Experience Dien Bien – the place of many unique specialty dishes

After the Covid-19 illness, I decided to reward myself with a vacation and did not hesitate to choose Dien Bien, where the land that created the earthquake, the famous victory – Dien Bien Phu. And also by the way of the trip, I want to visit my best friend’s house here.

In April, when Hanoi still lingers with the lingering cold of late winter, people still have to wear coats on the street. As soon as I set foot at Dien Bien Phu Airport at 2 pm, I felt the hot sun like the coming season, burning. As it turned out, Dien Bien belongs to the Northwest region, has a border with Laos, and is located in the basin area, so the climate is different from the North.

As a native of Dien Bien, I was taken by my best friend to enjoy the special dishes here. At dinner on the first night, my friend treated me to a flower ban mannequin, at that time Dien Bien was in the flower ban season.

We drove about 2km from our house to Muong Thanh market, choosing the right mannequin shop of a Thai ethnic saleswoman. She makes many mannequins by herself, of which the most delicious and most sought-after by people are hoa ban and buffalo skin with sliced ​​eggplant.

According to the saleswoman’s share, to make Hoa ban salad with delicious bitter bamboo shoots, you need to prepare Hoa ban, bitter bamboo shoots, salt seasoning, fresh garlic leaves, galangal, dried garlic and chili peppers. In addition to boiled bitter bamboo shoots, the most important step is to boil the flowers.

Ban flowers brought back, picked up the petals and pistil, washed and then blanched with hot water. After draining, the flower is crushed. As for bamboo shoots, after being tied, soaked in dilute salt water, they are also boiled and then drained.

To make the dish more delicious, it is indispensable to include grilled stream fish. Fresh spring fish is grilled on charcoal and then the meat is removed. Then make a mixture of lemon juice, garlic, chili, basil and finely chopped coriander.

Finally, gently mix the bamboo shoots, flowers, fish and mixed water. All are mixed together, wait about 20 minutes for the ingredients to infuse the spices.

All blend together to create a characteristic flavor of the mountains and forests, taking each piece of mannequin you will feel the rich and aromatic taste of grilled fish, the fleshy, greasy taste of ban flowers, and the bitter taste of bamboo shoots. fresh.

The next dish that I enjoyed the next day was grilled fish Pa Pinh Top.

Pa Pinh Top is a specialty dish of the Thai people. Pa in Thai means “stream fish”, Pa Pinh Top means grilled folded fish, usually made from stream fish, carp, drifting fish, carp … living in mountain streams. The reason it is called grilled fish is based on the shape of the fish when it is grilled, the Thai people clean, marinate and then fold the fish in half to bake, so the ethnic people named it like that.

An indispensable ingredient in Pa Pinh Top dish is mac Khen seeds. Macken seed is a typical spice of the Thai people in the Northwest.

Mac Khen seeds, after roasting and grinding, have an aroma like grapefruit peel and look similar to pepper in the lowlands (however, the taste is completely different), that’s why mac Khen seeds are also called forest pepper.

Baked fish in Pa Binh Top must be dry, fragrant, with enough sour, spicy, sweet, salty and bitter flavors of spices.

Thai people say, the best is to eat Pa Pinh Top with sticky rice dotted with occipital cross, drink with corn wine.

On the last day in Dien Bien, I was treated to a hearty tray of rice with full of dishes from the Northwest by my friends in the kitchen, including boiled bitter bamboo shoots, purple sticky rice is my favorite dish.

In addition, there are many specialties of Dien Bien such as roasted bamboo worms with lemon leaves, kitchen buffalo meat with a strong flavor of the Northwest mountains.

This is my 2nd time coming back to Dien Bien after 8 years. The trip has let me know many new places, interesting new people, sincere and friendly indigenous people and specialties of the Northwest mountains. It was the trip that helped me balance my life, recharge my energy to return to Hanoi to work and work more enthusiastically. In particular, the days of living close to nature, with mountains and forests have helped me recover more effectively after being infected with Covid-19.