Can Gio food guide

Gỏi chua ốc đụn is a sour salad of ốc đụn.

Ốc giác is a sea snail with a chewy, crisp bite.

Ốc mỡ is cooked as ốc mỡ xào me and as ốc mỡ rang me. The snail is sweet and soft.

Vọp, also written dọp, is a large shellfish eaten with mỡ hành and peanuts, or grilled. It is not too chewy.

Lẩu cá đuối is a stingray hotpot with vegetables, sour bamboo, cần cà, or ngót.

Cua cúm is a mangrove crab with a black body and a rough shell. The meat is firm and fragrant.

Gỏi lá lìm kìm is a salad of a small watery mangrove vine, with cá bống sao fried crisp or with dried fish. It is salty and sour, with a sweet finish that changes with the rain and the hour.

Canh lá lìm kìm is a soup of the same mangrove leaf with tôm and tép. The leaf is already salty and the shrimp is sweet, so the pot takes no added salt.

Canh chua cá khoai is a sour soup of a long, round fish with pineapple, tamarind, tomato, bean sprouts, ngổ, and spring onion. The flesh is soft and translucent, and the bowl smells of pineapple and tomato, sweet, then cleanly sour.

Sam trứng nướng is horseshoe crab grilled on charcoal, then shredded with its eggs, spring onion, garlic, chili, cilantro, and crushed peanuts. The eggs are fatty and the meat is sweet.

Đường Duyên Hải and đường Tắc Xuất

Lẩu cá dứa nấu măng chua is a southern sour-sweet hotpot of sea catfish and bamboo shoot. The flesh is sweet, the skin is smooth and fatty, and you finish the fish with nước mắm, chili, and a little bún.

Đường Duyên Hải and đường Tắc Xuất

Cá dứa kho is the same sea catfish, simmered and eaten with rice. The flesh is firm and a little fatty.

Khô cá dứa is sea catfish split, salted, and dried for one sun. The flesh fries or grills to a deep yellow, firm, with only a little fat under the skin.

Town streets, or Hàng Dương

Tôm tích, also called tôm tít, is a large mantis shrimp cooked with burnt garlic. The meat is sweet, and a small shell leaves little of it once you crack it.

Most of the prawns here are tôm sú, from the sea or from ponds. Tôm đất has a soft clear shell and chewy sweet meat, and tôm sắt has a hard shell.

Hàng Dương, or the town streets

Ốc len is a mangrove snail, on the town menu and at Hàng Dương as ốc len xào dừa.

Gỏi chua ốc đụn is a sour salad of ốc đụn.

Ốc giác is a sea snail with a chewy, crisp bite.

Chợ hải sản Hàng Dương

Ốc mỡ is cooked as ốc mỡ xào me and as ốc mỡ rang me. The snail is sweet and soft.

Đường Duyên Hải and đường Tắc Xuất

Vọp, also written dọp, is a large shellfish eaten with mỡ hành and peanuts, or grilled. It is not too chewy.

Đường Duyên Hải and đường Tắc Xuất

Cá đuối hấp hành is stingray steamed with onion. Diners also eat the fatty liver.

Đường Duyên Hải and đường Tắc Xuất

Lẩu cá đuối is a stingray hotpot with vegetables, sour bamboo, cần cà, or ngót.

Đường Duyên Hải and đường Tắc Xuất

Cua um chua ngọt is a sour-sweet crab braise.

Cua cúm is a mangrove crab with a black body and a rough shell. The meat is firm and fragrant.

Hàng Dương, or the town streets

Ghẹ is the swimmer crab visitors ask for at Hàng Dương, also served as ghẹ nấu bầu. Some shells are red-pink and some are green, and the meat is firmer in the last days of the lunar month.

Gỏi cá thòi lòi trộn lá lìm kìm is a salad of mangrove mudskipper and lá lìm kìm. The fish is sweet, fragrant, and soft, against a sour, slightly astringent leaf.

Vàm Sát

Gỏi lá lìm kìm is a salad of a small watery mangrove vine, with cá bống sao fried crisp or with dried fish. It is salty and sour, with a sweet finish that changes with the rain and the hour.

Canh lá lìm kìm is a soup of the same mangrove leaf with tôm and tép. The leaf is already salty and the shrimp is sweet, so the pot takes no added salt.

Canh chua cá khoai is a sour soup of a long, round fish with pineapple, tamarind, tomato, bean sprouts, ngổ, and spring onion. The flesh is soft and translucent, and the bowl smells of pineapple and tomato, sweet, then cleanly sour.

Vàm Sát

Vịt nước mặn is a brackish-water duck from Vàm Sát, grilled in straw and eaten with a pepper and lemongrass dip. The meat is firm, fresh, and naturally sweet, and low in fat.

Cá đối nổ muối hột is mullet buried in coarse salt and cooked by the heat of the salt as it pops. The flesh stays moist and tastes of coarse salt and lemongrass, then goes into rice paper with forest leaves.

Sam trứng nướng is horseshoe crab grilled on charcoal, then shredded with its eggs, spring onion, garlic, chili, cilantro, and crushed peanuts. The eggs are fatty and the meat is sweet.

Lẩu ba khía lá buôi is a mangrove-crab hotpot with a fatty, clean-sweet crab riêu. The leaf, also called rau bộ đội, is nutty and wants a thorough cook.

Địa sâm is eaten fresh, grilled, stir-fried, fried, or as porridge, and dried to sweeten a cooking liquid. It is naturally sweet.

Rượu mật ong rừng Sác is a honey wine drunk with the mudskipper salad.

Xã Cần Giờ, the old Cần Thạnh town

Along Duyên Hải and into Tắc Xuất toward the sea for lẩu cá dứa and tôm tích.