An old dish for the poor, now a specialty of Hoi An, everyone wants to try it once

Hoi An Ancient Town (Quang Nam) is famous for hundreds of thousands of delicious dishes. Therefore, visitors coming here will have the opportunity to enjoy a variety of delicious, rustic but very cheap dishes, including Banh Dap – a snack that everyone must try once or regret.

Banh dam has such a unique name because the ancients said that when the profession of making rice paper appeared, they saw the freshly coated cake hot and white and immediately tried to taste it. Unexpectedly, they were very delicious, so I sandwiched a baked rice paper into two thin wet cakes. Then they use their hands to break it up so that everything blends together.

Since then, the people of the old town have called it banh dap and “brought it up” into a specialty of this region. Ms. Bich Tuyen (45 years old) – who has a small snack shop in Hoi An said: “Dumplings were originally used as breakfast food to serve people in the old town, then “evolved” into snacks. of the children. Gradually, it is not only a roadside and country dish anymore, but has become a famous specialty.

Banh dam was originally used as a breakfast food to serve people in the old town, then “evolved” into snacks.

According to Ms. Bich Tuyen, the round cake is not simply made from two thin layers of wet cake and one layer of baked rice paper. If you want to have a delicious pound cake, you have to be very sophisticated: the wet cake is still hot after being coated, and it is immediately applied with groundnut oil, which is reduced by compressed tubers (onion toothpick – PV). That way, the cake is delicious and has a unique flavor that only Hoi An has.

“That is still not enough taste of Hoi An dam cake. A plate of properly beaten cake must be dipped with a special delicious dipping sauce: a cup of seasoned fish sauce to taste, add chili and garlic to enhance the smell. More than a handful of seasonings must be sour, the fish sauce is not too crushed… And if anyone wants to eat more fried onions, they will have fried onions to taste with more rich sugar”, said the Quang woman.

A plate of properly beaten cake must be dipped with a special delicious dipping sauce: a cup of seasoned fish sauce to taste, add chili and garlic to enhance the smell.

Ms. Tuyen’s burden of pound cake and other Hoi An specialties is not too big, but it attracts a huge number of tourists. She said that during the tourist season, her shop has to make hundreds of cakes but still not enough to meet the demand.

“My shop is not specializing in pound cake, but it is still very crowded. Initially, they came to enjoy Cao Lau, mussel rice or Quang noodles and saw that the cake had a strange name and looked strange, so they ordered to try it. Unexpectedly, after eating, they immediately mash it and order a few to enjoy. I even have regular customers, a few years ago they went to Hoi An to travel and when they come back, they still stop by the shop to eat banh dat”, shared Ms. Bich Tuyen.