Discover the Top 10 delectable local dishes in Lang Son

Derived from the Bầu Thất Khê duck breed, this dish involves cleaning the duck thoroughly and marinating it with aromatic spices such as garlic, peppercorns, and honey. The outer layer is coated with honey and left to marinate for about 10 minutes. The duck is then roasted over open flames for 15 minutes. After roasting, it is dipped in hot fat, flipped back and forth, and left to cool on a rack. Achieving the perfect roast requires precision to avoid over-charring, maintaining the right temperature, and ensuring the meat absorbs the honey color. The duck meat, infused with honey, offers a rich and sweet flavor. The key to this dish is the chef's skill to prevent the meat from becoming tough while imparting the fragrance of honey and herbs. When served, dipping the duck in the residual juices, adding soy sauce and chili, enhances the experience. Apart from roasted duck, the duck pho in this region is equally renowned. The tender and sweet duck meat, paired with a rich and tangy broth featuring bamboo shoots, creates an irresistibly enticing culinary delight from the land of Lang Son.

The specialty of Lang Son is meticulously prepared, offering a profoundly enticing flavor. To fully appreciate the distinct taste of sour pho, it must be savored with attention. Currently available in various northern mountainous provinces, Lang Son's sour pho stands out as the most renowned. Compared to the well-known beef pho of Hanoi, Lang Son's sour pho is equally sophisticated. A traditional bowl of Lang Son sour pho requires over ten special ingredients, including sweet potatoes, pork liver, tripe, pork belly, Chinese sausage, fermented tofu paste, Chinese pork sausage, and more, not to mention various herbs, cucumber, and roasted peanuts. With such diverse ingredients, sour pho brings together a harmonious blend of spiciness, sweetness, coolness, and a gentle sourness.

Stitched Delight, also known as sewn belly, is a traditional dish from the highlands of Lang Son. It undergoes a meticulous preparation process with pork belly marinated in various spices such as star anise, five-spice powder, cinnamon, honey, and rice wine, then steamed using water vapor for an extended period. Enjoying Stitched Delight with a cup of spicy wine warms the heart amidst the cold weather of this region. This unique dish has its origins in China and, upon being introduced to Vietnam, was adapted by the Tày and Nùng ethnic groups in Lang Son, quickly becoming a local delicacy. It is an indispensable treat for entertaining guests or during significant occasions like weddings and ceremonies.

The process of making Stitched Delight is intricate and time-consuming. The thick slices of pork belly are marinated with various spices and folded. During steaming, sweet potatoes, and shredded Chinese potatoes are added. Stitched Delight pairs well with sticky rice, regular rice, or bread. Sliced taro, fried to a golden brown, is arranged on a plate. Below the layer of taro is a savory mixture of finely chopped shredded Chinese potatoes, combined with soybean paste, sesame oil, star anise, and garlic. The meat is then thinly sliced, placed in a large bowl, flipped over to keep the skin on top, and arranged in a pot to steam for about 4-5 hours until the meat is tender. When serving, flip the bowl of meat onto a plate, ensuring the skin is displayed on top. If it has a uniform golden color and a distinctive aroma, it meets the requirements. Stitched Delight can be enjoyed with rice or sticky rice, but it is best with crispy rice cakes. This dish is widely available in Dong Kinh market and various eateries, making it a popular gift for tourists.

Prepared similarly to rice paper, but instead of plain minced meat filling, a cracked egg is steamed in the middle of the steamer, covered until the egg is slightly cooked. Then, bamboo sticks are used to fold the roll before placing it on a plate. On top of the rice rolls, finely ground and enticingly browned minced meat is sprinkled.

The dipping sauce for the rice rolls here is not the usual fish sauce; it consists of a bit of dried and roasted ground meat and peanuts, sprinkled with finely chopped herbs. Then, a mixture of fat-layered fish sauce is poured over. Especially in line with the spirit of Lang Son, each table also has a jar of pickled bamboo shoots with chili, allowing you to customize and add to your dipping bowl.

For galangal cakes, people in the northern mountainous region often boil young galangal leaves with clean ash water until soft, then clean, remove fibers, and grind them into a smooth paste. The sticky rice is also evenly ground in the same mortar with the finely ground galangal leaves. The grinding process starts when the sticky rice is piping hot until it turns into a soft, smooth, and elastic powder, then it's time to make the cakes. Another method involves boiling the leaves in lime water to preserve the green color. After draining, the leaves are also ground into a smooth paste and mixed with sticky rice until it becomes a fine powder. In some places, people grind the leaves separately, mix them with rice, and turn them into green sticky rice before grinding them into a smooth paste. Once the paste is elastic, the cakes are filled with sesame and finely ground sugar. The filling ratio is not high compared to sweet bean cakes. However, the strong aroma of sesame, blended with the scent of galangal leaves, is now only fragrant without any bitterness. Lang Son is considered the “capital” of galangal cakes. When visiting this land, besides buying roasted duck and stitched delight, tourists often purchase galangal cakes as gifts.

When in Lang Son, apart from the unique stitched delight, roasted duck, and galangal cakes, you must try the black chung cake here. A local specialty, black chung cake is consumed most during the Tet holiday. Made from glutinous rice and the ash of dried glutinous rice husks or from the dried bark of the nuc nac tree, it exudes a distinctive and delightful aroma. What sets black chung cake apart is the addition of herbal fruits in the filling, creating the fragrance of the mountainous forest. In addition to the usual boiled version, tourists can savor the baked black chung cake on charcoal stoves until the aroma of glutinous rice, herbal fruits, and fatty meat in the filling emerges.

Black chung cake is a unique delicacy of Lang Son. While people in other regions may favor green chung cakes, in Lang Son, black chung cake is most consumed during the Tet holiday. From the outside, the cake is soft and sticky, with a golden filling of mung beans, fragrant with the scent of lard, herbal fruits, pepper, the aroma of dong leaves, and the unique flavor of the forest. Just by looking, diners are captivated, feeling as if they are in the highlands. Today, the cake has become a popular specialty that anyone visiting Bac Son can purchase as a gift without having to wait for Tet. Black chung cake can be stored for a long time, around a month, and still retains its delightful aroma. The black color helps preserve the cake's delicious flavor, preventing it from spoiling.

Stone snails, also known as mountain stone snails. Stone snails are only available during the rainy season, from April to August. Living on high limestone mountain ranges and only on stone slopes, they are exceptionally clean. Stone snails feed on leaves, moss, and even various herbs, making them rich in nutrients. To talk about the delicious stone snails in Lang Son, we must mention Huu Lien, because during the rainy season, people here climb the mountains to catch these stone snails for consumption. Huu Lien stone snails are large and beautiful, with tender and fragrant meat that is not greasy, and they are crisp and delicious when accompanied by ginger and chili dipping sauce. This ingredient can be prepared in various enticing dishes such as boiled, steamed with ginger, steamed with lemongrass, stir-fried with betel leaves, or mixed in salads... but steamed stone snails with lemongrass remain the most favored.

Many diners who have tasted them praise their unique flavor, crispiness, deliciousness, and the medicinal properties of this type of snail, which is considered an effective remedy for gout. Therefore, if you visit Lang Son from the 4th to the 8th lunar month, you should definitely buy stone snails as gifts or cook them to enjoy with your family and friends.

Made from fragrant magenta leaves and glutinous rice, purple sticky rice is a distinctive dish of Lang Son. Magenta leaves are a familiar plant, cultivated by highland residents to make multicolored sticky rice or used for bathing children and traditional medicine. Purple sticky rice is often prepared by housewives for the family due to its delicious taste and appealing appearance. Depending on the region, an additional ingredient, such as fragrant pandan leaves, wood ash, or dried bananas, may be added to the rice. The magenta leaves are crushed, mixed with wood ash, filtered with clean water, and the remaining residue is discarded. Glutinous rice is soaked for 6 hours with the filtered water, causing the rice grains to take on the characteristic purple color of magenta leaves. Place the rice in a pot and steam. During the cooking process, stir the rice every 15 minutes to ensure even cooking. After an hour, you will have a fragrant and sticky purple sticky rice with the purple hue of magenta leaves, often served with pork sausage or sesame salt. This dish is best enjoyed hot, making it suitable for the cold days of Lang Son.

This is considered a traditional dish, reflecting the cultural beauty of the ethnic communities in Lang Son, and is often present on important occasions such as weddings, festivals, and Tet holidays. Purple sticky rice not only serves as a daily meal but is also used to treat distant guests.

Red Pumpkin Cake from Lang Son has long been famous for its eye-catching appearance and completely enticing taste, unlike any other red pumpkin cake from any other region. With familiar ingredients, but under the skillful hands of highland girls, it quickly becomes a cake with the rich taste of the homeland of Lang Son. The feeling of biting into those golden, steaming pieces of cake will undoubtedly not disappoint anyone! So why not try this dish when you come to Lang Son?

Red Pumpkin Cake has red pumpkin and glutinous rice flour as its main ingredients. In addition, depending on the taste of each region, red pumpkin cake may have mung bean filling to enhance the delicious and fragrant flavor. Making red pumpkin cake is quite simple. Red pumpkin is peeled, steamed until cooked, mashed, and kneaded with glutinous rice flour. The longer you knead, the softer, more elastic, and more delicious the cake becomes. Then, take a handful of dough, wrap it with banana leaves or dong leaves, and steam the cake. Lang Son's red pumpkin cake is not only attractive with its eye-catching golden appearance but also very delicious with the cool sweet taste of red pumpkin, making you feel the rich and creamy flavor of mung beans.

Grilled bread here comes in many types, with or without fillings. The bread goes through two stages of grilling, first with cooking oil and then with a mixture of oyster sauce and honey to give the bread a deep golden color and delicious aroma. In addition, the dipping sauce for grilled bread is also prepared with a unique combination of spicy chili, sweet sugar, sour kumquat, and the fragrance of tangerine peel. Dipping a crispy piece of grilled bread into a bowl of flavorful sauce, one can easily eat 2 - 3 pieces or even more if still hungry. Grilled bread in Lang Son is priced from 3k to 10k per piece, depending on whether it has fillings or not.