Top 10 Must-Try Dishes When Visiting Mountain Town - Gia Lai

The first dish on the list that travelers must devour when visiting Gia Lai is dry pho - 2-bowl pho. Dry pho is a special and unique delicacy of Gia Lai with a distinctive flavor and eating style.

The dry pho bowl must include finely minced pork, shredded chicken, and crispy fried shallots. Meanwhile, the broth bowl consists of chicken broth, rare or tendon beef, corn or beef meatballs depending on each person's taste. Accompanying vegetables for dry pho include lettuce, basil, and bean sprouts.

When enjoying dry pho, you can adjust the seasoning according to your taste. Scoop a spoonful of pho into your mouth, and you will feel the chewy sweetness of the pho noodles, the rich aroma of the sauce, the crunchiness of the bean sprouts, and the sweet freshness of the broth.

Travelers to Gia Lai can find dry pho in most meals with locals. As for dry pho, you can eat it at a restaurant on Nguyen Van Troi street. The price of a bowl of dry pho is about 25,000 to 35,000 VND.

Bun Mam Cua is a delicious specialty in Gia Lai, but it's not an easy dish for many people to eat. Carefully selected field crabs, large and meaty, are cleaned and cooked in mam cua sauce, which is naturally fermented to create a strong, distinctive aroma.

A bowl of Bun Mam Cua includes: field crabs, vermicelli, pork belly, crushed peanuts, pickled bamboo shoots, spring rolls, crispy fried pork skin, shrimp crackers... all covered with mam cua sauce. Accompanying vegetables can be bean sprouts, herbs, or some other types of forest vegetables to enhance the aroma of the dish.

People may find the strong smell of mam cua overwhelming when they first start eating it. But once they get used to it, it becomes addictive for travelers visiting here.

Gia Lai beef is raised freely in the forests, resulting in tender, flavorful meat. The beef, after being slaughtered, is carefully selected for the best cuts, which are then used to make sun-dried beef. The beef must be processed immediately because if left for too long, it will become spoiled and lose its freshness. The beef is cleaned, cut into rectangular pieces measuring 15cm in length and 2cm in thickness, then marinated with ground chili, shallots, fish sauce, salt, etc., for 15 minutes to absorb the spices evenly before being sun-dried.

Sun-drying the beef until it's partially dried, then it is carefully stored. When using, you have to grill the beef over charcoal. When the beef is cooked, it emits a fragrant aroma that makes you crave it just by smelling it. Enjoy it with fresh herbs and soy sauce. Nothing is better than enjoying a plate of sun-dried beef with a glass of rice wine on rainy days. It will surely leave a lasting impression on tourists visiting here.

Highland Leaf Salad – a dish listed in the top 10 Vietnamese specialties recognized for its culinary value in Asia in 2013. Travelers who come here to enjoy it all acknowledge the irresistibly delicious taste this dish brings.

True to its name forest leaf salad, this dish is nothing but leaves upon leaves. It's estimated that each plate of authentic Highland Leaf Salad, especially in Pho Nui Pleiku, contains up to 30 different types of leaves such as: cabbage, perilla, lettuce, basil, guava, onion, mint... Among them are some types of leaves found only in the mountains of the Central Highlands.

Of course, the leaf salad isn't just leaves, it also includes a dipping sauce made from sticky rice Along with that are familiar accompaniments such as: thinly sliced boiled pork belly, added with Hồ Chè sea shrimp, boiled pig skin...

Fermented fish sauce vermicelli - A rustic delicacy that's incredibly flavorful. The harmonious blend of spices creates a unique taste for the dish. The condiment accompanying the vermicelli takes on the name of the dish itself, which is fermented fish sauce. This special sauce is made from delicious fresh small fish. After careful selection, the fish are thoroughly cleaned, marinated with salt in appropriate proportions, and then fermented. After 5-9 days, the fish mature and turn into fermented fish sauce. When served, the fermented fish sauce has a shiny smooth red color, visually appealing.

When eaten with vermicelli, the fermented fish sauce is typically accompanied by lime, garlic, and chili to reduce the fishy taste and enhance the fragrance of the dish. A bowl of vermicelli is enjoyed with accompaniments such as Vietnamese pork sausage, boiled pork belly, rolled egg, fried shallots, and various types of fresh vegetables like bean sprouts, lettuce, and cucumber...

When visiting the mountainous provinces, especially the highlands where the E De people reside in Gia Lai, you cannot miss out on the authentic Bamboo Rice paired with fiery grilled chicken. Bamboo Rice is a specialty of Gia Lai, and when served with fiery grilled chicken, it's simply divine. Bamboo Rice in Gia Lai carries the delicious aroma of rice grown on the terraces, infused with the natural fragrance of bamboo.

To prepare authentic Bamboo Rice, people in Gia Lai use fresh bamboo tubes, with one end sealed. They then fill the tubes with soaked rice and water, seal them with dong leaves, and place them on a fire. When the fire burns softly, the Bamboo Rice will cook, but the person cooking must be skillful to produce delicious rice.

When the Bamboo Rice is cooked, it is beautifully presented, and visitors should enjoy it while it's still warm. You should break the bamboo tube into several sections, then break the rice, dip it in a mixture of salt, lemongrass, and wild chili. Many also recommend enjoying Bamboo Rice with fiery grilled chicken. This enhances the allure of the Bamboo Rice even more.

Perhaps many would be horrified or hesitant to try salt made from golden ants in the mountainous region of Gia Lai. However, this dish is truly delicious and can leave a lasting impression on tourists after just one taste. To prepare this dish, the people of Gia Lai have to climb the mountains in Krông Pa (Gia Lai) to catch the golden ants and turn them into salt.

The ants are roasted over fire until they are cooked, then crushed along with coarse salt, spicy chili, a bit of dried shallots, and some forest leaves... This creates a dipping salt that perfectly complements grilled meats, true to the standards of the Central Highlands. This is a unique specialty of this region.

Golden ant salt is now packaged in bags or jars for the convenience of travelers who want to buy it as a gift. When visiting Gia Lai, don't forget to buy this special delicacy as a gift for your loved ones!

Pleiku Bamboo Tube Grilled Beef sounds intriguing, doesn't it? The reason it's called 'bamboo tube grilled' is because the beef is put into tubes and grilled.

Just the name alone makes it appealing, right? The main ingredient of this delicious Pleiku dish is beef. The beef is thinly sliced, marinated with spices such as lemongrass, pandan leaves... crushed, marinated for about 30 minutes, then put into tubes (the tubes are made of fresh bamboo or young bamboo, still green), and wrapped tightly with banana leaves before being grilled over charcoal.

This enticing Pleiku dish captivates diners not only with its name but also with the aroma of the beef emanating from the bamboo tubes.

Among the forest delicacies, sour bamboo shoots are also a favorite dish of ethnic people. Fresh bamboo shoots are crushed with chili and then fermented in pottery jars, about two weeks later, the sour bamboo shoots are ready to eat. The pieces of bamboo shoots are crispy, both the water and the flesh have a sour, spicy, bitter, sweet taste. Sour bamboo shoots cooked with catfish, sour bamboo shoots cooked with chicken make you forget to stop eating...

Around May in the lunar calendar, when the rainy season begins, it is also the time when the forest offers delicious and sweet young bamboo shoots. After harvesting, the bamboo shoots are thinly sliced, sun-dried or oven-dried, turning them into a specialty that is not available everywhere.

Visiting the land of Gia Lai amidst the vast forests, where the majestic nature brings a feeling of youthfulness and vitality. Forest herb hotpot is also a special gift that nature bestows upon humans here. Forest Herb Hotpot - Gia Lai's Unique Delicacy not only embodies the rustic, authentic flavors of the homeland but also is a specialty that visitors to Gia Lai should definitely try.

This forest herb hotpot is meticulously crafted by the people of Gia Lai. Each type of forest herb has beneficial effects on human health. Therefore, this unique dish always attracts travelers from all directions to the great forest.

When enjoying forest herb hotpot, don't forget to savor it with meat sauce, fragrant nem (fermented pork), wrapped in forest leaves. The spicy, intense flavor will bring a sense of freshness and novelty to the palate. So if you have the chance to visit here, don't forget to indulge in this enticing hotpot!