Along with its majestic natural beauty and cool, fresh climate, Sapa delights visitors with its culinary culture, offering delicately prepared, attractive dishes. Sapa cuisine is a dish with the bold flavor of the Northwest mountains and forests. If you have the opportunity to come to Sapa, please try the dishes below to fully experience this beautiful highland.
Thang Co – Delicious Dish, Specialty in Sapa
Thang Co (Vietnamese: Thắng Cố) is a traditional dish originating from the H’Mong ethnic group, dating back 200 years. When the H’Mong people moved to Bac Ha – Lao Cai to live, Thang Co became more widely known and was later popularized by the Kinh, Dao, Tay, Thai, … ethnic groups, becoming an indispensable dish of the ethnic groups in the Northwest.
To prepare a delicious pot of Thang Co, the locals use horse organs, blood, and bones to cook with 12 spices such as cardamom, star anise, cinnamon, lemongrass, ginger, etc. and the main spice is thang co, simmered for several hours. When eating, scoop it into a small pot and dip it in horse meat and green vegetables. The fragrant, crispy, and fatty horse meat combined with green vegetables of Sapa cuisine such as cat cabbage, chayote, etc., dipped in hot chili, helps visitors dispel the cold of the mountainous winter.
If prepared according to the original, many people who are not used to it will not be able to eat Thang Co. However, as tourism has developed, restaurants in Sapa have adapted the traditional Thang Co dish to better suit tourists’ tastes, adding vegetables and pho to be eaten like a hot pot. So when you come to Sapa, try Thang Co to let people know!
Carried-under-arm pig – A Delicious Dish in Sapa
Sapa cuisine is calm in the village’s dishes. Carried-under-arm pig is one of the typical dishes that must be tried when coming here. The reason it is called a carried-under-arm pig is that each pig weighs only 4-6 kg. The pigs will be bought in the villages or sold by local people at the market. The pork is skewered into small skewers before being grilled.
The pork is sweet, fragrant, with crispy skin, and can be processed into many dishes from simple to complex with the typical spices of the locals: crispy roasted pork, sweet boiled pork, or fragrant skewers, pig intestines, all of which are delicious.
Eating carried-under-arm pig while sipping a glass of apple wine or corn wine in the cold of Sapa is definitely an unforgettable experience for visitors.
Sturgeon – Salmon – Stream Fish – Sapa Specialty
Fish is an indispensable dish in Sapa. If you come here and have not eaten fish, you will miss half the pleasure of enjoying Sapa cuisine.
In Sapa, sturgeon and salmon are raised in cold water, not fat; the meat is firm and delicious. Fresh salmon and sturgeon can be prepared in many ways, such as fried, in tomato sauce, grilled, or in a hot pot. In the cold of the highlands, sitting around a pot of sturgeon hot pot, dipped with fresh vegetables, will definitely be an interesting experience in life. Each piece of firm, hot, fragrant fish meat, young green vegetables, and crispy, sweet ones, dipped in lemon salt, will definitely make you feel satisfied and delicious.
Stream fish have a unique feature in the Northwest highlands. Grilled stream fish is a simple but extremely attractive dish. The stream fish here is not fishy, is processed very simply, but under the skillful hands of the people here, the dish also becomes irresistibly delicious.
Green vegetables – Must-try dishes when visiting Sapa
With a temperate climate, Sapa is also famous for many types of vegetables. The vegetables here are green, fresh, and grown entirely naturally, so when you eat them, you feel extremely secure. Perhaps that is why, in meals, especially when eating hot pot, green vegetables are always popular with diners.
Many diners, when saying goodbye to Sapa, still do not mind the long distance to buy for relatives and friends simple bunches of vegetables, but carry the soul of the people and nature here.
Tao Meo, plum wine, pear wine – Sapa Specialties
Wine is one of the highlights of Sapa cuisine, especially Tao Meo (Vietnamese: Táo Mèo), an eponymous wild apple (Docynia indica). Most of the houses here also have a few jars of Tao Meo wine, plum wine, and pear wine.
The most popular is apple wine with a slightly sour, astringent, and slightly spicy taste. Drinking apple wine and eating Thang Co, or dishes with a fishy taste, is quite suitable. Those who are not used to drinking alcohol can order plum wine. Plum wine in Sa Pa has a sweet, slightly spicy taste, making it very easy to drink.
Smoked buffalo meat
Smoked buffalo meat is a specialty of the Black Thai people and Thailand. Smoked buffalo meat is often used to entertain distinguished guests. This dish is made from tendonless muscles and excess meat from buffalo, cows or pigs raised freely in the Northwest mountains. The meat is skinned and sliced along the grain 20cm and 5cm thick into pencil-shaped pieces.
Smoked buffalo meat is seasoned with chili, ginger and mac khen (mắc khén) fragrant wild pepper typical of the ethnic people in the Northwest mountains, then smoked with smoke from charcoal and firewood stoves. After being finished, the smoked buffalo meat will have a light smoky aroma but not unpleasant.
Smoked buffalo meat is processed naturally and according to traditional techniques, without preservatives but is very delicious and can be stored for about 1 month.
Source: collected by An
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