Top 15 must-try specialties when visiting Cô Tô

1. Cô Tô Razor Clams

Cô Tô is home to various sea snails such as razor clams, fatty snails, spiny snails... Among them, razor clams, also known as razor shellfish, are a soft-bodied creature with two shell pieces. They are a nutritious and cooling food, often used to treat various ailments. The meat of razor clams has a sweet, crispy texture and is rich in minerals like iron and calcium. Razor clams are prepared into many delicious dishes such as boiled, steamed, and served with chili-fish sauce and accompanied by various aromatic herbs. They can also be stir-fried with laksa leaves, tamarind, pineapple, purple basil, water spinach, combined in salads with jellyfish, mixed with sour and spicy flavors, cooked in fish broth, or in Thai-style salads...

Most uniquely, there is a dish called razor clam salad with jellyfish. The razor clams are cleaned, blanched quickly in hot water, and the meat is extracted. The clam meat is marinated in a mixture of laksa leaves and butter for about 20 minutes. Then it is mixed with jellyfish to make the salad. The salad should also include laksa leaves, aromatic herbs, garlic, sliced ​​green mangoes, roasted peanuts, chili... The salad has a distinctive spicy taste of laksa leaves, the buttery flavor of butter, along with the fresh and crisp texture of razor clams and jellyfish... It's sure to leave an unforgettable taste. Enjoying the clam salad with grilled rice paper and a glass of white wine is simply perfect.

2. Cô Tô Sea Cucumbers

Sea cucumbers are one of the rare and precious seafood items. At first glance, sea cucumbers appear pale pink like worms. However, sea cucumbers have a delicious and nutritious taste. They are often used both fresh (in soups, stir-fries) and dried (roasted), and they taste excellent either way. Due to their high value, dried sea cucumbers can cost as much as gold. However, processing sea cucumbers requires skill to avoid sand residues. Sea cucumbers have a naturally sweet taste, so they don't need additional sugar or seasoning. A little salt enhances their rich flavor. Dried sea cucumbers can be roasted with alcohol and eaten like dried squid, dipped in chili sauce. They can also be fried until crispy and used as a substitute for dried shrimp in soups. Fresh sea cucumbers are great for stir-frying, frying, or making a daily meal extraordinary.

Cô Tô boasts vast fishing grounds, making sea cucumber farming convenient and supplying a large quantity of sea cucumbers for Cô Tô's cuisine. Sea cucumbers not only have a delicious flavor but also offer immense nutritional value. After cleaning and blanching, sea cucumbers are soaked in lime to remove impurities and excess moisture. They are then thinly sliced and stir-fried with celery, carrots, and a bit of fresh beef, creating a delightful and aromatic dish. Sea cucumbers are highly beneficial for health, preventing kidney stones, strengthening the body, and replenishing vital energy. If you're not fond of stir-fried dishes, you can make sea cucumber soup or stew with traditional Chinese medicine, which is also very nourishing.

Oysters, also known as live oysters, thrive along the coast, on rocky shores, or at the mouths of rivers, feeding on abundant organisms and creatures in mud, sand, and seawater. Cô Tô Island provides an excellent habitat for oysters, resulting in delicious Cô Tô oysters that are prepared in various enticing dishes and can be enjoyed raw with lime and chili salt. Oysters are also rich in zinc, which helps boost the immune system.

Horseshoe crab, also known as elephant trunk shell, has an outer shell in ivory white color, with slightly closed shells. In between the two layers of shell is the long, cylindrical proboscis, resembling an elephant's trunk.

Despite being a rare delicacy of Cô Tô Island, horseshoe crabs are now commercially farmed to supply a large quantity to the market. They are mainly prepared in styles such as wasabi, grilled, sauced, or cooked into porridge. Horseshoe crabs have a delightful aroma, a sweet and refreshing taste, and their meat is tender yet crispy, making it a delectable treat.

When you visit Cô Tô, you'll have the chance to enjoy a variety of delicious and fresh seafood dishes. Typically, hotels and guesthouses will offer you the most common seafood menu items such as horseshoe crab, razor clam, conch, grouper, tuna, squid... However, those are just the simplest and most common dishes. If you're a food enthusiast and want to indulge in delicious and valuable seafood, then you should choose Cô Tô ocean fish. Ocean fish are quite rare in the natural sea, so this dish is not as common, but it's still highly sought after because ocean fish are high in nutrients and have a delicious aroma that is very enticing. Ocean fish can be prepared into many nutritious dishes such as ocean fish salad, steamed ocean fish with soy sauce, ocean fish sour soup, ocean fish hotpot...

Clams are soft-bodied animals with two shell halves (valves) belonging to the Veneridae family, specializing in living in coastal areas with high salinity, lots of gravel and sand, and are quite common in tropical or subtropical regions. This is a seafood species with high economic value, easy to farm, and does not require much care. Like many other sea areas of Vân Đồn, Cô Tô island has a very large natural population of clams. Cô Tô clams have a distinctive delicious aroma that can be processed into many attractive seafood dishes.

Clam meat is a highly nutritious and delicious food that many people enjoy. Clams are used as ingredients to create many other dishes such as spicy clam vermicelli soup, clam soup cooked with chicken, and some favorite dishes like steamed lemongrass clams, dipping in chili garlic fish sauce or lime salt pepper, sweet and sour clam sauce...

Sea Spider may sound strange, but this peculiar delicacy is a familiar treat among the locals of Cô Tô Island. Sea spiders resemble crabs in appearance, with the main difference being their oversized claws and slender body. While not as sweet as crabs, sea spiders boast a flavor that surpasses that of mantis shrimp. Another advantage is their affordability, making them a nutritious option compared to crabs and mantis shrimp. In Cô Tô, sea spiders are prepared in various ways, including boiling, steaming, tamarind stir-frying, and charcoal grilling. However, the most delicious and easy-to-make dish is grilled sea spiders over charcoal.

Abalone is a rare and exquisite seafood delicacy, one of the eight dishes known as the “Eight Treasures” often found in royal feasts. Due to its rarity, abalone commands a high price. Not only is abalone delicious, but it also offers numerous nutritional benefits, making it a favorite among many. Abalone is not widely distributed, primarily found in Cô Tô, but its distribution area is relatively small. Abalone is commonly prepared in various dishes such as soups, stews, stir-fries, porridge, or combined with other ingredients like abalone stew with shiitake mushrooms, abalone with bok choy in oyster sauce, abalone stew with mushrooms and pork, abalone porridge with pigeon... Additionally, abalone can be incorporated into dishes like abalone and vegetable soup, abalone rice, abalone stew with crab roe, grilled abalone over charcoal... all of which are unique and enticing dishes.

Razor Clam (also known as sandworm or beach worm in the South) is a seafood delicacy not to be missed when visiting Cô Tô. This type of shrimp is firm, with sweet flesh, and is delicious when grilled, steamed, salt-roasted, or cooked with tamarind. Razor clams not only have delicious meat but also provide excellent nutrition. Razor clam meat contains many nutrients such as Vitamin A, Vitamin B1, Iron, and good levels of Omega 3 and Omega 6 beneficial for the immune system. The firm, sweet flesh of razor clams allows for various preparations such as grilling, steaming, salt-roasting, or cooking with tamarind... all of which are extremely enticing.

Cô Tô is blessed with a variety of famous seafood such as crabs, squids, clams, oysters, and jellyfish... Among them, the most renowned is the barramundi. Once you've tasted barramundi in Cô Tô, it's hard to forget. It exudes an enticing aroma, with a refreshing and nutritious flavor profile rich in calcium, protein, and notably free from cholesterol. Barramundi here is prepared into many delicious dishes, especially steamed and grilled barramundi. The vibrant orange-red plate of barramundi is visually captivating, with its pristine white flesh emitting a tantalizing aroma. If you've experienced it once, it's unforgettable. To visit Cô Tô without sampling steamed barramundi would be a missed opportunity.

Visitors to Cô Tô will indulge in a variety of delicious yet affordable seafood such as dried squid, sun-dried squid, sea snails, mantis shrimps, various types of shellfish, razor clams, razor fish, abalones, sea cucumbers, various fishes (tuna, mackerel, ribbon fish, lizardfish...), lobsters, prawns, crabs, and barramundi... However, the most famous delicacy of Cô Tô must be the jellyfish, known as the 'white gold' of this beautiful island. Cô Tô Jellyfish is primarily prepared as jellyfish salad, also known as jellyfish salad. Cô Tô jellyfish salad is crispy, refreshing, and has a unique flavor unlike any other seafood, and is very beneficial for digestion. Each year, the jellyfish season lasts for a maximum of 20 days, from February to the end of April in the lunar calendar. If you have the opportunity to visit Cô Tô during jellyfish season, don't forget to explore this special culinary delight.

Sea urchin is a delicious seafood with an extremely enticing flavor and high nutritional value. Not only that, sea urchin is also known as the ginseng of the sea, providing many health benefits. Typically, sea urchin is prepared in three main ways: raw, grilled, and cooked into porridge. Especially, sea urchin can be eaten raw with a little wasabi and soy sauce, then enjoyed. Sea urchin does not have a fishy taste; instead, it has the richness of sea urchin roe combined with the strong spiciness of wasabi, creating an unforgettable taste. Additionally, sea urchin can be grilled with savory butter and fragrant onions or cooked into porridge to provide a large amount of calcium for the body.

Sea crab is one of the precious seafood specialties containing many nutritional components such as calcium, iron, vitamins, and minerals. This is a healthy food that many tourists choose as gifts when visiting Cô Tô beach.

Cô Tô's squid products have long been renowned for their origin from the Cô Tô sea with favorable natural conditions, fresh ingredients, and local processing methods with skillful hands, creating a unique taste for Cô Tô dried squid and sun-dried squid products.

Cô Tô squid has a straight body, thick flesh. When grilled, each piece of meat tears into a chewy, resilient texture, with a pure sweetness of protein, devoid of the bitter taste found in squid from some other regions. Therefore, everyone visiting Cô Tô desires to bring back some squid as gifts for their families or to treat their friends.