FOUR OUTSTANDING FRIED CAKE STORE IN HA NOI

Fried cake – a familiar is snack that appears at every corner, but really popular. These four fried cake stores have the most customers in Ha Noi.

1. Ly Quoc Su fried cake

 Located at the center street, Ly Quoc Su, this store has been crowded. It can’t be said that the dish here is unique. Fried cake, stuffed cake or the sauce is at the standard level, which is not over 7. Its space and hygiene is not either highly evaluated. And the price here is not cheaper than others – 7,000d/fried cake and 9,000d/stuffed cake. However the cake is pretty big, fully stuffed, it cost nearly 100,000d for an afternoon snack meal including drink. But its location is at center of the town, has quick professional service, and long time in this business so it still has many customers due to crowd-effect. Ha Noi people are familiar with going to Ly Quoc Su for having fried cake.

2. Lac Long Quan numbering fried cake

This store is also old and not less famous. It used to be on Thuy Khue street, near Buoi market. Later, for some reasons, it was moved to 242 Lac Long Quan. The new place have comfortable seats in front of a temple, with big parking lot helps it have more customers. The only disadvantage of it is far away center of the town, so there are usually teenagers or the neighborhoods nearby. With that amount of customers, they have to numbering to make sure its safety and organized.

Everybody is given a number in order to be serve right. The cake is never pre-made. There are always 3-4 people kneading, stuffing and frieding cakes. There are always 4 big deep pan fried.

The cake is big with black fungus, whole piece of meat inside. The eaters don’t have to worry for those rotten meat inside. It’s still sweet and sour sauce but really dense, spicy is poured directly into a bowl of cake. They don’t serve the cake with mix vegetable but green papaya. The cake here is fresh and different. Price is cheap – 6,000 and deserve to be utterly famous store in Ha Thanh. 

3. “Petite” fried cake 

O Quan Chuong is just original sweet fried cake for to go guests but it is also famous in Ha Noi. The cake here is the round shape one with skinless green bean inside, crispy outside covered by sesame seeds. At other stores, a big sweet fried cake usually comes to 5,000-6,000/one but at O Quan Chuong is different, really small. It’s just 1,000d/small cake. It’s normal if people buy 50-70 cakes. The strong of O Quan Chuong cake is good dough, crispy outside but still soft inside, less fat, not harden due to cooling down. The green bean inside is lightly sweet. 

4. Shaking fried cake

Gia Trinh store in 16A Ly Nam De is a popular place with shaking fried cake. Fried cake here is also the sweet one with the size of a ping pong ball. The green bean stuff inside is separate from the cake’s skin, can be shake like a dice, so it’s called shaking fried cake. Ly Nam De fried cake is covered fully with sesame seeds, so it’s really aroma. The cake is small and delicious, that’s why the customer must have 5-7 cakes to get out of craving. The price is just 2,000d/one.

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THREE GOOD DISHES IN HAI PHONG YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW

Talking about Hai Phong, the diners might think of some special dishes such as Banh da cua, Banh my cay, Cua be,… But in fact there are many delicious dishes that shoudn’t miss when you visit Hai Phong.

1. Cafe cốt dừa (Coconut cream coffee)

 Do not miss this drink when you come to Hai Phong. Unlike the ordinary coffee, coconut cream coffee has strange flavor. This drink cause the memorable taste to everyone. Just a bit of dense coffee liquid, coconut cream and sugar, beaten well, then add tapioca, dry coconut, black jelly and ice. This drink has aroma and the fatness of coconut cream, the bitten of coffee, the sweetness of dry coconut knock down every picky culinary fan. You can have this drink with bean sticky rice cake to feel the sweetness of rice and the fatness of coconut coffee. The price is 10-15k.

2. Giá bể

Gia be is a dish that is not anyone in Hai Phong knows about. This kind of species lives in the banks near the sea, and available the whole year so everyone call it Gia bien (Sea sprout). Gia be has the shape of a nail shell but thinner. Its legs like the roots of bean sprout. Gia be is popular for the dishes such as stir fry gia be and gia be salad. Stir fry gia be is sweet and sour, really tasty. However, with anyone impatient, eating Gia be takes much time because you have to detach the shell of each Gia be. A bowl of Stir fry gia be comes to 15-25k.

3. Cháo khoai (Khoai porridge)

One more dish in Hai Phong that is not quite popular is Chao khoai (Khoai porridge). This dish is not only special for its name but also its outstanding color. The green of porridge made from star gooseberry, some is made from pineapple leaf. On top of the porridge, people add blended skinless green bean, fry onion. The price for a bowl of Khoai porridge comes to 10k. The popular place has this dish in Hai Phong is in Cot Den market (Du Hang, Le Chan, Hai Phong). Besides Khoai porridge, you can also try pearl porridge or pork rib porridge. Khoai porridge is usually sold in the afternoon. You will feel pretty awesome when having a Khoai porridge bowl with an almost empty stomach, especially in the winter.

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BÁNH DONUT ĐƯỜNG (SUGAR DONUT)

Time: ~1 hour

Level: sophisticated

It is great when you eat this hot dish in the rainy afternoon

Ingredients:

-         Wheat flour: 200 gram

-         Sugar: 40 gram

-         Salt: ¼ teaspoon

-         Powdered milk: 25 gram

-         Instant ferment: 1 teaspoon

-         Melted butter: 40 gram

-         Egg: 1

-         Warm water: 55 ml

-         Oil

Directions:

Step 1:

-         Mix wheat flour, sugar, powdered milk, salt, and instant ferment.

-         Blend melted butter with egg and warm water.

Step 2:

-         Pour the liquid mix into powder mixture, mix up and knead the dough until smooth.

-         Roll the mixed flour into balls, cover with a warm handkerchief, keep it out of the wind so that they can rise double (~1 hour or over, depends on temperature).

Step 3:

-         Smash the dough to release the gas inside, lightly knead the dough.

-         Laminate the dough into 1cm thick, use cutter to cut into small pieces as you want.

-         Let the small pieces dough on a tray covered with wax paper or oil. Annealed the dough to have it rise to double size (more than 45mins)

Step 4:

-         Heat a pan of oil at low heat.

-         Wait for the oil to hot. Lightly drop in the dough. Flip the donuts over to have both fry until gold.

Step 5:

-         The donuts are cooked, get them out and drain from oil.

-         If you want to have an original donut, cover it with sugar when it’s still hot.

-         You can decorate the donuts with melted chocolate, color candy, almond, peanut, sugar powder as your wish.

-         If you want to have a stuffed donut shape the dough into circle, after frying, squeeze the cream or jam into the donuts.

Step 6:     Enjoy it!!!

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Crispily fried chicken gizzards (Mề gà xào giòn )

Ingredients:

300g  chicken gizzards

1 bell peppers

50 g baby corns

oyster sauce

cooking wine

3 red chili

 Wedge nuts, pepper, seasonings, garlic

Puree oregano 

    Chicken gizzards fried with bell pepper and baby corns is tasteful, quite tough, enjoy with rice or beer is the same wonderful.

Instructions:

1.      Wash the chicken gizzards with salt, then marinate them with wedge nuts and cooking wine to get rid of their smell and mix with seasonings. Cut them into small bite size morsel.

2.      Cut the baby corns and bell peppers like below.

3.      Heat the pan, fry the garlic. Then put chicken gizzards in to fry, when the gizzards are nearly cooked, put the peppers and corns in too and mix them well. Add oyster sauce, wedge nuts, pepper, oregano in and taste until it’s fixed with your appetile.

4.       Turn up the fire and fry quickly until the gizzards are cooked well. Enjoy with hot rice.. So delicious!!

** PREP: 15 mins

**COOK: 15 mins

** YIELD: 2 servings

** Skill level: intermediate

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Roll noodles ( phở cuốn)

Ingredients:

·        1 kg roll noodle cake

·        400g beef

·        1 onion

·        400g fresh vermicelli

·        100g roasted peanuts

·        10 dry violet onions

·        Vegetables: cilantro, marjoram, bean sprouts, salad and lettuce

·        Seasonings: fish sauce, ginger, chili, vinegar, lemon, sugar, cooking oil, 2 spoon of soup.

Roll noodles is easy to make, simple and bring your family together, that’s suitable for the coming summer.

Instructions:

1.      -Marinate the beef with fish sauce, black pepper, ginger, garlic, then fry them with onion.

-Wash the vegetables.

-Pound the toasted peanuts. Slice the violet onions and fry until they turn brown yellow.

2.    Stretch a roll cake on the dish, lay the salad, lettuce, vermicelli feied with beef, some vegetables, fried unions and some roasted peanuts on. Roll them tightly.

3.. mix the fish sauce with sour, spicy, salty and sweet flavour. ( it’s up to your taste, remember to have a taste regularly to have the best cup of sauce).

** PREP: 15 mins

**YIELD: 5-6 servings

** Skill level: easy.

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BÁNH ƯỚT THỊT NƯỚNG (Rice pancake with barbecue pork)

Ingredients:
Original recipe makes 2 servings
- 300g pork shoulder, with a bit fat help moisture the meat
- Rice pancake
- Lettuce, basil
- ½ tablespoon fish sauce
- 2 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon honey.
- 1 tablespoon white sesame
- Red onion, finely chop garlic, lemon

PREP 3-4 hours

COOK 40 mins

READY 4 hours 40 mins

Directions:
- Slice the pork into 1mm thin, 2-3 inches long, marinate with dried red onion, garlic and honey, salt, fish sauce, pepper, sesame and sesame oil, mix well and leave them in 3-4 hours.
- Cook the pork in oven at 1900C in 20-30 minutes, brush the marinate sauce over the meat to prevent dry
- To make the sauce: mix 1 tablespoon fish sauce, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon lemon
- Serve: roll rice pancake with the vegetable mixture, barbecue pork and dip in the sauce.


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CANH NGHÊU NẤU RAU MUỐNG (Water spinach and clams soup)

Water spinach and clams soup has the light sweet of clams’ broth and its meat, the cool crunchy of water spinach with the flavor of ginger. It's very easy to cook.

Ingredients:
Original recipe makes 3 servings

- 400g clam

- 1 bunch of water spinach
- 1 small piece of ginger root
- A pinch of salt

PREP 35 mins

COOK 15 mins

READY 50 mins

Directions:
- Clean the clam, soak into cold water in 30’. Wash again and drain.
- Clean the ginger root, slice thinly and small
- Wash the water spinach and drain
- Put the clams and ½ of ginger into a pot, add water to cover the clams. Boil until clams’ shell open.
- Cool down and get the clams’ meat out of the shells, strain the broth through a fine mesh sieve into another pot.
- Add the rest of ginger into the stock pot and boil.
- When the stock boiled, add spinach water, clams meat and boil. Season with salt, sugar (as your taste). Remove from heat when it boiled again.
- Best serve when the soup is still hot


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Pork rolls with green mango (Chân giò hun khói cuộn xoài xanh)

Ingredients:

·        Smoked pork rolls 300-400g

·        1 green mango

·        1 carrot

·        Scallions, herbs

·        Maiyonaise

·        Lemon

·        Chili sauce

With some finesse and creation, pork rolls can become great food. The mango is crispy, sour along with the crispy of the rolls make things interesting. Greasy and fragrant maiyonaise with lemon.... so great.!

Instructions:

1.      Slice the salined pork rolls like below:

Tips: you should choose the shork big roll so that when you slice, it’s not shred; and you had better put t in the fridge to make it easier to cut.

2.      Peel the carrot and mango, cut into big fiber. Put the green part of scallion into boiling

water and take out. Pick the herbs and wash them.

3.      Softly roll the pork slices with carrot mango fibers, and herbs into separate rolls. Use the scallion to tie them.

4.       

Pour the maiyonaise sauce into the dish and decorate with some chili sauce. Peel the lemon, chop the bark and put on the sauce. It is tiny thing but make the food more sophisticated and delicious.

**PREP: 30 mins

**COOK: 20 mins

** YIELD: 5-6 servings

** Skill level: intermediate

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