You haven’t experienced true Hue food until you’ve experienced the “bánhs…” bánh nậm, bánh lọc, bánh bèo, bánh ướt, bánh ram ít.
Based in rice flour or cassava flour, what I call the “bánhs” are bite sized savory cakes. The ingredients are simple, but each cake entirely unique. You’ll find them everywhere in Hue: within an unassuming bamboo basket teetering on an old woman’s shoulder, will be an assortment of exquisitely made morsels!
I find Hue’s savory cakes to be a perfect example of the joys of Hue cuisine: simple, fresh, small, cheap. Bought on the street, you can buy a saucer-sized plate for 5,000 VND, about 25 cents USD! Because they’re quite small, its common to gobble up a plate, and then pass it back for another. You can make a meal with multiple different kinds, each satisfying a different craving.
Bánh bèo is the most simple and comforting: a flat, round disc of soft, moist rice paper topped with dried shrimp, small fried rice crackers, and eaten with the ever-present Vietnamese fish sauce and a smoky hot chili paste.
Bánh nậm is harder to find on the streets, and is usually more common in restaurants. More filling than bánh bèo, it’s soft rice paper filled with diced shrimp, chives and seasoning, all wrapped up in a banana leaf and steam cooked. It too is served with fish sauce, but the flavors are so complete, it could hold its own without. I don't have a photo of it because it is somehow very unphotogenic.
Bánh ướt is worth having for its unique sauce; a sweet, tart spicy combination of fish sauce, lime juice, garlic and diced chili pepper. Bánh ướt is very simple, essentially the same ingredients as bánh bèo but the rice paper is thinner and wider, and rolled up with the dried shrimp inside.
Bánh lọc (photo by Lan) is probably the most difficult for a Western palette, made of cassava flour with a seasoned shrimp inside (crunchy because it’s not peeled) and a tiny bit of pork fat. Wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed, the cassava flour becomes transparent and gelatin-like, similar to tapioca. If you buy bánh lọc from the right lady…one who is truly committed to her banh’s…it will be served with a strong, undiluted fish sauce. The strong saltyness is the perfect compliment to the flavors of the bánh lọc.
Bánh ram ít is the most decadent of them all, a very squishy, sticky rice flour cake filled with a shrimp, perched atop a small round fried rice cracker and topped with dried shrimp. It looks almost like a French pastry, and is the perfect combination of squish and crunch!
My love for these little savory cakes is truly a multi-dimensional love. Not only are they delicious, they are consistently exquisetly crafted and beautifully presented. There is something wonderful about being presented a perfectly arranged bánh bèo, a mandala of round rice cakes on a circular plate, while squatting on a dirty street corner. Hue is so incredibly committed to its foods that perfection is required, no matter what context or price. Hue’s savory cakes represent true gourmet without a bit of pretention: who knew the joys you can tuck away in an old bamboo basket!
For Hue natives, it’s easy to pick out the bánh bèo lady, but for foreigners, it’s a bit more difficult to pick her out from the other bamboo basket toting women. But with a bit of guidance, it’s easy. For beginners, you may want to start at a restaurant, which will probably have a sign saying “Bánh” in large print, and then bèo, lọc….below in smaller print. Restaurants are a bit more pricy, and can be up to 25,000 VND for one portion (albeit a larger portion). If you’re looking for the street version, listen for a vendor yelling “bánh bèo”. However, to be quite honest, I often can’t make out what the sellers are saying. Another way to spot them is by the style of basket. They’re often sold from one basket (rather than two baskets hanging off either side of a bamboo pole resting on the woman’s shoulder), which is perched on the hip. The cakes are small and flat, so the basket should be too. If they are sold from the hanging baskets, look to see if there are hot coals: if so, you’re out of luck, its soup. When in doubt, take a peek inside; but remember this usually means you’re going to buy it! But ending up with a plate full of something new and entirely foreign is precisely the way is should be done.
