Ben Tre food guide
Coconut candy is warm at the kiln, coconut milk and sugar. Lunch on Cồn Phụng is the garden table, and town breakfast is hủ tiếu with a pork-pâté slice.
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Photo: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên · CC BY-SA 3.0
Start at the kiln. Kẹo dừa is a soft candy of coconut milk and sugar, or, on the other account, coconut milk, maltose, and yellow cane sugar. Later pieces take durian, peanut, cacao, or pandan. Eat it warm, or take the wrapped pieces home.
The Cồn Phụng lunch is đuông dừa fried in butter, cá tai tượng chiên xù, xôi chiên phồng, lẩu mắm, cơm trái dừa, and tép rang dừa. The grove lunch is also creamy coconut rice, coconut-braised shrimp, and a light salad of củ hủ dừa. The town boat adds goat steamed with perilla, chicken hotpot with giang leaf, and apple snail with green pepper.
Breakfast on đường 30 Tháng 4 is hủ tiếu with a pork-pâté slice. The dinner bowl of the same noodle is pork, shrimp, a quail egg, lime, and cilantro. Inland, bánh tráng Mỹ Lồng and bánh phồng Sơn Đốc are the craft sweets. The bowl next door is hủ tiếu Mỹ Tho.
Ben Tre specialties
Coconut candy, the puffed sticky rice, the crisp river fish, honey tea, and a young coconut have a photograph. The other plates are named with them.
Coconut candy Kẹo dừa
Kẹo dừa is a soft candy of coconut milk and sugar, warm at the kiln or wrapped to take home. Another account sweetens the plain piece with maltose and yellow cane sugar, and later pieces take durian, peanut, cacao, or pandan.
Puffed fried sticky rice Xôi chiên phồng
Xôi chiên phồng is sticky rice fried until it puffs, one plate on the Cồn Phụng lunch.
Crisp elephant-ear fish Cá tai tượng chiên xù
Cá tai tượng chiên xù is a river fish fried crisp, shared at the garden table on Cồn Phụng.
Honey tea Trà mật ong
Trà mật ong is tea mixed with honey, poured in a coconut-leaf house at Cồn Phụng. On the town boat the guest stirs in pollen.
Young coconut Dừa tươi
Dừa tươi is a young coconut cut open and drunk with a straw, on the boat or as a glass of coconut water in the garden.
Cồn Phụng kitchens
Coconut candy is boiled, cut, and wrapped on Cồn Phụng, with rice paper and honey tea on the same ground.
The boil, the cut, and the wrap. The workshop hours given are 07:30–18:00.
The garden lunch
These are the other plates on the Cồn Phụng lunch, the grove lunch, and the town-boat garden. The puffed sticky rice and the crisp river fish are photographed above.
Đuông dừa is the larva from a coconut palm, fried in butter on the Cồn Phụng lunch.
Fermented-fish hotpot Lẩu mắm
Lẩu mắm is the hotpot on the Cồn Phụng lunch. A town pot starts with pork bone and fermented cá linh, then basa, goby, pork belly, shrimp, squid, beef balls, eggplant, and bitter melon.
Coconut rice Cơm trái dừa
Cơm trái dừa is rice served in a coconut, the creamy coconut rice of the grove lunch, also written as rice steamed in the fruit.
Coconut shrimp Tép rang dừa
Tép rang dừa is small shrimp fried with coconut, the coconut-braised shrimp on the grove lunch.
Coconut-heart salad Gỏi củ hủ dừa
Củ hủ dừa is a light salad of coconut heart, white and mildly sweet. The prawn-and-pork plate adds tiger prawn, pork belly, laksa leaf, roasted peanut, fried shallot, and carrot in a lime-and-sugar dressing.
Nấm mối xào nước cốt dừa is termite mushroom stir-fried in coconut milk.
Mangrove snail with coconut Ốc len xào dừa
Ốc len xào dừa is mangrove snail stir-fried with coconut.
Rice-snail pancake Bánh xèo ốc gạo
Bánh xèo ốc gạo is the rice-snail pancake named with the coconut dishes. It is a different plate from the town pancake of coconut milk and turmeric.
Dê hấp tía tô is goat steamed with perilla, served at the garden lunch.
Lẩu gà lá giang is a chicken hotpot with giang leaf, shared at the garden lunch.
Ốc bươu nướng tiêu xanh is apple snail grilled with green pepper, served at the garden lunch.
Snakehead braised in coconut water is one of the coconut plates prepared in the gardens, with the coconut worm and the coconut-heart salad.
Mỹ Lồng and Sơn Đốc
Bánh tráng Mỹ Lồng and bánh phồng Sơn Đốc were listed together as national intangible heritage on 30 October 2018. Grill either one, or carry it home. The yards run all year and longer near Tết.
My Long rice paper Bánh tráng Mỹ Lồng
Bánh tráng Mỹ Lồng is rice paper of sticky rice and coconut milk, with sugar, salt, and sesame, sometimes milk or egg. Grill it as a snack, or carry it home.
Bánh phồng Sơn Đốc is glutinous rice pounded with coconut milk and sugar, grilled until the cracker puffs to three or four times its size. Later pieces also take milk, egg, durian, or jackfruit.
In town
In town, bánh ướt comes with a sweet fish sauce, bánh xèo is the coconut-milk pancake, and bún riêu is the afternoon bowl. Chuối đập nước cốt dừa is the snack after Hồ Trúc Giang.
Steamed rice rolls Bánh ướt
Bánh ướt is steamed rice rolls with a yellow, glossy, sweet fish sauce, plus braised pork, pork loaf, fried pork cake, and fermented pork. The sauce is what defines the plate.
Coconut-milk pancake Bánh xèo
Bánh xèo is a rice-flour pancake with coconut milk and a little turmeric, so the crust fries yellow. One town plate fills it with clam, shrimp, pork, and cassava.
Crab noodle soup Bún riêu
Bún riêu is a large town bowl of lean pork, crab paste, pork blood, pork hock, and pig’s ear in a fragrant broth.
Chuối đập nước cốt dừa is flattened banana with coconut milk, eaten on the evening walk after the lake.
Tea and coconut water
Honey tea and a young coconut are photographed above. Dừa nước is the nipa drink at the garden stop.
Dừa nước is the nipa drink at the garden stop, beside the sampan and the bicycle. It is not the young coconut on the firefly boat.
Regional dishes
The bowl next door is hủ tiếu Mỹ Tho, a different plate from the Ben Tre breakfast.
Casual dining
Chợ Bến Tre sits on the cycle past the Ben Tre River, before the short ferry to Cù lao Long. After the lake, the night walk is chợ đêm Bến Tre and khu phố chợ Phú Khương.
Ben Tre Market Chợ Bến Tre
The day market on the way toward the river. The night market is a different walk.
Breakfast
Breakfast on đường 30 Tháng 4 is hủ tiếu with a pork-pâté slice. The dinner bowl is a different plate of the same noodle.
Hu tieu with pate Hủ tiếu patê
Breakfast hủ tiếu comes with a pork-pâté slice of pig-head skin, pork fat, lean pork, and pepper, chewy, crisp at the edge, and a little rich. The dinner bowl of the same noodle is pork, shrimp, a quail egg, lime, and cilantro.