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Gia Lai is renowned for its enticing culinary treasures, drawing in food enthusiasts from far and wide. When visiting Gia Lai, one cannot overlook the list of famous dishes from this region. Let's compile a list of must-try foods for your upcoming trip to Gia Lai and delightful gifts to bring back for your loved ones.
Fermented Fish Vermicelli Soup
Fermented fish vermicelli soup, a rustic dish of the mountainous region of Pleiku. The ingredients are simple with vermicelli and fermented fish accompanied by a few raw vegetables. Simple as it may seem, those who have tasted this dish once will never forget its delicious and rich flavor. The blend of flavors creates a savory and mouthwatering dish. Fermented fish is the key ingredient, determining the deliciousness of the dish. The fish is cleaned and marinated with salt in a certain proportion, then stored in a jar and sealed tightly. Depending on the weather and temperature, the fish may mature after about 7 to 9 days. At that time, the fish is slightly soft and has a distinctive strong and fragrant aroma.
When served with vermicelli, the fermented fish is enhanced with a variety of ingredients such as lime, garlic, chili, sugar, and finely chopped pineapple to balance the salty taste and elevate the delicious aroma. A bowl of fully prepared fermented fish with fresh vegetables placed at the bottom, topped with fresh vermicelli, boiled meat, sausage, spring rolls, a few slices of cucumber, and a bowl of fermented fish sauce is served to diners. Mix the fermented fish sauce with the vermicelli thoroughly; the more you mix, the more the fragrant aroma of the sauce stimulates your taste buds, creating an irresistible urge to eat.
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Fermented Fish Vermicelli Soup
Lingzhi Mushroom
For a long time, Lingzhi mushroom has been discovered by locals for its very good effects on human health, reducing fatigue, and increasing body flexibility. It is highly effective for liver diseases such as hepatitis, cirrhosis, and fatty liver - Preventing and treating diabetes, reducing blood sugar in diabetic patients. Helps the body excrete toxins, removes foreign pigments on the skin, making the skin fair, rosy, and resistant to skin diseases such as allergies, and eczema. Reduces fatigue, soothes, and supports the nervous system. Treats headaches, insomnia, nervous exhaustion, stress-induced anxiety and tension. Enhances the activity of the immune and antiviral systems, keeping the body always youthful and increasing longevity... loved by everyone.
Mushrooms are harvested from pristine forests, symbiotically growing on the trunk of ancient trees, which inherently do not contain harmful toxins. Therefore, despite the high cost, many people still come to Gia Lai to inquire and purchase.
Lingzhi Mushroom
Dry Pho
Dry Pho is an incredibly familiar specialty to the people of Gia Lai, deeply rooted in the culinary culture here, and to this day, this dish continues to be well-received by visitors from afar.
The main ingredients include a bowl of pho topped with some dried fried shallots, finely chopped meat with a hint of pepper, a second bowl for the broth, allowing diners to choose the eating method that suits them, whether eating dry with fresh herbs, bean sprouts, or adding broth to the bowl of pho to prevent it from being too dry. The fragrant flavor from the meat, fried shallots, and fish sauce dip creates a delicious experience for the diners, while some raw vegetables and a few slices of lime add an extra layer of stimulation to the taste buds.
Dry Pho
Golden Ant Salt
Golden Ant Salt is one of the renowned specialties of the Gia Lai region. It is salt made from golden ants. Ants, tiny creatures yet high in nutritional content: protein from 42-67%, with 28 types of amino acids and numerous minerals. Golden ants are insects specialized in hunting prey on tall tree leaves. Particularly, fruit orchards with golden ants will yield sweeter, juicier fruits with fewer pests. Golden ant stings are very painful. Therefore, the most challenging stage in making golden ant salt is catching the ants. Depending on the soil of each region, the characteristics of the forest determine that golden ants usually nest on different trees at different heights. Experienced ant catchers will recognize when ant nests have many eggs; this is when there is a silver-white membrane outside the nest. They use sticks to lower the ant nests from the trees into aluminum basins. After removing all the leaf litter, there will be ants and ant eggs left.
Next is the process of roasting the ants and their eggs on a hot pan until they are dry and fragrant. Then, put the ants in a mortar, add chili, salt, MSG, and grind them into small pieces. Depending on the taste preferences of each region, golden ant salt is processed in various ways. The best time for delicious ants is when the ants lay eggs. At this time, the sour taste of the ants combined with the sweet and fatty taste of the eggs, the spicy taste of chili, and the salty taste of sea salt will create a very unique and attractive dipping sauce.
Golden Ant Salt is often present in the meals of the people of Gia Lai. Golden Ant Salt can be eaten alone or served with hot rice, boiled meat, grilled meat, but it is most flavorful when eaten with beef or sun-dried deer meat. Golden Ant Salt also pairs wonderfully with pineapple, mango, or guava. When in Gia Lai, you should try Golden Ant Salt immediately, and you will understand why it is considered a specialty of the highlands.
Golden Ant Salt
Rice wine
A memorable impression for distant travelers when they come to the Central Highlands is the aroma of bamboo-tube rice and the intoxicating warmth of rice wine. These two consumables have become celestial specialties in the hearts of the indigenous people. A trip to the Central Highlands without experiencing rice wine is like not truly arriving in the Central Highlands. Rice wine is the term used by Vietnamese people for this special type of wine, which is fermented by some ethnic minorities in Vietnam in jars, bamboo tubes, or bottles without distillation. When serving, it must be drunk using a straw made of reed or bamboo with holes to sip the wine. Rice wine is cherished for many reasons; the people of the Central Highlands believe that their rice wine is divinely ordained, and whenever they worship or pray to spirits, rice wine must be present for the prayers to be effective. Furthermore, rice wine is meticulously made from the daily sustenance of human life, which adds to its value. Today, rice wine is not just a beverage for the local people but has been commercialized and brought down to the lowlands to be sold to travelers far and wide. Tourism businesses in the Central Highlands have incorporated rice wine into their operations, selling it at tourist sites, attractions, and restaurants as a way to introduce the unique cultural culinary tourism products of the indigenous people. Moreover, rice wine serves as a bridge for cultural exchange and emotional connection between different ethnic communities. Besides its purely material value, rice wine carries deep spiritual significance, serving as a part of the soul and a distinctive cultural characteristic of the land and people of the Central Highlands.
Rice wine
Honey
Gia Lai boasts vast mountainous terrain with extensive lush forests. It not only provides favorable conditions for economic development but also serves as an enticing destination for many domestic and international tourists. The extensive forest area also facilitates the growth and production of honey by bees. This gives rise to the renowned specialty of Gia Lai's forest honey. To obtain liters of delicious and high-quality forest honey, craftsmen must venture deep into the forests. They observe the biological habits of bees, learning where they typically build their hives and during which seasons they produce the most abundant and sweetest honey. After harvesting, the honey is carefully extracted and stored in glass bottles to preserve its best quality.
Honey can be found almost everywhere in the country. However, it seems that nowhere compares to Gia Lai's forest honey. This region boasts fertile red basalt soil, distinctive of the Central Highlands, with a distinct rainy and sunny climate, and abundant and diverse wildflowers that make it easy for bees to find nectar, resulting in the finest quality honey. Gia Lai's forest honey has a natural fragrance, a shiny golden color, clarity, and high viscosity. The longer it stays, the higher its viscosity becomes. When stored in the refrigerator, it does not crystallize at the bottom and does not freeze. Gentle shaking produces gas bubbles. Stirring with a chopstick maintains the honey's clarity, whereas adulterated or mixed honey turns cloudy. When consumed, it has a pure, sweet taste without the cloying sensation often associated with honey adulterated with sugar.
Honey
Wild bamboo shoots
Dried Bamboo Shoots are a specialty of Gia Lai, harvested from natural bamboo shoots entirely handmade, carefully selected from young bamboo shoots in the forest, harvested directly by local people, then boiled and naturally sun-dried. No chemicals are used for preservation. If you have the opportunity to explore the deep forests with the locals, don't hesitate to try it! Searching for wild bamboo shoots for daily meals is a common practice among the locals, and although the processing is simple, it offers a delightful eating experience.
Gia Lai's forest bamboo shoots are mainly harvested from June to October from the forest and naturally processed and sun-dried. There are various types of dried bamboo shoots, such as bamboo shoots, bamboo hearts, bamboo piths, and bamboo buds, but the ones made from bamboo shoots are the best, entirely sourced from nature without human intervention. Despite their small size, these bundles of bamboo shoots are tender and crispy, perfect for both festive and everyday dishes.
Bamboo Shoots
Dried Beef
Gia Lai Dried Beef is a type of dried beef selected from natural cattle, raised freely in the mountainous forest areas of Gia Lai. To prepare this beef dish, the producers must directly select the beef with the firmest muscles, ensuring they are not too fat but also not too lean, which is particularly challenging when the cattle roam freely. After selection, the producers of this dried beef must choose days with good weather so that after butchering, the beef can be sun-dried, especially under the crisp, dry sun of this region. Due to the extremely difficult processing method and the many required factors, this Gia Lai dried beef is very rare and highly sought after by many diners.
Because it is sun-dried and then processed with various spices, the dried beef retains the sweetest flavor of each piece of meat. Đặc Sản Làm Quà specializes in distributing various types of Gia Lai dried beef and sun-dried Gia Lai beef. When serving, you need to grill the beef again over charcoal, enhancing the flavor and stimulating the taste buds. A touch of chili sauce harmonizes the dish, and enjoying it with a cold beer is even more wonderful.
Dried Beef
Coffee
When mentioning Gia Lai, one cannot forget the incredibly delicious specialty that nature has bestowed upon this land - Gia Lai coffee. Pure coffee, with a mild bitterness, slight sweetness, and a refreshing taste that doesn't linger long in the mouth. Nowadays, with the continuous development of society, there is a growing demand for services and an increase in the quality of life. Particularly in the coffee market, especially with pure coffee, more and more consumers are choosing it because of the wonderful taste it offers. However, due to profit motives and lack of experience, especially in coffee processing knowledge, the Vietnamese coffee market is still chaotic, with many coffee processing facilities emerging. Consumers are often confused when choosing a good coffee, a safe food product. Many businesses have strong marketing but the coffee itself has not achieved good quality and especially safety (using too many chemicals). Learn more about Gia Lai pure coffee, so you can choose the best quality coffee product for yourself!
Selecting ripe, beautiful coffee beans along with modern production lines has produced a beverage that many people love. The delicious flavor blends the essence of the land and sky, making it unforgettable after just one try. Especially, choosing to buy coffee as a gift for relatives or friends is also a smart decision.
Coffee
Bamboo Rice
Bamboo Rice, also known as Bamboo Tube Rice, is considered a mountainous dish because it contains the sweetness of streams and the delicious flavor of special rice found here. Making delicious Bamboo Tube Rice requires meticulous attention to detail. Firstly, selecting bamboo or reed stalks. These stalks must be young and firm, with a closed top and open bottom, using leaves as caps. Choosing the right rice is also crucial, it must be sticky and fragrant, soaked and washed with a little salt mixed in before stuffing it into the bamboo or reed tubes for grilling.
The grilling process is equally labor-intensive. There are many grilling methods, but stacking the tubes around a fire pit like a roof ensures even cooking and easy access to all sides of the bamboo or reed tubes. When the rice is cooked, it exudes the aroma of rice blending with the bamboo or reed, creating a fragrant and flavorful dish. After cooking, the rice is scooped out from the tubes, broken into pieces, and eaten with salt-grilled chicken or lightly roasted peanuts, crushed and mixed. This dish will leave a lasting memory for travelers who have tasted it.
Bamboo Rice
Every region has its own specialties, and the people of Gia Lai are certainly proud of the many beloved dishes their homeland offers. We are fortunate to taste all the specialties of this land.
Posted by: Đinh Bá Nguyện
Keywords: 10 culinary specialties of Gia Lai
