

Cut melon stuffed egg about 1 cm thick slices. Showing in the disc.

Small drops of honey on a piece of melon and then enjoy. Note that you do not end much honey, just a drop only to increase the momentum for bold dishes, to avoid losing the taste of eggs and melon.


Tips:

- After bitter melon should Quilted dip into cold water, will reduce many the bitterness
- If crushed egg yolk too dry you can give in a little oil, stir up.

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Fresh roll cake at Gia An Restaurant - Banh Cuon

While it may not be the first dish to come to mind, Gia An provides foodies with some of the best banh cuon in the city. Mai Huong takes a taste.

Eat up:White rice crepe with salted ruoc tom dipped in the sauce give a true taste to banh cuon.

Tasty treat: Banh cuon ruoc tom is a popular dish in Gia An Restaurant. VNS Photos Truong Vi

Gia An Restaurant

Address:

- 25 Thai Phien St, Ha Noi,
Tel: 04-66588710 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-66588710 end_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-66588710 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-66588710 end_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-66588710 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-66588710 end_of_the_skype_highlighting

- 18A Le Thanh Tong St, Ha Noi,
Tel: 04-39335978 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-39335978 end_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-39335978 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-39335978 end_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-39335978 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-39335978 end_of_the_skype_highlighting

- 62 Tran Dang Ninh, Ha Noi,
Tel: 04-66589920 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-66589920 end_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-66589920 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-66589920 end_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-66589920 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-66589920 end_of_the_skype_highlighting

-.111/8 Lang Ha, Ha Noi,
Tel: 04-35625957 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-35625957 end_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-35625957 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-35625957 end_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-35625957 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-35625957 end_of_the_skype_highlighting

- 108A6 Tran Huy Lieu, Ha Noi,
Tel: 04-37264696 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-37264696 end_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-37264696 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-37264696 end_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-37264696 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 04-37264696 end_of_the_skype_highlighting

• Hours: Breakfast: 6am to 1pm
• Dinner: 4pm to 9pm
• Price: from VND7,000-34,000 (US$0.37-1.80)

Comment: Flavourful food made under strict hygienic standards.


Banh cuon ( roll cake), or steamed rice pancake, is a breakfast favourite for many Hanoians. Maybe you are already familiar with banh cuon Thanh Tri, a speciality of Ha Noi, but have you had the chance to try the savoury banh cuon Gia An, from the northern port city of Hai Phong?

I discovered banh cuon Gia An by chance when I went to the Vincom City Tower with friends. Located adjacent to the largest commercial centre in Ha Noi, the restaurant attracts shoppers who are after a light meal.

I have tried banh cuon countless times, from street vendors to expensive restaurants, and until now I've found it pretty much the same everywhere. Still, since it was too early for lunch, we thought we'd give it a try and were surprised with what we found.

A comfortable space without a door, filled with light fresh air, welcomed us. Inside, three long rows of square brown tables and chairs are placed close together. The shop is bustling with many customers and waitresses taking non-stop orders. Its interior decoration may be bland and simple but it still manages to be welcoming and comfortable.

Banh cuon Gia An offers two main dishes, vegetarian banh cuon and meat stuffed banh cuon, along with a number of side dishes such as cha ran (fried pork sausage), ruoc tom (salted shredded shrimp), thit nuong (grilled pork), cha que (cinnamon sausage) and fresh chicken eggs.

Vegetarian pancakes, like banh cuon Thanh Tri, are not actually rolls, but thin layers of soft rice paper eaten with thit nuong or ruoc tom and fried onions. Meat stuffed banh cuon, meanwhile, are long steamed rolls filled with a mix of minced pork, tiny shrimp, mushrooms and jelly ear fungus wrapped in a delicately thin rice sheet.

To enjoy the dish, diners dip a section of the roll into a bowl of warm fish sauce, an integral part of savouring the dish. Gia An's special dipping sauce recipe distinguishes it from other banh cuon restaurants.

While the fish sauce at other restaurants is often pre-made, Gia An's dipping sauce is unique because it is made from pigtail bone bouillon. It tasted a bit bland at first and I was a little disappointed, but a squeeze of fresh lime emphasised all of the flavours, giving it a delicious sweet and sour taste, just as I like it.

I realised the sauce is prepared for customers to flavour it according to their own tastes. I like that patrons can add more spice, peppercorns and fresh lime to suit themselves.

I ordered vegetarian banh cuon with ruoc tom and cha ran. I was presented with a plate layered with thin rice crepes, garnished with several sprigs of fresh green herbs and granules of bright orange ruoc tom, which were topped with dried fried onions. It was eye-catching and looked yummy.

I dipped a corner of a rice crepe that I had covered with a little ruoc tom into the sauce, added two leaves of fresh Vietnamese basil and a piece of cha ran. The tenderness of the rice paper combined with the flavour of the ruoc tom and the scent of the fresh herbs that lingered after my bite made me shudder at its deliciousness.

My friends agreed the sauce was tasty and not too salty like many other restaurants.

I finished my crepes within 10 minutes, a personal record for eating banh cuon, and had to resist the urge to order a second portion.

I returned to the restaurant a few days ago and was lucky enough to meet the manager, Pham Thanh Tuan. He told me banh cuon Gia An has opened 5 restaurants in Ha Noi and is aiming to develop the brand as a chain, similar to Pho 24.

Tuan explained the restaurant's name. "Gia An" came from the Gia in gia truyen (tradition) and An from An Duong, a famous banh cuon village in Hai Phong. He said the owner of the restaurant chain was born in Hai Phong and had a desire to introduce this speciality from his homeland to food connoisseurs in Ha Noi.

On my second visit I ordered hot rolled rice pancakes with meat stuffing. I liked the texture of the hot and tender rice paper and flavoured meat mingled with the sweet and sour sauce in my mouth.

During my studies overseas, I dreamed of food from my homeland. I was fed up with bread and jam and my mouth watered for hot and flavourful food, such as pho, bun and banh cuon.

I missed the familiar sight of a woman skilfully rolling rice pancakes over a linen base and then stuffing them with meat. Unfortunately, that sight is still missing at banh cuon Gia An because all of the rolled rice pancakes are prepared somewhere else then steamed on the premises to save time and labour.

Modern life seems to have made the traditional ways of enjoying food somewhat far away and outdated.

However, I really appreciate the restaurant's high hygiene standards. In many ways, food safety is more important than price when choosing a place to eat out.

Cooks at Gia An Restaurant wear nylon gloves when they're preparing food, which they change every 15 minutes. All of the furniture, equipment and the rest of the interior are always kept clean and there is a rubbish bin under each table.

Enjoying a nice meal is just one of many ways to appreciate life's beauty and banh cuon Gia An is a nice place to enjoy with family and friends, both for breakfast and a light supper. Give it a try if you want to explore the fresh taste of a familiar dish.

P/S: With this posts i hope you will have a good idea for your meal if you have a travel to Vietnam or want to find a new taste. In the following articles, I will introduce some other restaurant in Vietnam.

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A Vietnamese Pho restaurant in Australia

Pho Sure Vietnamese Noodle House brings a bit of Marrickville over to Enmore. About bloody time :-)








We always though a smart way to make money would be to open up a Marrickville style hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese joint in Enmore or Newtown. Well somebody has finally done it. Yes we have Pho 236 up on King Street Newtown which is excellent value but never as tasty as the classic joints of Marrickville. Pho Sure is the real deal.



Pho Sure Vietnamese Noodle House is a Tardis of a place, from the outside it looks like a takeaway joint with a couple of tables for loiterers. Inside is a cavernous eating hall, sparse but freshly renovated. There's lots of room here, a good cheap, no-frills option if you have big group, BYO welcome.

We visit on a Thursday night and are surprised at how many diners are here considering Pho Sure has only been open a couple of months, and it's a tough location for a restaurant, very tough, on a busy road devoid of pedestrian traffic. Plus the opening hours are 5pm to 9pm only (the owner has a day gig as well).

Inside there's a joyous cacophony to the place, and impossibly cute Vietnamese kiddies running around having a ball, for a moment I'm back in Vietnam. We get the feeling we will be spending a lot of time here over summer, with a six pack from the Warren View Hotel down the road.



Help yourself condiments, cutlery, water and tea.



Condensed milk in my coffee, just like Vietnam, it's dessert and coffee all in one.



Special combination pho - pho dac biet- $9.50 small, $10.50 large. This is a small one and it's huge. The combination comes with rare beef, well done briskets, tendon and tripe. This is quite a good pho, thumbs up.



Fried Squid Ball - cha muc chien - $7.50. Lightly fried balls of manufactured squiddy fun.



Grilled Pork with Vermicilli - bun thit nuong - $9.50. A big generous serve, the pork has lovely caramel flavours, pour the sweet chilli sauce on top and mix it all together, drool.

Pho Sure Vietnamese Noodle House Menu - click to enlarge.



Pho Sure Vietnamese Noodle House Menu - click to enlarge.



Pho Sure Vietnamese Noodle House Menu - click to enlarge.



Pho Sure Vietnamese Noodle House Menu - click to enlarge.

Pho Sure Vietnamese Noodle House is at 37-39 Stanmore Road, Enmore, corner of Liberty Street, a block from Enmore Road and almost across the road from the Warrenview Hotel were you can grab some brewskies for byo. Pho Sure is open from 5pm-9pm only, 7 days per week.

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A map of Vietnamese Pho in Saigon

We have no intention of introducing all the good pho restaurants in HCM City. The following are some places for your reference. These restaurants offer different kinds of pho. We also mention pho restaurants foreign diners like and a shop specializing in chicken pho soup. Almost It has Price from 1USD to 5 USD per bowl.

Pho Quyen

With a history of nearly 50 years, Quyen specializes in beef pho soup. The shop is named after the first child of a family of five sons whose father is a northerner and whose mother a southerner. The owner of Pho Quyen now is Duong Huu Phuc, Quyen's brother. Phuc has a 20-year experience in the trade, including being the chef.

Address: 33 Hoang Van Thu, Phu Nhuan Dist. Tel: 8423962.



Pho Hoa

Established during the 1960s, Pho Hoa has been a favorite address of Saigonese with high income. At first, the pho shop was named Hoa Loc. After many ups and downs, the word Loc was dropped and only Hoa is retained, which is shorter and easier to remember.
At Pho Hoa, pho tai (rare beef pho) is finely chopped and treated with spices to make it more delicious.

Address: 260 Pasteur, Dist. 1. Tel: 8297943.


Pho Hong Van

Address: 7 Ton That Tung St., Dist. 1. Tel: 8324139.


Pho Thanh Canh

Set up before 1975 by Chau Thanh Canh as the owner and chef, Thanh Canh now has three shops. Canh says he knows how to combine the tastes of Hanoian and Saigonese pho while remaining faithful to the bone-stewing method of the north.

Address: 55 Nguyen Cu Trinh, Dist. 1. Tel: 9201908


Pho Tau Bay

Pham Xuan Tien, manager and chef of Pho Tau Bay, says that in 1950 his grandfather opened his pho shop in Hanoi, which did not have a name. Tien's grandfather was given a pilot's helmet by a friend. He liked the helmet very much and often wore it. Diners called him tau bay, which means "aircraft," and he named his pho shop after it.
In 1954, Tien's family moved south, bringing with them the pho trade. They set up the Tau Bay shop.

Address: 435 Ly Thai To, District 10. Tel: 8345128


Pho Huong Binh

This is one of the best-known pho ga (chicken pho soup) in Saigon. Set up in 1982 by a woman native to the northern Quang Binh Province, Huong Binh is now owned by her son, Tran Van Quy. Quy says the main element for the broth of chicken pho soup is chicken bones. He doesn't use star anise or cinnamon as in beef pho soup. Only ginger is used, he says.
Huong Binh is frequented by some foreigners, especially Japanese.

Address: 148 Vo Thi Sau, Dist. 3. Tel: 8298762.

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“Banh Phu The”– Vietnamese conjugal cake

In Vietnam,“Banh Phu The” is a special cake, which symbolises the loyalty of a husband and wife...

The conjugal cake is normally served at Vietnamese weddings and used as a wedding invitation or taken by the man’s family to the woman’s family on engagement day. The stickiness of the cake is said to signify the stickiness of the marriage ties. Traditionally, a guy would offer these to the girl he wants to marry. Now these cakes are still an essential part of a wedding banquet, or the gift packages that the groom's family send over to the bride's.

“Banh Phu The” is a Vietnamese sweet with a jelly-like texture made of tapioca flour, pandan, mung bean paste, sugar, sesame seeds and coconut milk. It is very unique with a leaf covering that looks like a tiny square box, made from coconut leaves. The reason it is called Banh “Phu The” is because of how it is wrapped: a box on the top fits perfectly with the box on the bottom. If you would like ton know how to make this special cake, you can visit Dinh Bang - a famous Vietnamese village in Bac Ninh Province, then you can view the method to prepare this husband and wife cake, as follows:

Ingredients:

- 1kg kudzu powder, refined - 800g refined sugar - 200g coconut flesh, scraped in thin threads

- 300g green beans - 50 coconut leaves - 15 pineapple leaves

To prepare:

Filling

Cut green beans in halves, soak in warm water for five hours. Strain and remove skin of green beans. Rinse.

Steam green beans and grind into a paste.

Mix green bean paste with 200g sugar, then cook over a low flame and stir until the mixture loses its sticky texture.

Spread the mixture 3cm thick on a large tray, cool and cut into 6x6cm square pieces.

Cover

Wash and clean pineapple leaves and cut into 60cm strips so that only the middle remains.

Arrange the coconut leaves into a square or hexagonal shape to form a box roughly 25x30cm wide and place a pineapple leaf on top.

Dissolve the kudzu powder and remaining sugar in water. Use two and a half times as much water to the amount of powder.

Cook over a low flame, stirring until the mixture becomes a paste. Extinguish flame, add threads of coconut flesh and mix well.

Fill the coconut leaf boxes with the coconut flesh mixture and place the green bean filling in the centre.

Put the boxes in the steamer and cook for 20 minutes, until the cake becomes clear.

“Banh phu the” is a lot more interesting in texture and flavor. In the real one, the cake has it green color and flavor by being steamed inside its box...

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Some popular food of Muong region

Muong region has been probably one of the most favorite places for tourists recently. Discovering villages and daily life's activities seems to be interests of tourists. Yet, for many people, Muong's cuisine is still of great strangeness. Muong minority is not much finical in their cuisine yet each dish is their specialty, a great harmony between foods themselves and tones of the nature that only by tasting can tourists experience true feelings about their cuisine. Some typical dishes which may be offered to tourists by the locals are:

1. Burned-Boiled-Fermented pork

One of Muong minority's habits is to leave their pigs unbridled, eating forest vegetables, drink water from springs. Hence, pork here is very good and flavored. Once they want to slaughter pig, they have their pig burned to get rid of hair and then thoroughly washed, disembowel to take out viscera without rewashing the pig, and hang it up to dry out. By following that procedure, pork will not go bad and can be kept for long time without being tainted. Pig's trotter is then boiled to enjoy with toasted salt and grilled and ground "dổi" seeds. This is really a simple and popular way of preparing this dish but of great flavor with strong taste of toasted salt, sweetness of pork and aroma of toasted "dổi" seeds.

Another kind of preparing pork is to leave it fermented with yeast made of forest leaves in compliance to a particular formula that bring about fat taste of skin, sour taste of fermented pork and you may want to enjoy this dish many times.

2. Broiled fish and upland rice

Fish, one of popular foods taken from Da (Đà) river, is skillfully prepared to be delicious dishes by Muong females. Fishes such as carp, catfish, and Aphyocypris are normally broiled. Sticks are used to get through fish's body and fixed with bamboo clips to avoid being broken and at the same time to get good flavors of fresh bamboo, dusted with salt and wrapped with banana leaves, then stewed to enjoy. Combination of fresh bamboo's flavor, banana leaves, saltiness absorbed into the fish really makes this dish unique. It would be hard for tourists to forget Tay Bac's flavor by means of this dish once it is had with bamboo-tube rice.

3. Grilled chopped meat wrapped with pomelo leaves

Like other kinds of grilled chopped pork, yet the Muongs has their own way of preparing this dish to make it healthy: to grill pork with pomelo leaves. Half fat and half lean meat is cut into small pieces, soaked with fish sauce and onion. Pomelo leave is cut into halves and then pork is wrapped with these halves, fixed by bamboo clips, broiled on live charcoals till pomelo leaves turn violet. It is time for pork to be done inside of pomelo leave. Grilled pomelo leave is had with broiled pork as herbal vegetable with its bitter attar to help both reduce feeling of being tired of fat taste and bring about good digestion.

4. Buffalo's meat cooked with "lồm" leaves.

This dish is much like a kind of soup made of buffalo's meat which is very popular to the Muongs in Hoa Binh (Hòa Bình). The meat is burned to be yellow and then steamed in bulk to become tender, then sliced into small pieces, stewed in a earthen pot with some "lồm" leaves - a kind of forest leave with typically sour taste and broken rice. The dish is pretty condensed due to broken rice and with sour taste of "lồm" leaves to bring about very special favor to enjoyers.

5. Bamboo sprouts

Bamboo sprout is one of typical dishes of the Muongs in particular and Northern people in Vietnam in general. Normally in November or December, young bamboo sprouts just begin to show with very typical bitter taste are dug to be grilled and then had with "chẩm chéo" - a kind of sauce made of toasted salt, grilled "mắc khén", ginger leaves, ground garlic and chili. Once its season comes, fermented bamboo sprouts steamed with chicken gives a very special and delicious taste.

6. Colored steamed sticky rice

Steaming sticky rice with various colors made of leaves may bring about very natural tastes. Once rice is well-done, people often mix up colors to get a combination of flavors to ensure deliciousness and nutrition since it contains lots of folk medicines taken from leaves.

7. "Rượu cần" (wine enjoyed with pipes from jars)

"Rượu cần" is actually a special kind of drink that anyone who visit Muong region wants to taste. Muong minority are so hospitable that they bring the best "Rượu cần" to offer their guests. Like other kinds of "Rượu cần" of Thai and Tay Nguyen minorities, "Rượu cần" of the Muongs is also made of yeast of forest leaves, upland rice and preserved with rice husk. To enjoy this kind of wine, people keep pouring into jars of wine with boiled or mineral water so that jars are always full of wine. During parties, people cluster round one another enjoying sweetness and passion of "Rượu cần" while enjoying sounds of gongs in a space which is full of atmosphere of festivities.

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Vietnamese Ginger Shrimp Stir Fry Recipe - Tom xao gung

Tôm xào gừng is Vietnamese-style sautéed shrimp. As a bit lady, Maman would build this dish fairly often whenever she required to throw along a fast dinner, as a result of shrimp cooks terribly quick. This specific preparation has touches of sweet and spicy within the kind of ginger, lychee and chile. The ginger is employed each grated and cut into little matchsticks. this is often not ancient, however I additionally added lychee jam that I had in my pantry and finished the cooking by flambing the shrimp in lychee-flavored liqueur.

Cooking shrimp is often a fragile task. First, you've got to form certain the shrimp are very recent. Then, the cooking time should be precise thus as to not over-cook, otherwise they become horrible and really chewy. Lastly, the flavors that are paired with the shrimp ought to season them well while not concealing the freshness of the seafood. This recipe undoubtedly hits the mark, however do not simply take my word for it!

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