Grilled foods

When in Sapa, don’t miss these special dishes. The common options are beef, pork, stream fish, mushroom, egg, sweet potatoes, chicken feet and wings and vegetables. They’re delicious finger food on sticks that are also very cheap.
Where to eat: Eating places near The ancient church.

“Cơm lam”

“Cơm lam” or Vietnamese sticky rice in bamboo is a speciality of ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands. The rice is cooked inside long and young bamboo pipes and grilled over charcoal. When the rice is done, you skillfully remove the burned outer layers and leave a thin layer of bamboo covering the rice to split easily when eating. Com Lam is white, soft, and sweet-smelling and is served with sesame salt.
Where to eat: Any of restaurants, hotels, roadside eateries that serve this dish.
 

Sapa Salmon

Enhance your stay in Sapa with this speciality. Salmon with bold taste, pretty pink meat, high nutritional ingredients is the go-to dish for tourists coming to Sapa. Sapa salmon have flesh meat, firm muscles and no grease which is suitable for many different dishes like salmon hot pot, salmon salad, grilled salmon and salmon gruel. In the cold of Sapa, enjoying a full of smoke salmon hot pot with cai meo (a kind of vegetables of ethnic minorities) and chayote will be an unforgettable moment for visitors.
Where to eat: Hoa Dao restaurant - 48 Le Van Tam Street, Lotus Sapa restaurant - 34 Cau May Street.

“Thắng cố”

“Thắng cố” is a famous food of ethnic minority people in north west Vietnam. It’s filled a combination of meats: Buffalo, beef, pork, horse and animal internal organs. All ingredients are put in    a deep fryer and is cooked until it’s well-done, and then adding 27 different spices and vegetables. This dish tastes wonderful with sweet, greasy, fragant flavor, which is worth wating for when you are in Sapa.

Where to eat: Thắng cố Mã Lệ; Thắng cố A Quỳnh 015 Thạch sơn

“Lợn cắp nách”

“Lợn cắp nách” is called carried under arm pig, a kind of Muong pigs is small, about 5kg. Pig’s meat is much lean, sweet high nutritional ingredients, which makes a fantastic dish. Its meat can be steamed, boiled, baked, stewed, and the taste is very delicious.

Black chicken

Sapa black chickens are small and about 1.2kg, with natural black skin, meat and bones. They are available for many dishes but grilled black chicken in honey has the most wonderful taste. The chicken is eaten with pepper salt mixed lemon juice and mint.

Some restaurants in Sapa for visitors:

- Sapa Anh Dung Restaurant - 69 Xuan Vien Street.

- Hoa Dao Restaurant Sapa - 33 Xuan Vien Street.

- Chapa Restaurant - 40 Cau May Street.

- Lotus Restaurant - 34 Cau May Street

- Eating places near The ancient church.

1. Ca linh bong dien dien hotpot (Vietnamese: Lẩu cá linh bông điên điển)

You can enjoy this special dish during the flooding season in Mekong Delta between September and November. “Bong dien dien” is called Sesbania sesban flower, wild yellow, tine flower which blossoms winding channels, river banks. “Ca linh”, called Danio dangila, a small fish and its meat is fresh and juicy. Dangilas during the early season are fat, soft and you can eat even their bones.

The sour soup is made of coconut, tamarind, fish sauce, sugar, garlic. It’s very delicious combanition of flavors; the fish is sweet and soft, the flower is slightly bitter and the other is sour, sweet, fragant. It’s eaten with white rice vermicelli and cooked rice. 

2. Keo fish hotpot (Vietnamese: Lẩu cá kèo lá giang)

“Ca Keo” is called spiny goby, small fish which looks similar to eel. “La Giang” is ecalled river-leaf creeper growing in forests, side of ponds. After eating this hotpot, you will never forget the sweet of the fish and the sour of river-leaf creeper. It’s served with thin strings of banana flower, bean sprout, water spinach, knotgrass or rau dang. Ca Keo and La Giang hotpot comes with fish sauce mixed with tamarind juice. 

3. Fermented fish hotpot (Vietnamese: Lẩu mắm)

Fermented hotpot is a speciality of southwest regions of Vietnam you have to try. Two most important ingredients to make this hotpot dish are fermented fish and eggplants.

 

There are three fermented fish: Mam ca sat, mam ca linh and mam ca tren, which are the best sauce in Mekong Delta. Besides, lau mam requires various different ingredients such as: Shirmp, cuttlefish, fresh ca hu (a kind of freshwater fish), snakehead. You will never forget specific flavors of the hotpot: a light sweet taste, little spicy and the strong fragrance of fish sauce.

This special dish is served with a lot of fresh vegetables hummingbird flower (bong so dua), Sesbania sesban flower (bong dien dien), limnocharis flava (keo neo), water-lilies, water spinach. People in the Mekong Delta eat this hotpot with rice vermicelli. 

This dish has sour taste of fermented rice, green tamarind and three-leaf cayratia. Eel hotpot requires fresh eel and they are dipped into boiling water for sweet taste. It’s served with banana flower, water spinach, bean sprout, limnocharis flava, mint, water mimosa.

Eel

Three-leaf cayratia

6. Hot pot with duck and fermented tofu (Vietnamese: Lẩu vịt nấu chao)

Pieces of duck have been marinated in four spices including rice wine, slices of old ginger, white and red fermented tofu for 4 hours before being put in the pot, then bring in a special dish with great color and taste. It’s eaten with taro, water spinach, mustard green and rice vermicelli.