Dong Hoi food guide

Khoai deo Khoai deo

Khoai deo is red sweet potato boiled, sliced, and sun-dried 9–12 days on sand over rười grass until the slice is chestnut brown and leathery. Buy it at Chợ Đồng Hới or chợ Nam Lý and take it home.

Chao canh Cháo canh

Chợ Đồng Hới, Lê Thành Đồng, Đồng Hải, Nguyễn Trãi, Lý Thường Kiệt

Cháo canh is the everyday Quảng Bình bowl: soft noodles, lean pork, snakehead, and a crisp fried ram in a light broth. Some shops simmer marrow bones, some use pork rib with shrimp and fish, and some tint the broth with turmeric and add mustard greens.

Banh khoai Bánh khoái

Cô Tám and Lê Thành Đồng

A large crisp rice-batter cake, filled with seasoned pork, shrimp, and bean sprouts, eaten hot with herbs. The sauce is pork, tomato, pineapple, and peanut, with cucumber, starfruit, fig, unripe banana, and shrimp ruốc on the side.

Banh bot loc Bánh bột lọc

Lê Thành Đồng and Đồng Hải

A hot cassava-flour cake filled with shrimp and pork, eaten plain, steamed in a banana leaf, or fried, with mushroom and sour bamboo shoot in one account and wood-ear and mung bean in another.

Banh mi with tapioca cakes Bánh mì kẹp bánh bột lọc

Chợ Đồng Hới

A hot split loaf stuffed with banana-leaf cassava cakes of shrimp and pork, plus chili threads, herbs, and a thin sweetened fish sauce. Chợ Đồng Hới also fills the same loaf with a mung-bean cake.

Banh beo Bánh bèo

Lê Thành Đồng, Cô Tám, and Đồng Hải

Đồng Hới bánh bèo is a soft rice cake, not the small Hue or Da Nang cup: it smells of new rice and carries browned shrimp in a salty-sweet fish sauce. Another account pours it thin, with some chew, and tops it with stir-fried sea shrimp and tương ớt.

Banh nam Bánh nậm

Bánh nậm is rice flour steamed 15–20 minutes and wrapped in lá dong, with a shrimp filling.

Banh cuon with shrimp ruoc Bánh cuốn ruốc tôm

A morning rice sheet with no filling, eaten with shrimp ruốc, thin cucumber, herbs, and nước lèo. It is not the filled Hanoi roll.

Banh xeo Bánh xèo

A red-rice crepe, rolled just off the pan with snakehead, herbs, bean sprouts, lettuce, and sesame, then pinched in bánh đa. Quảng Hòa uses the same red rice with cá chuối and bánh đá, and bánh xèo Ba Đồn is a separate crepe.

Keo cu do Kẹo cu đơ

Chợ Đồng Hới, Mẹ Suốt

Kẹo cu đơ is the sweet at Chợ Đồng Hới, sold with the crepe and the noodle bowls, in the early morning and the afternoon.

Grilled stingray Cá đuối nướng

Cửa Nhật Lệ

Stingray from the Nhật Lệ mouth, seasoned and grilled on foil or a banana leaf, then eaten hot with herbs and rice paper.

Banh uot in Con Bánh ướt

Cộn, phường Đồng Sơn

Bánh ướt in Cộn is a thin rice sheet, smooth, chewy, and soft, steamed a few dozen seconds after the batter has rested a day and a night. More than 16 households in Đồng Sơn still make the sheets by hand.

Goi ca Gỏi cá

Center, and boats on the Nhật Lệ

Thin slices of grouper or cá mai, cooked in lime juice at the table and rolled in rice paper with herbs.

Fried snails Ốc chiên

Apple snail and spiral snail, fried with chili, fish sauce, and pepper, then coconut, pineapple, ginger, lemongrass, and lime leaf until golden. Eat them with green-mango salad, or with a cracker dipped in the sauce.

Bun cha ca Bún chả cá

Lê Trực

A morning bowl on Lê Trực: thin noodles, a cake of cá thác lác, and a broth of fish bone or pork bone, with pickled shallot, chili, lettuce, and banana flower.

Roon River cockles Sò huyết sông Roòn

Chợ Cảnh Dương, near the Roòn bridge, old Quảng Trạch

Roòn River cockles, where salt and fresh water meet, steamed, grilled, or eaten raw with lime after a soak that makes them spit the sand. The other plates are cockle porridge, a tamarind sauce, and the lime plate, which is the one to order.

Crab and winter melon Cua hấp bí đao

Sea crab steamed with winter melon, a summer plate. The melon is cool and the crab is sweet.

Dong Hoi Market Chợ Đồng Hới

Đường Mẹ Suốt

An ordinary hall on Mẹ Suốt, and the walk for bánh xèo, cháo canh, bánh canh, and kẹo cu đơ. Most counters sell in the early morning and the afternoon.