What to Eat for Authentic Hue Cuisine Experience?

Hue is renowned for its royal cuisine, but its street food and local dishes also offer irresistible flavors.

What to Eat for Authentic Hue Cuisine Experience?

1. Mussel Rice

Mussel rice is a must-try dish in Hue. Despite its humble origins found everywhere from villages to countryside roads, it boasts richness and sophistication in taste. Mussel rice consists of cooked white rice left to cool, topped with mussels and other condiments, alongside crispy fried shallots. It's enhanced with a bit of Hue-style fermented shrimp paste for its distinctive savory, spicy, and pungent flavor. Enjoyed with fresh vegetables including herbs, banana blossoms, bean sprouts, and sliced taro stems. Peanuts are roasted and lightly fried in golden oil for added visual appeal.

The best mussel rice can be found at Con Hen or at Mrs. Nho's stall located on the corner of Pham Hong Thai Street, intersecting with Truong Dinh Street. It's typically sold in the morning, and by noon, it's often sold out. Alternatively, you can try stall number 2 on Truong Dinh Street. Mussel rice is quite affordable, with a bowl costing only around 10,000 VND.

2. Hue's Delightful Delicacies: Beo Cake, Clear Dumplings, Savory Pancakes

Experiencing Hue tourism reveals the deep connection between Beo cake and the daily life of the ancient capital's residents. From 3 to 5 in the afternoon, along the alleys, women balance trays on their shoulders or small baskets on their hips, selling Beo cakes and clear dumplings from door to door. Hue locals have a fondness for these flavorsome hometown treats, making them a staple in their meals.

You can visit 'Beo Cake neighborhoods' such as An Dinh palace, Ngự Bình street, Nguyen Binh Khiem street... to witness and savor the 'Beo cake culture' firsthand.

Savory pancakes are made from ground rice batter mixed with water and egg yolks, seasoned with pepper, shallots, fish sauce, salt, peeled shrimp, sliced grilled beef (or poultry), sliced lard, and bean sprouts. The deliciousness of these pancakes partly comes from the broth, a sauce only skilled chefs can prepare. This is a secret recipe passed down through generations, determining the quality and creating the top-notch flavor of savory pancakes.

The most famous savory pancake is the Upper Fourth Pancake, with branches including Lac Thien, Lac Thanh, and Bach Yen.

3. Hue Vegetarian Rice

If you're looking for a light and detoxifying meal, try a vegetarian rice dish in Hue. Vegetarian options are diverse and abundant, ranging from vegetables, roots, mushrooms, tofu... yet they offer a satisfying and rich meal.

Visitors to Hue, keen on savoring a vegetarian meal, besides Buddhist practitioners skilled in preparing delicious vegetarian dishes for intimate family gatherings, can contact temples to enjoy a special Hue vegetarian meal. Any temple will do, but the best option is Tu Dam Pagoda, as it is a nunnery with many devoted nuns preparing delicious vegetarian meals, conveniently located in the city - on Dien Bien Phu Street.

Additionally, you can visit Lien Hoa vegetarian restaurant - located at 3 Le Quy Don street, to enjoy various vegetarian dishes. The prices here are also quite affordable.

4. Hue Beef Noodle Soup (Bun Bo Hue)

Hue Beef Noodle Soup, the soul of Hue cuisine, its deliciousness and fame need no introduction. Hue Beef Noodle Soup typically contains a piece of knuckle, a piece of brisket, a small piece of pork hock, and of course, several slices of beef. The accompanying vegetables are fresh and abundant. The most famous place to enjoy Hue Beef Noodle Soup is 13 Ly Thuong Kiet street (next to the Trade Union Guest House). Additionally, you can easily find high-quality Bun Bo eateries throughout Hue. The price for a bowl of Hue Beef Noodle Soup is around 30,000 VND.

5. Ba Doi Clear Noodle Soup

Located on Dao Duy Anh street, at the end of a small alley, there is a banh canh stall without a signboard. Operated like a family business with few staff, customers often have to wait a bit longer, hence the regulars call it Mrs. Doi's stall (locals in Hue refer to her as Mrs. Doi). Although the banh canh noodles here are flatly sliced like those in Quang Binh style rather than compressed into round strands, the broth retains the distinctive Hue style.

The broth here has a rich and naturally fragrant shrimp flavor. When the bowl of banh canh is served, the clear broth, pork cake, and crispy fresh shrimp will entice diners to add pepper, salt, lime, chili oil, and finely chopped spring onions already available on the table, although the broth in the bowl is already very flavorful... Hence it's rare for customers to leave the broth untouched at Mrs. Doi's stall.

6. Grilled Pork Vermicelli, Grilled Pork Rice Cakes

The distinctive feature of these two dishes lies in the grilled pork. The meat here is marinated just right, not overpowering the aroma, the pieces are tender instead of dry, and they carry a unique flavor, quite different from elsewhere. The accompanying dipping sauce is just right, and what's special is that there are plenty of fresh, refreshing, and vibrant greens.

7. Nhat Le Square Cake

This is a famous dish in Hue originating from Nhat Le Street in the Imperial City, where dozens of bakeries are concentrated. The cake is fragrant and chewy, very appetizing due to the harmonious combination of bean paste, meat (fat and lean), sticky rice, and spices such as pepper, shallots. Those who have been eating it for a long time become addicted, craving for more.

Eating Nhat Le square cake when it's cool is better than when it's hot. Peel off the banana leaves, the green color of the cake is refreshing. Take a bite, the bean and pork fat filling is a rich brown and white mixture, satisfyingly filling the mouth.

8. Hue-style Grilled Pork Skewers

Many people often say 'Grilled pork skewers are one of the specialties of Hue'. There are two grilled pork skewer stalls on Nguyen Hue street. Both stalls are packed with customers day and night. First-time customers all praise its deliciousness and come back for more, even becoming addicted and praising it every time.

When eating, wrap the grilled pork in rice paper with herbs, fragrant leaves, starfruit, lettuce, thinly sliced green bananas, sliced figs, and colorful peppers... wrap it in a shallot leaf and dip it in a special sauce called 'leaving water'. The dipping sauce for grilled pork skewers is prepared from dozens of different ingredients such as vegetable oil, pork liver, rice powder, sugar, soy sauce, cinnamon, cloves, and coconut milk.

9. Forbidden Rice

Visitors to Hue may be surprised by the name of this peculiar dish, but for the locals here, it's a familiar dish, commonly sold in restaurants and roadside stalls. Forbidden rice is essentially a common dish but presented in a visually appealing manner. White rice in the center, surrounded by ingredients including pork belly, Hue-style pork sausage, shrimp, grilled Hue-style pork skewers, boiled eggs, herbs, cucumber... creating a vibrant 7-color display.

The ingredients of forbidden rice may vary nowadays according to the customer's request, but it must ensure a full range of colors, symbolizing the 7 first steps of the Buddha. If you want to taste the true flavor of this unique dish, you can visit a rice restaurant called 'Underworld' on Nguyen Thai Hoc street, near the Hue stadium.

As the birthplace of forbidden rice, the restaurant has existed for almost a century and has been passed down through many generations. Many people recount that in the past, the restaurant only opened at night, with oil lamps lit inside, creating a mysterious scene, hence the rice restaurant 'Underworld' got its name from that.

10. Alley Desserts

Our ancestors used to say if Hanoi has the '36 streets and guilds', then Hue also has the '36 types of desserts'. No one knows when alley desserts appeared in Hue, they just call it that because it's often found deep in the alleys with many different types of desserts.

Each type of dessert has its own flavor, delicious, refined, and intricate like the people here. Corn dessert is cool and pure, both fragrant and flavorful, made from young corn from Con Hen, lotus seed dessert with a unique deep scent of Tinh Tam lotus - the 'king lotus'. There's also longan stuffed lotus seed dessert, sweet and fragrant, and many other desserts like floating dessert, sweet potato dessert, tapioca pearl dessert...

There's a type of dessert that sounds strange but only Hue has it: pork crackling tapioca pearl dessert. Elaborately prepared from small pieces of pork crackling wrapped in sticky rice flour, cooked with sugar into a dessert. When eating, this dessert gives us a very strange sensation, sweet yet salty, rich and indescribably creamy...

By Hieu Vo (Compiled)

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Reference: Mytour Travel Handbook