Can Tho is not only famous for its charming river scenery, sweet fruits, but “Can Tho cuisine” also has its own unique features. Coming to Can Tho, you cannot ignore the attractive dish with bold flavors here, which is Bun Mam – Fermented Fish Noodle Soup.
By Thomas Vietnam at vemekong.com | All Best Foods & Restaurants in Can Tho
1. Better to Know as a Food Lover
Find them: Ninh Kieu District, Can Tho city.
Best time: Dusk – Dawn
Don’t miss: Bun Mam
Local’s pick: Folk Cake Festival
Tourist’s pick: 173 Bun Mam restaurant, Di 3 Bun Mam restaurant…
Blog: https://vemekong.com/bun-mam-fermented-fish-noodle-soup-can-tho-food/
Facts: Bun mam has long become a familiar dish of the people of the South in general and especially the people of the Mekong Delta in particular. It is considered a typical cuisine of the Mekong Delta region – If you have not eaten bun mam, you are not a local person.
2. Better to Know Bun Mam – Fermented Fish Noodle Soup
Bun mam is one of the specialties of the Mekong delta region of Vietnam. Bun mam originates from Cambodia and is cooked from fish sauce. When coming to Vietnam, it is often cooked with fish paste or choke fish, which are many types of fish in the Mekong delta, especially the provinces of Tra Vinh and Soc Trang.
3. Bun Mam – Fermented Fish Noodle Soup in Can Tho
As a famous and delicious dish of the local people, the fish sauce hot pot is the harmony between the flavors from Linh fish sauce or choke fish sauce with vegetables, seafood, and meat. The spicy flavor of chili peppers, the sourness of lemon, the strong aroma of lemongrass, and garlic combine with typical wild vegetables such as dandelion, chopsticks, water hyacinth, gun, gooseberry, bitter vegetables, etc. In addition, there are also fresh seafood such as shrimp, crab, squid, fish… combined with pork ribs, roasted pork when enjoying, visitors will feel the strong and irresistible flavor of the fish sauce hot pot.
Bun mam for children who are far away from home still remember the rich taste of the fish sauce hot pot, remember the bitter vegetable bushes that grow after summer, and the water lily pond behind the house. Particularly for visitors, when coming here, they can feel the delicious, attractive flavors, and feel the people of the Mekong delta are likable and hospitable.
Today, Bun Mam has become an indispensable dish to treat visiting guests. Enjoying fish sauce hot pot also needs to be delicate and slow because this is not a hasty dish. Bun mam is a dish that can bring many people together. People gather around the hot pot waiting for the water to boil and talk about long-ago memories and enjoy this wonderful dish with your loved ones.
Bun mam is an attractive dish loved by many people. If you have never eaten bun mam, try it once to fully enjoy this dish and you will certainly never forget its unique and wonderful taste. The flavor of bun mam is a combination of many rustic ingredients, causing memories for many diners…
4. How to Make Bun Mam – Fermented Fish Noodle Soup
Ingredients for cooking vermicelli noodles
100g Linh fish sauce
50g choke fish sauce
200g fresh shrimp
200g pork belly
200g roast pork
200g squid
150g calamari
Lemongrass, chili, minced red onion
2 eggplants
4 horned chili peppers
1kg vermicelli
Common seasoning: sugar, seasoning, salt, monosodium glutamate, salt and pepper, cooking oil, rock sugar
Accompanying vegetables such as: bitter vegetables, herbs, grated banana, custard apple, water lily…
How to cook Bun Mam
Step 1. Cook fish sauce
Put 100g of Linh fish sauce, 50g of choke fish sauce into a pot, add 1 liter of water and cook until the fish sauce dissolves all the meat.
Step 2. Prepare vegetables
Use a knife to split the middle of the chili pepper, remove the seeds.
Water lily, peeled, washed, cut into pieces, cut into quarters and soaked in salt water to avoid blackening.
Eggplant cut into pieces and then immediately soaked in salt water to avoid blackening.
Step 3. Preliminary processing of meat, squid and fish cakes
Squid cleaned, cut into slices. Bacon is just cut into pieces.
Add 1/2 teaspoon seasoning, 1/2 teaspoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon MSG, 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper, 1 tablespoon cooking oil, mix well. and spread until chewy, then stuffed into the chili.
Put the pan on the stove, add cooking oil and then add the chili stuffed with fish cakes and fry until the patties are cooked.
Step 4. Boil shrimp, fish, squid
Pour squid and shrimp into the broth until just cooked, then take out, peel the shrimp.
Step 5. Cook the broth
First, put a little cooking oil in the pan, then add the minced onion, lemongrass, and chili peppers and fry until fragrant.
Use another pot to add 1.4 liters of filtered water, 700ml of fresh coconut water, then use a filter to filter 1 liter of fish sauce into the pot. Next, you add the onion and chili. Add 1 tbsp seasoning, 1 tbsp rock sugar, 1/2 tbsp MSG, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tbsp fish sauce.
When the water boils, filter the onion, garlic, and lemongrass before, and then add the chili stuffed with fish paste and eggplant. Finally, you turn off the stove and add more seasoning
Step 6. Finished Product
Put the noodles with seafood in a bowl, pour the broth into it and then eat it with assorted vegetables or you can eat it as a hot pot. The broth is rich, the chili stuffed with fish cakes is spicy and spicy. In the cold weather, there is nothing better than enjoying a bowl of bun mam. Let’s go to the kitchen to show off our talents for the whole family right now!
With just a few simple minutes, you have a delicious and attractive bowl of vermicelli noodles. Hopefully, through the above article, you have been able to cook your own bowls of vermicelli to treat your family.
5. Pro tips:
Here are our tips for easing your mind (and stomach) around food-handling environments that you may not be used to.
Make sure the food is freshly cooked. If you’re eating hot street food, it’s always safest (not to mention more delicious) to eat food you can see being cooked to order.
Look for lines and busy stalls. Busy street food stalls are an indicator of popularity, and their high turnover rate means the food is never sitting out for hours and developing dreaded bacteria. Yes, long lines can be discouraging when you’re hungry after a full day of exploring, but it’s not worth the risk of grabbing precooked food from the empty spot next door.
Eat when the locals are eating. The last and most important element here is when to eat. You’re likely already on a weird eating schedule while you’re traveling, but it’s important to try and adjust to the eating times of where you are. A bowl of pho might be lunch for Americans, but it’s breakfast for the Vietnamese. This ensures that you’re eating freshly cooked food and that you can find the best and most popular places to eat.
If you can’t drink the water, then you can’t eat the salad. Most people get so hung up on not drinking the water or skipping ice in drinks that they don’t think about all of the other ways in which water is used in food service. Fruits and vegetables tend to be washed with tap water in most places, rather than the filtered water that locals drink—or sometimes it’s not washed at all. If you’re really craving some produce, try fruits you can peel or cooked veggies.
Trust your gut. If you’re unsure about the food or the way that it’s being prepared, then keep moving. Eating street food all over the world doesn’t make you an expert. Every stall and every country are different, and sometimes the rules can be harder to follow. When something doesn’t look, smell, or feel right, don’t eat it! Trust your judgment. Chances are that there’s another spot close by that’s making something more delicious.
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Can Tho: Co Ut’s Cong cake, Ut Dzach Fine Rice Vermicelli, Thanh Van Grilled Pork Sausage, Crab Noodle Soup At Floating Market, Scorched Rice with Caramelized Fish Sauce, 7-Toi’s Duck Meat Pancake, Banh Mi Thuy, Banana Blossom Salad, Fried Spring Rolls, Fresh Spring Rolls, Fetal duck egg (balut), Honeycomb Cake, Mini Sticky Rice Cake, Cassava Silkworm Cake, Grilled Banana Wrapped in Sticky Rice, Khmer-style Bun Goi Da Soup, Egg Coffee, Con Son Grilled Snakehead Fish, Bun Mam – Fermented Fish Noodle Soup, Lau Mam – Fermented Fish Hotpot, Grilled Snails with Pepper, Magenta Sticky Rice Cake, Duck cooked with Fermented Tofu, Rice Noodle Pizza, Vegetarian Noodle Soup, Snails Stuffed With Pork…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Chau Doc: Chau Doc Fish Noodle Soup, Sugar Palm Fruit, Basa Fish Hot Pot, Mam (Fermented fish), Phu Huong Beef Noodle Soup, Broken Rice with Pork Chop, Long Xuyen Broken Rice, Nui Cam Pancake, O Thum’s Chicken Grilled with Lime Leaves, Stir-fried Shrimp with Sesbania Flower, Sweet & Sour Soup with Siamese Mud Carp Soup & Sesbania Flower, Caramelized & Braised Catfish, Grilled Rice-field Rat with Salt and Chili…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Soc Trang: Pia Cake, Cong Cake (Banh Cong), Bun Nuoc Leo Soc Trang’s Noodle Soup, Soc Trang’s Bun Goi Da Soup, Duck Noodle Soup with black Pepper, Curry Noodle Soup, Grilled Beef on Tile, Khmer-style Tube Cake, Khmer-style Mung Bean Cake (Banh In), Dried Radish (Xa Bau), Stir-Fried Noodles with Seafood (Mi Sua), Soc Trang’s Green Rice Flakes…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ben Tre: Phu Le Rice Wine, Ben Tre’s Coconut Candy, Flat Banana, Coconut Rice, Snail Pancake, Sea Snail with Coconut Milk, Coconut Worm, Young Coconut Salad with Shrimp & Pork, Son Doc Puff Rice Paper…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Cai Be: Puffed Rice Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Vinh Long: Elephant Ear Fish (fried giant gourami)…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in My Tho: Fried Sticky Rice, Snakehead Fish Rice Porridge, Hu Tieu My Tho (Noodle Soup), Coconut Banana Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Tra Vinh: Macapuno Coconut, Bun Nuoc Leo Tra Vinh’s Noodle Soup, Tra Cuon’s Sticky Rice Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Sadec: Sa Dec Noodle Soup, Sadec Crab Hotpot, Lai Vung Spring Rolls, Sa Giang Shrimp Puff Pastry, Lai Vung Tangerine…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Bac Lieu: Spicy Beef Noodle Soup, Bac Lieu’s Three-striped Crab, White Radish Pies, Bac Lieu Thick Noodles & Creamy Coconut Milk, Bon Bon Pickles…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ca Mau: Banh tam ga cay (Silkworm rice cake with curried chicken), Grilled Vop clams with salt and pepper, Grilled Mudskipper Fish, Stone Crab Roast With Salt, Young Bee Salad, Nam Can’s Crab, U Minh Forest’s Honey, U Minh’s Fermented Fish Hotpot…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Hau Giang: Cau Duc Pineapple, Cai Tac’s Pork Organs Porridge, Hau Giang’s Bronze Featherback Fish Cake…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Ha Tien: Herring Fish Salad, Spider crab cake soup, Ken Noodle soup, Xoi Xiem (Siamese sticky rice), Steamed Noodle soup, Ha Tien Oyster porridge…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Rach Gia: Stir Noodle Soup, Kien Giang Fish Noodle Soup…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Con Dao: Bang nut jam, Vu Nang Snail, Roasted Pork Bread (Banh Mi), Coconut Ice Cream…
Must-Eat Foods & Restaurants in Phu Quoc: Phu Quoc Sim Wine, Phu Quoc Pepper, Phu Quoc fish sauce…
Hopefully, the above tips will help you to come up with a great plan for your adventure in Mekong River Delta, Vietnam. Have a safe trip!
“Sleep less, travel more, respect more” – Thomas Vietnam – Local travel expert.
Thank you
