As Indian cuisine or Italian cuisine, Vietnamese culinary culture is no longer strange to Japan. We can easily find a Vietnamese restaurant with typical dishes nowadays.

Features of Vietnamese Cuisine

Vietnam is an agricultural country belonging to a hot country, tropical monsoon region. In addition, the Vietnamese territory is divided into three distinct regions: North, Central and South, with 54 ethnic groups. It is the characteristics of geography, culture, ethnicity and climate that define the specific characteristics of each region’s cuisine. Every region has typical taste. That contributes to enrich and diversify Vietnamese cuisine. This is an eating culture that uses a lot of vegetables (boiled, fried, made pickles, eaten raw); many broths are especially sour, while the number of animal-based dishes is often less. The most commonly used meats are pork, beef, chicken, swan, duck, shrimp, fish, crabs, snails, mussels, clams, oysters, etc.

Moreover, as the way of Vietnamese thinking, all things are derived from the five basic elements included Fire (火), Water (水), Wood (木), Mental (金), Earth (土). And the people also carry this belief to their culinary world. They called it Ngu Vi which has become the distinctive feature of this country’s cuisine. Ngu Vi means 5 flavors including spicy (embodying metal), sour (wood), salty (water), sweet (earth) and bitter (fire).

Culinary characteristics by region

Vietnam is divided into 3 separate regions with completely different food characteristics. It is called the north, central and south.

The North – charming but simple taste

As the land with the oldest history in Vietnam, under many feudal dynasties, referring to the Northern cuisine, people often think of dishes with a salty taste, rich flavor such as Pho Hanoi, Hanoi bun cha, bun thang, spring rolls, frozen meat, …

The Central – spicy, simple but delicate

The Central is a land of sunshine and wind, not favored by nature but the culinary culture of the Central region is very wonderful. The cuisine here is relatively picky, focusing on the form, the presentation to the name of the dish, such as Hue imperial palace – where is considered the cradle of Central cuisine (Cung Dinh Cuisine). The common point of Central dishes is spicy and slightly saltier than the North and the South. Typical dishes of the Central people can be mentioned such as Cao Lau, mussel rice, Hue beef noodle soup, Banh Beo, Banh Xeo,…

The South – sweet taste with diverse styles

Not fussy as Cung Dinh cuisine, Southern cuisine has a simple and wild characteristic but extremely diverse. Southern dishes influenced by Chinese, Thai cuisine, etc. are often seasoned with sugar or the sweetness of vegetables and fat due to the use of coconut water. Just simple ingredients can create a unique style for the cuisine of this land. Spring rolls, Bun Mam, Nam Vang noodles, Banh Bo, Che Chuoi, … are the most famous dishes in the Southern cuisine.

By Do Mai Bao Ngan