Seven-Flavor Roast Duck from Cao Bang
Roast duck is a familiar dish to many. However, if you have the chance to visit Cao Bang, you will have the opportunity to enjoy an extremely unique dish: seven-flavor roast duck. Even the most discerning palates will praise this Cao Bang specialty.
Seven-flavor roast duck originates from the Tay ethnic group and is prepared with great care. The flavors harmoniously combine the fresh, tender duck meat, cooked to perfection and still juicy, with a crispy skin coated in fragrant wild honey.
Previously, seven-flavor roast duck was usually cooked by locals for major festivals, weddings, and ancestral worship ceremonies. Nowadays, this dish has become more popular and a familiar specialty in many restaurants in Cao Bang.
Cao Bang Sour Pork
Next on our list of Cao Bang specialties is sour pork. The special thing about this dish is that it's made from local pigs, raised on bananas, wild vegetables, and cornmeal, resulting in very little fat and a richer, more flavorful taste than regular pork.
Before cooking, the pork is fermented in bamboo tubes until fully fermented, then stir-fried with vegetables or on its own. The meat has a unique flavor, and the perfect level of fermentation makes the sourness very palatable. This Cao Bang specialty is perfect to enjoy with rice wine or white wine.
Cao Bang's specialty, fermented pork, is now widely available in canned form on the market, but nothing tastes as good as eating it in the place where this unique flavor originated.
Cao Bang's Specialty Sausage
Sausage is quite similar to the sausages of Southern Vietnam. However, what makes Cao Bang sausage special is that it's made from wild boar and local pigs, giving it a more fragrant and delicious flavor. Besides that, the locals also have their own secret method of smoking the sausage to achieve the richest and most distinctive taste.
Cao Bang's specialty sausage is made from pork and offal marinated with ginger water, the fruit and leaves of the Mac Mat tree. Then, the plump sausage pieces are smoked over a fire for many days until the meat is cooked and gradually dries out.
Most restaurants in Cao Bang sell dishes made from sausage. Besides eating on the spot, you can also buy it as a gift for family and friends. The advantage of sausage is that it can be preserved for quite a long time and can be prepared in many different ways. The price of Chinese sausage currently ranges from 300,000 VND to 600,000 VND depending on the type.
Cao Bang's Wild Vegetable
From its very name, the wild vegetable exudes the rarity of a specialty found nowhere else. This vegetable is considered the essence of the mountains and hills, not growing in the plains but clinging to rocky mountain peaks, thriving in barren conditions.
Although a wild vegetable, the wild vegetable is very sweet and fragrant, delicious no matter how it's cooked. Previously, this dish was a common part of daily meals for the people of Cao Bang. However, it has since become a specialty, appearing on the menus of both casual and upscale restaurants.
Cao Bang Ant Egg Cake
Hearing the word "ant eggs," you might imagine a rather scary dish, right? But in reality, it's a very delicious dish and a specialty of Cao Bang that anyone visiting the area wants to try. The ant egg cake originated from the Tay ethnic group and later became popular among other ethnic groups in Cao Bang.
To taste ant egg cake, you must visit Cao Bang between April and May. This is when ants reproduce in large numbers, allowing locals to collect their eggs to make the cake. The cake is wrapped in betel leaves, with a soft, chewy glutinous rice flour outer layer and a filling of young ant eggs sautéed in fragrant pork fat. When eaten, you'll feel the ant eggs bursting in your mouth, with a subtly sweet and distinctive flavor.
Cao Bang Sour Pho
The pho noodles are entirely handmade by the locals and undergo a fermentation process, resulting in a distinctive sour taste and aroma.
The noodles are blanched in boiling water, then mixed dry with crispy fried pork or roasted duck, pork liver, mac mat leaves, sour bamboo shoots, peanuts, and sweet and sour fish sauce. This dish is rich and flavorful but not cloying, with a harmonious taste. Therefore, if you're visiting Cao Bang and don't know what to eat for breakfast, be sure to stop by a sour pho restaurant to enjoy it.
Nam Khau (Braised Pork Belly) from Cao Bang
Next up is another Cao Bang specialty dish made from pork. This dish uses pork belly with the skin on, fried until the skin is crispy and golden brown. Then, the meat is steamed with taro and brown sugar.
The finished Nam Khau is very tender and fragrant. A piece of fatty meat paired with a soft, fluffy piece of taro is a perfect combination. Especially, the people of Cao Bang have their own recipe for the dipping sauce, making the flavor even more memorable for those who have had the chance to taste it.
Cao Bang Vermicelli
When it comes to Cao Bang specialties to buy as gifts, vermicelli is the ideal choice. The vermicelli is made by locals from red amaranth root, using a completely handcrafted process without preservatives. Therefore, it has a natural sweetness and chewiness, is highly nutritious, and good for health. It's especially suitable for those on a low-carbohydrate diet.
However, because it's handmade, its shelf life is somewhat limited. Therefore, you shouldn't buy too much at once, as it will get moldy if left for too long, which would be wasteful. Cao Bang vermicelli costs around 60,000 to 100,000 VND/kg depending on quality, which isn't much higher than vermicelli from the lowlands.
Cao Bang Sticky Rice Cake
Hanoi's sticky rice cake, and those from some other provinces in Northern Vietnam, are quite famous. However, in Cao Bang, this dish is made according to the traditional recipe of the local people, so the flavor is very different.
The ingredients of this Cao Bang specialty are roasted sticky rice flour, roasted peanuts, ginger, and malt syrup. The finished cake is very chewy and flavorful, with just the right amount of sweetness. Enjoying it with a warm cup of tea in the cool Northwest air is simply wonderful.
Cao Bang Gynostemma Tea
The combination of sticky rice cake and Gynostemma tea is a must-try treat when visiting Cao Bang. This tea is made from a medicinal herb that grows primarily in the northern mountainous regions. The tea contains many health benefits and is also known for its skin-beautifying and nourishing properties. In the past, Gynostemma tea was a rare and precious product offered to the emperor. Today, it has become a highly sought-after Cao Bang specialty.
If you're drinking it on the spot, you should go to cafes or restaurants that serve fresh Gynostemma tea. For souvenirs, there are dried or freeze-dried Gynostemma tea bags available. The tea is very fragrant, relaxing, and refreshing, making it extremely suitable for the elderly.
