Huế

Huế, in central Vietnam, used to be the Imperial city. The Đại Nội Citadel is its most popular touristic attraction. My mom grew up in the province of Quảng Trị, neighbouring the North of the province of Thừa Thiên Huế. This central area is unique in many ways: history, architecture, dialect and food. The Vietnamese accent is visibly distinctive and its intonation falls deep in the throat. As my mom adapted to the Southern Vietnamese culture, the “giọng huế” (Hue tone) was an exotic aspect within my family. After meeting a larger extension of my mom’s family side, her roots became a more familiar interest to me.

Imperial Citadel, Huế

Knowing the city was more traditional, I couldn’t wait to see it for myself. I was also wondering how my family’s communication level with the locals would turn out like. The huế dialect is complex. It’s beyond identifying the accent. It’s about learning new vocabularies and learning new Vietnamese intonations as words aren’t pronounced the same way. Yikes for me who’s barely fluent in Vietnamese. The trip turned out to be fun and unforgettable especially for their food. Duh!

🌦️ | 25˚C
Traffic flow: Lighter and more streamlined than in Hanoi.
Traffic anxiety level: moderate

Because it’s a smaller city than Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh, I felt more easygoing during my stay here. The locals are respectful and honourable (drivers aside). Food is amazing. It’s my personal favourite region for Vietnamese dishes thanks to its varieties of bánh (rice rolls, rice cakes, etc.) Let’s not forget that it’s the birthplace of bún bò huế (spicy beef noodle soup).

Neighbourhood: Downtown
📍 Melià Vinpearl Hotel

Huế Historic Citadel

In all of its majestic presence, it’s an enclosed city by a walled gate. It used to house the imperial family, villas, gardens, temples, etc. The area reminded me of Asian royalty soap operas, the time of kings and queens. My family and I had this funny experience of a royal family photoshoot where each of us had to put on royal costumes under severe humidity. It was fun as we got to be royals for 15min.

Location: Hue Historic Citadel

Jade bracelet

Vietnamese beauty is a concept that I didn’t appreciate for a long time. My body has never been ‘fit’ for Vietnamese beauty standards. This included the size of my wrist to slide in smoothly in a jade bangle. I was told that it had to fit closely to the wrist to be beautiful. And so, it has always hurt me to try to wear one. It has been a very complicated process too: putting face cream on the hand to slide in the bracelet. Ugh.

Traditionally, wearing jade bangles was a sign of status and mostly worn by older women. It helped them chase away the bad spirits. It’s also believed that the more we wear the bracelet, the jade will absorb our sweat and change colour and shine more with time to reflect our health.

While I’ve been working on connecting to my roots and even much more during my trip to Vietnam, my mom bought me a classic jade bangle for my birthday. This gift was very meaningful for my special day because it’s a piece of jewelry that fitted me rather than I fitted the jade. My đẹp trai also bought me two jade bangles as a gift: each one of different colour and thickness. One had a classic shape in deep dark green. The other one was thick and translucent white made of jade. The gemstone has a subtle trace of green. All beautiful bangles.

Đông Ba Market ★★★★
Ngọc Trai Việt Vietpearl ★★★★★

Coffee

I couldn’t get enough of Vietnamese coffee during my trip. I wish I could drink more than one glass per day, but I had to make room for other delicious beverages too. Many cafes there would use pandan or green tea leaves to add some colour and flavour. I really enjoyed my sticky rice and pandan leaf coffee in Hanoi and was searching for something similar wherever I went. Something with green in it. In Huế, I tried a matcha muối (matcha and salted cream) coffee.

Cafe Trầm ★★★★
đa:mê cafe ★★★★★

Bún bò huế

Not only it’s my favourite dish, it was a no brainer to have a taste of it in the city that it’s called after. I was really looking forward to it. Surprisingly, I had the occasion to only have it once. Bún bò huế is served for breakfast, so I missed my chance except for the first day. I was lucky that morning because they served đặc biệt. Specials include many additional ingredients. This bún bò had giò heo (pork hock) and chả (Vietnamese sausage). The broth was clear, flavourful, and spicy enough for my taste. Otherwise, the traditional huế dish contains beef, thick rice noodles, lemongrass broth, chili and herbs. It was surprising to us, especially my mom since she’s used to the bún bò huế đặc biệt as the default meal growing up in Central Vietnam back in her childhood.

Quán Bà Hòa ★★★★★

Bánh bèo

As we’re in Huế, there’s a lot of bánh this and bánh that. Bánh is tricky to translate, so think of it as a dough-based food that can be salty or sweet such as cakes, bread, buns and more along that line. I love food from Huế since a long time because of its bánh varieties. This dish is often served in a tray of many little half bowls of rice cake topped with dried shrimp, crispy pork skin, scallions and mashed mung bean. Don’t forget the fish sauce and scoop it away with a spoon for serving.

Maison Trang ★★★★★

Bánh ướt

Bánh ướt is Huế’s version of steamed rice rolls stuffed with grilled pork and fresh greens. In the North of Vietnam, bánh cuốn comes with minced pork while this dish here contains bigger pieces of meat and it’s grilled, hence a different flavour and recipe to take note of.

Maison Trang ★★★★★

Bánh lọc

Also known as bánh bột lọc, this is a small steamed chewy tapioca dough stuffed with shrimp and pork belly. It’s wrapped in a banana leaf. I have a soft spot for this dish as it can be eaten as snacks or at any time of the day. I could eat so much of this as long as its dough is elastic. If it’s chewy and a bit hard, that breaks my rule of a good bánh lọc.

Maison Trang ★★★★★

Bánh nậm

And the list of bánh goes on. Another of my favourites is the bánh nậm. It’s rice cake topped with smashed shrimp and pork. All of this wrapped in a banana leaf too. The difference with this dish is that the rice cake is in a shape of a rectangle and makes a thin layer. I’d have to scrap it inside the banana leaf when eating. Guess what’s the other ingredient to accompany this dish? That’s right; fish sauce.

Maison Trang ★★★★★

Bánh xèo

Bánh xèo (Vietnamese pancake) is crispy and stuffed with pork and bean sprout. It’s a thin layer of batter of rice, water, and tumeric that sizzles on the frying pan, hence its name. It’s served with fresh herbs and fish sauce on the side.

Maison Trang ★★★★★

Bánh khoái

Meet the mini version of bánh xèo because it looks exactly the same but in a bitesize way. It’s served with rice paper, cucumber, pickled carrots and daikon, fresh herbs and fish sauce on the side. I found it interesting because it combined deep-fried dough with rice paper.

Cozy Restaurant ★★★★
Maison Trang ★★★★★

Bánh cánh cua (crab thick noodle soup)

To lock this time’s list of bánh, I’ll describe what this soup is. Here the term bánh doesn’t refer to cake or bread like the ones above. It refers to the type of thick tapioca noodle used in this crab and shrimp soup. It also comes with pork and quail eggs. It’s very tasty. My mom’s version would be prepared with pork meatballs with black mushrooms.

Bánh canh cua Hương ★★★★★

Nem rán

This dish now much sound a bit familiar to all. Nem is popular in North America and refers to spring rolls. In Huế, they deep fry minced pork and prawns in a sheet of thin rice vermicelli instead of rice paper. It gives a different texture that’s worth the curiosity. They also sell these sheets called bánh rế at the market, something that I cannot find in my little Canadian city so far.

Maison Trang ★★★★★

Nem lụi

Who doesn’t like skewers? I especially like it even more when it’s lemongrass pork and that’s exactly what this dish is about. It’s served with peanut and chili sauce on the side. We ate all of these interesting Vietnamese dishes mostly at Maison Trang for breakfast. Can you believe it? It was a great coincidence.

Maison Trang ★★★★★

Cơm hên

For a gal with Vietnamese blood, it might seem odd, but I'm not really into rice. I told myself I’d do an exception in Vietnam so I can eat the country. Cơm hên is a popular dish in Huế and consists of rice, baby river clams, pork rinds, peanut, shrimp paste, and chili paste. It’s served with a bowl of baby river clam broth on the side. My family and I had this meal on the Cồn Hen islet, the home to these baby river clams, where generations of clam fishing, farms, and restaurants have popularize hen.

Cơm hên Hoa Đông ★★★★★