Top 15 Unmissable Dishes in Lang Son

Khau Nhuc, also known as stitched pork belly, is a braised pork dish cooked in a special Chinese-style broth, famous in several northern mountainous provinces like Cao Bang, Bac Giang... but the most renowned is undoubtedly the Khau Nhuc of Lang Son.

Khau Nhuc is made from thick slices of pork belly with meticulous and complex preparation steps. It involves a delicate combination of various spices such as coriander, five-spice powder, ginger, garlic, chili, rice wine, vinegar, MSG, and pepper... all blended together in a single piece of meat, giving Khau Nhuc its distinctive aroma and taste.

This dish is often served at elegant banquets or to entertain distant guests. Its rich flavor and tender meat will leave a lasting impression on your palate.

Sour pho is one of the most famous and unique specialties of Lang Son, a popular dish that appears on festive occasions or when esteemed guests visit the homes of locals in this region.

Sour pho is a dish that requires intricate preparation and boasts a truly distinctive flavor. It combines various ingredients such as pho noodles, char siu pork, peanuts, dried shallots, sweet potatoes or taro, pickled cucumbers, herbs... The broth is a perfect combination of fried shallots, fragrant garlic, simmered with chili, tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, fish sauce, ginger... with a bit of cornstarch to thicken the sauce. Diners can customize their soup with lime, chili, pepper...

Sour pho is a dish with cooling properties, making it ideal for consumption during hot weather. However, in colder seasons, people may choose to heat up the pho noodles and broth before enjoying it. Sour pho is not only a popular local dish but also a source of pride for the people of Lang Son. You can easily find this dish in any eatery (especially along Le Le Street and Bac Son Street, Lang Son City).

As a familiar gift of the Vietnamese people, rolled cake with meat and eggs is a typical breakfast dish for the people of Lang Son. When tourists visit Lang Son, they must try this dish at least once. It's not extravagant or fancy, but incredibly delicious, just like the taste of Lang Son cuisine...

Still just a simple cake made from finely ground rice, but the special thing about Lang Son rolled cake is its unique filling and traditional broth recipe. Instead of just meat, wood ear mushrooms, and dried shallots like the usual rolled cakes, the filling of Lang Son rolled cake consists of flavorful meat and fragrant, creamy eggs. The broth for the cake is simmered from marrow bones, seasoned with shallots, coriander, pepper, chili... or a mixture of vinegar and sugar with sesame oil. When eaten, you'll feel the soft, chewy texture of the cake, the sweetness of the meat and eggs, and the richness of the broth, all creating a unique brand of rolled cake found only in Lang Son.

Lang Son rolled cake with meat and eggs must be eaten while still hot to fully enjoy its freshness. Especially on cold winter mornings in the border region, enjoying a plate of hot rolled cake with meat and eggs is truly heartwarming.

As the most famous dish of Lang Son, the roast duck here is renowned far and wide, making many people always dream of tasting it once. The locals choose Thất Khê duck breeds with thick bodies, small bones, and tender meat to ensure that diners are always the most satisfied. When freshly roasted, the duck skin is glossy, with a dark yellow color resembling honey. Honey is the secret ingredient of the people of Lang Son.

In addition, the roast duck here is special because of the forest leaves brought by the locals to combine with the duck, among which the leaves and fruits of litsea cubeba are indispensable. The spices for a complete roast duck dish are also quite diverse, including: dark soy sauce, lemongrass, chili, black pepper, soybean oil, ginger, seasoning powder, lime or vinegar, garlic, star anise... The dipping sauce of the people of Lang Son also has its own distinctive feature; they do not use bottled fish sauce or soy sauce but prepare the dipping sauce themselves using the fatty water from the roasted duck's belly, combined with some traditional spices.

Huu Lung is a district in Lang Son province, famous for its unique grilled fermented pork rolls. Grilled fermented pork rolls from Huu Lung are made from raw pork, wrapped in banana leaves along with spices, fermented for 2 to 3 days, and then grilled over charcoal until the banana leaves turn slightly brown.

Lang Son grilled fermented pork rolls have a strong fragrant aroma and a slightly sour taste from the fermented meat. They taste best when eaten with betel leaves and a sweet and sour dipping sauce. All these flavors blend together to create a characteristic dish of the Lung Cu region. On cold days, enjoying a plate of grilled fermented pork rolls with a few glasses of Mauson wine is truly a refined pleasure in life.

The enticing roasted duck dish of Lang Son cleverly combined with noodle soup creates a unique and irresistible delicacy. The chewy and fragrant noodles, the sweet broth mixed with a piece of still hot, golden duck, infused with the aroma of honey, a few spoonfuls of duck fat, scallions, pepper, and chili... all blend together to create a rich flavor typical of Lang Son.

Currently, roast duck noodle soup from Lang Son can be found in Hanoi for only about 30,000 VND/bowl. In Lang Son itself, there are some famous roast duck noodle soup stalls you can visit:

• Hai Xom Roast Duck Noodle Soup: 12 Ba Trieu, Hoang Van Thu, Lang Son City
  
• Mat Mat Roast Duck Noodle Soup Stall: 15 Bac Son, Vinh Trai, Lang Son City
  
• Hung Hung Roast Duck Noodle Soup Stall: 13 Bac Son, Vinh Trai, Lang Son City
  
• Huong Nga Roast Duck Noodle Soup Stall: 128 Bac Son, Vinh Trai, Lang Son City
  
• Ha Nga Roast Duck Noodle Soup Stall: 157 Hung Vuong, Lang Son City.

Roast pig is a famous dish in Lang Son, long known as an essential part of sumptuous feasts and a signature dish of the Tay people. Roast pig is elaborately prepared to bring out a unique flavor. Typically, only pigs weighing from 25kg to 30kg are roasted to ensure tender and fragrant meat. Like roast duck, the pig's skin is also coated with honey to create its distinctive golden shine.

The special feature of Lang Son's roast pig lies in its accompanying spices. Typically, people use fresh mac mat leaves, mac mat fruit, Chinese-style fermented tofu (a type of soybean paste made according to the Tay people's recipe), along with salt, MSG... stir-fried and evenly spread inside the pig's belly before roasting. The roasted meat is considered perfect when it absorbs the spices, becoming tender yet still retaining a certain firmness, with the pig's skin glossy, brick-red, crispy even when the meat has cooled, and the fatty part rich but not greasy, leaving a memorable impression after just one bite.

A dish originating from China, when it arrived in Vietnam and combined with the Vietnamese palate, it became a special gift of Lang Son. Ap chao is made from duck meat but prepared quite uniquely. Despite being duck meat, it is divided into two types presented on two different plates:

• One plate consists of duck meat fried in oil, marinated with basil, while the other has duck meat wrapped in glutinous rice flour and deep-fried to golden perfection. Just looking at the plate of golden-brown duck meat alongside a plate of fresh green vegetables is appetizing. The duck meat fried in oil is served with a dipping sauce comprising spices, chili, vinegar soaked in bitter bamboo shoots, and mac mat fruit. It offers a rich flavor of well-marinated duck meat combined with the unique tanginess of the dipping sauce.
• The other plate with duck meat wrapped in glutinous rice flour, the same type of flour used by savory fried cake vendors, is dipped in a sauce made of papaya fish sauce mixed with vinegar and chili. With each bite, you can feel the chewy texture of the glutinous rice flour, followed by the sweet taste of perfectly cooked golden duck meat. It's an experience that never gets old. Both dishes are accompanied by fresh vegetables.

In the cool breeze of the highlands, surrounded by friends, sipping Mau Son wine, savoring the rich taste of ap chao, and relishing the spiciness of ginger and chili, one truly appreciates the culinary delight of Lang Son.

The main ingredient to make Cao Xang Cake is sticky rice. The rice must be good-quality, white, and fragrant, cooking into fragrant and sticky rice and making the cake delicious and smooth. To make Cao Xang Cake, several steps are carried out:

Cake batter: The rice is soaked overnight to absorb water, then washed clean and ground into a thick rice batter. Some of the batter is set aside and mixed with water to make a thin batter, then boiled until the batter is almost cooked. This mixture is then blended with the raw batter to create a semi-cooked, thick batter. This semi-cooked batter is prepared to prevent the cake from breaking apart when steamed. A little salt and seasoning powder are added to give the batter flavor, and thus the cake batter is ready.

Cake filling: The filling for Cao Xang Cake is made from finely chopped pork and dried onions. The pork shoulder is finely minced and seasoned to taste. The onions are finely chopped, fried until fragrant, then the pork is added and stir-fried until firm.

Steaming the cake: Steaming Cao Xang Cake is quite intricate and requires three rounds. The cake mold is a deep aluminum tray, resembling a small plate. A thick layer of batter is poured into the mold, then steamed until partially cooked. After the batter sets, another layer of batter is added and steamed again until fully cooked. Then, a third, thinner layer of batter mixed with the filling, sesame oil, and some finely chopped scallions is poured and steamed until fully cooked. The cake needs to be steamed multiple times to ensure even cooking and a chewy texture. When the cake is cooked, it emits a fragrant aroma of rice blended with the enticing scent of fried onions. Using a sharp knife, the cake is cut into rectangular pieces, about the size of a matchbox, then sprinkled with some crushed roasted peanuts.

When it comes to bamboo rice, people often think of famous regions like Hoa Binh, Son La, Cao Bang... but if you have ever visited Bac Son, Lang Son to enjoy the bamboo rice of the local Tay ethnic people here, then you will surely not forget its distinctive flavor.

The way of making bamboo rice by the Tay people is similar to making bamboo rice in other places, that is, putting rice and water into bamboo tubes and then grilling them. However, the Tay people in Lang Son have their own secret recipe for making bamboo rice, which has its own unique flavor. It is the earthy aroma of sticky rice mixed with the richness of peanuts and the strong scent of mac mat leaves.

What distinguishes the flavor from bamboo rice in other places is that they mix peanuts with glutinous rice and then compress them into bamboo tubes. After compressing the rice tightly and adding water, they use mac mat leaves to plug the tubes tightly. Plugging the rice with mac mat leaves not only creates a unique aroma but also prevents water from entering the tubes and diluting the rice.

Black Chung cake (also known as mixed-color Chung cake) is wrapped in a long cylindrical shape similar to the Southern Tet cake or the Giay people's Gu cake. However, the signature cake of the Tay people in Bac Son district (Lang Son) has a shiny black color that is very eye-catching, tightly packed into each sticky rice grain, arousing curiosity for many.

Black Chung cake must be hand-wrapped. The cake is about 30 cm long, with a diameter of 6 - 7cm, and tightly rolled with a long bamboo strip. Before boiling the cake, it is soaked in cold water once, placed in a pot, and filled with water until the leaves are submerged, then boiled for about 4 - 5 hours before removing.

When enjoying, people use the bamboo strip wrapped around the cake to cut it into pieces. From the outside, the cake is sticky, the filling is golden with the color of beans, fragrant with the aroma of fat onions, pepper seeds, and the scent of dong leaves. Just looking at it, diners are enough to be mesmerized and feel enchanted by this highland specialty.

Another specialty in Mau Son is the fragrant frog. This is a rare and precious frog species, highly valued in terms of both culinary and economic aspects. Fragrant frogs live in caves, along the streams of Cong Son commune, Cao Loc district, and Mau Son commune, Loc Binh district. This species of frog is no different from common frogs, but they have larger, fatter thighs than field frogs. With the ability to change color to evade enemies, some frogs, when caught, have a green color like moss, hence they are also called green frogs.

The frog meat is white and very fragrant, especially without any fishy smell, even when cooled. People also use fragrant frog meat to cook porridge, which is delicious and fragrant no less than chicken meat. If desired, you can order stir-fried frog with winter melon, frog coated in flour, frog cooked with banana and tofu, which are simple yet attractive cooking methods, with the most popular being crispy fried frog.

For ngai cake, people in the northern mountainous region often simmer young ngai leaves with clean ash water until soft, then rinse, remove the fibers, and pound them into a smooth paste. The cooked rice is also pounded in the mortar together with the finely ground ngai leaves. The pounding process starts when the rice is piping hot until it becomes a soft, smooth, and elastic dough, then it's ready for shaping cakes. Another way to process the leaves is to boil them in lime water to preserve their green color, then drain and pound them until smooth along with the rice until it becomes a fine powder.

In some places, people grind the leaves and mix them with rice, forming green rice cakes, then pound them into a smooth paste. When the dough is elastic and smooth, the cakes are stuffed with sesame and finely ground sugar. The filling ratio is not high compared to sweet bean cakes. However, the sesame aroma blends well with the ngai leaf scent, which is now only fragrant without any bitterness. Lang Son is considered the 'capital' of ngai cakes. When visiting this land, besides buying roasted duck meat and khau nhuc (a local dish), tourists often buy ngai cakes as gifts to bring home.

Purple sticky rice from Lang Son gets its purple color from boiling with a special type of leaf called the purple leaf, harvested mostly in April and May. After boiling, the purple leaf water is soaked with glutinous rice overnight. The originally white glutinous rice grains will turn purple, jokingly referred to by many as being 'dyed purple' due to the leaf's coloration. The color of the purple sticky rice is the same as the color of the soaked glutinous rice grains.

The purple sticky rice dish is as simple as other sticky rice dishes like red sticky rice or green bean sticky rice. To enhance the flavor, you can add a little salt and mix well, or scrape some coconut flesh and mix it with the glutinous rice for a richer taste. If desired, you can also use peeled green beans to cook with the purple sticky rice to create green and purple hues on the plate. The aroma of the purple sticky rice dish is particularly unique compared to the fragrances of other sticky rice varieties, perhaps because the scent of the purple leaf permeates the rice.

In Tràng Định (Lạng Sơn), during the days leading up to Tet, almost every family prepares Tràng Định rice cakes to place on the ancestral altar, serve as a New Year's dish for guests, or give as gifts to relatives and friends. Tràng Định rice cakes are a tradition of the Tày and Nùng people here. These cakes are not only snacks or gifts but also serve as dry rations. Those who go to the fields often carry these cakes to prevent hunger without feeling too heavy after indulging in meat and fat during the Tet days.

High-quality glutinous rice with firm grains is chosen, then roasted evenly until crispy. If roasted too much, the cakes will taste burnt, and if not roasted enough, they will lack fragrance. Afterwards, the roasted rice is ground or finely milled and wrapped in paper to ferment for about 10 days. This process helps make the cakes easier to mold into molds. Sugar or molasses is finely ground and mixed with glutinous rice flour, thoroughly kneaded together, and sifted to obtain the smoothest mixture.

The mixed flour and sugar/molasses are placed in molds, with a layer of filling made from sesame seeds or mung beans evenly spread on top. After sprinkling the final layer of flour on top of the filling, the cakes are compressed into molds, forming a solid block. Finally, the cakes are packaged and wrapped.