Published:  10:39 Friday - April 13, 2012

There is a crowded Chinese group living in Bac Lieu who are strongly influenced by the food culture of Tieu people (Trieu Chau).

There is a crowded Chinese group living in Bac Lieu who are strongly influenced by the food culture of Tieu people (Trieu Chau). Xa bau (xá bấu) is one of the most special foods in local area. Xa bau is made of white radish which is rather dried then mixed with salt. Xa bau is used to cook many dishes. It can be simply well chopped then mixed with fried duck eggs; mixed with vinegar and sugar; stewed with pork or pig tail; sliced then mixed with small shrimps and boiled pork to make raw…

Radish cake is another food made from white radish. To make the cake, people mix rice powder with scraped threads of radish and salt, sugar, coconut juice, Chinese parsley; then put the mixture into the paper patterns that look like flower and steam it in several hours.

Coong xai (coóng xại)

Being “Trieu Chau region”, Bac Lieu cannot lack coong xai (coóng xại). To be made from radish pickle, with special skill, mixed with sugar, salt and galangal, coong xai served with rice porridge is as delicious as xa bau, also good for digestion.  

Bac Lieu is considered the hometown of a kind of vegetation having smooth white root, crispy, tasty, called bon bon (bồn bồn). From the local mud, bon bon grows up, does a long travel to many other places in the country, and becomes senior dishes in families, stalls, and luxury restaurants.

Bon bon (bồn bồn)

Xa bau, coong xai and bon bon are sold all around the Bac Lieu commune market. However, people can only find radish cake in two stalls of this market.

Being a province in South Centre Coast with mud fields, Bac Lieu also have many ba khia (ba khía). Ba khia looks like crab living around mangrove and brackish area. The back of ba khia is rough, black, especially having three convex lines, and used to make many tasty dishes. Fresh ba khia, most popularly, is made salted to produce “mam” (sauce) which the south people simply call “ba khia” (the word “mam” is left).

Ba khia (ba khía)

In Bac Lieu, there are about three famous locations as ba khia providers of other places. However, come to Nha Mat ward which is estimated 5 kilometers far from the commune centre, you will get ideal ba khia, the most special ones that cannot be found in anywhere else. Nha Mat ward is also the only place provides “ba khía ôm trứng” (“ba khia wraps egg”) which is delicious enough to make you get “toothaches”. This special ba khia is best to be mixed with vinegar, sugar, garlic and chili, and then served with eggs; that surely makes the diners eat very much!

Furthermore, in Nha Mat ward, near Phat Ba Nam Hai area, there are plenty of shrimp, crab, sentinel-crap, oyster, shellfish, vop (vọp), portulaca king-crab, fresh sea fishes, dried salted shredded meat, dried shrimps and dried sea fishes… to be sold. Bac Lieu sea crab is famously delicious thanks to the sea coast here almost having mud.

Translated by DuongVT