When visiting Vietnam to explore its culture and cuisine, travelers can't miss out on traditional Pho dishes like chicken or beef noodle soup, celebrated by CNN as one of the world's top 20 dishes in 2024. While there are many varieties of Pho in Vietnam, the charred liver Pho in Bac Ninh province, 30 km north of Hanoi, stands out with its unique flavor and appearance unlike any other Pho.

Many foodies love this type of Pho:

"Unlike other Pho with a light, delicate flavor, this dish is rich and bold. Although its black color made me hesitant at first, the charred liver has a surprisingly nutty and creamy taste."

"After tasting it, I have to admit it has a fresh flavor that truly satisfies the palate. I must say, it truly deserves to be called a specialty of Bac Ninh."

Bui Thi Lan, the owner of the most famous charred liver Pho restaurant in Bac Ninh which has been open for 40 years and always bustling with long lines of customers, elaborated on the recipe:

"The meat selected must be the most tender loin. The offal is cleaned and prepared meticulously, then sautéed with tomatoes and garlic to enhance the flavor, and taken off the heat once it reaches a perfect golden brown. This dish demands a special technique, where the liver needs to be thickly sliced and fried in hot oil over high heat for about 20 minutes. Many have tried to replicate this recipe but often end up overcooking the liver,” said Lan.

"The dish is unique. The fat liver, and other offal are incredibly rich, aromatic, and so unique that it's hard to describe."

Unlike traditional Pho, where the broth is ladled directly from the marrow bones, the broth here undergoes an extra step. It is carefully stirred through a pan used to stir-fry tomatoes, hearts, and kidneys to achieve the perfect flavor.

As its name mentions, charred liver Pho, the liver—the star of the dish—is always the most challenging ingredient to prepare. Ms Lan says ingredients must be selected very carefully, especially the liver.

"When it comes to liver Pho, I believe it's an extremely challenging dish to prepare. To create tender, fluffy liver, the chef carefully chooses top-quality ingredients and tests the frying process multiple times until achieving the desired texture. While ingredients like heart, kidneys, and pork loin are readily available in markets, liver demands higher standards. Quality liver is seldom found in regular markets; it often requires special sourcing and rigorous inspection to ensure its quality,” said Lan.

The flavor is what keeps customers coming back, as it is both "indescribable" and "unforgettable." This unique taste appeals to a wide range of palates.

“I discovered this dish through food reviewers on TikTok, and it was also my first time experiencing it. I was extremely impressed by the liver in the dish—it was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. The charred liver was exceptionally flavorful," said Minh Thuan, a customer at Lan's restaurant.

When you arrive at the restaurant, you'll see a long line of people waiting, most of whom are local customers. The rest are those intrigued and eager to try this unique dish when they get the chance to visit Bac Ninh.

Lan says: “Many visitors from other parts of the country, like Hanoi and even Ho Chi Minh City, make it a point to enjoy charred liver Pho whenever they visit Bac Ninh to satisfy their cravings. Sometimes, the restaurant even hosts groups of nearly 20 motorcyclists who travel to Bac Ninh just to savor this dish. Most feedback about the dish is very positive, with most people finding it incredibly delicious."

This dish will give you a fresh perspective on Vietnamese food, going beyond the usual flavors and touching the hearts of adventurous souls. Don't let the unfamiliar color of charred liver Pho deter you. Come to Bac Ninh and taste this blend of flavors for yourself. It will surely be an unforgettable food experience.

“The best way is to have good quality spaghetti. When the pasta has a very good quality, even if you never tried it before, it must not look shiny. If the pasta is shiny and transparent, it’s one of the first things telling you this pasta is not good quality. Pasta must be very rough. And it's supposed to be indicated on the packaging that the pasta has a slow dehydration point, which means they removed the water from the pasta slowly at a low temperature. That will help the grain and the pasta to give all the flavor to whatever you're planning to cook,” Nico told VOV.

Once you have chosen a slow-dried, matte-colored type of spaghetti, it’s time for the sauce, made with just four ingredients that can easily be found in your cupboard! 

“It's made of extra virgin oil, very good garlic, basil-fresh basil, not the dry one - and some chilies. Then, you may add some cheese. Some Italians don't do that. But I do love my spaghetti tomato with parmigiana, which is the king of cheese," Nico explained.

"I’m going to stir fry my garlic with a bit of chili and then I'm going to add some of the tomato sauce and just let it go for 10 minutes. I really like to cook it for very little time, not too much because I want to keep the aroma of the tomatoes. The more you look to cook it, the heavier the sauce will be. Then I set the sauce to the side.” 

The next step is boiling the spaghetti. This is when the art of “Al dente” pasta comes into play. Al dente is Italian for "to the tooth", meaning there should be a slight bite to your pasta. By doing this, the spaghetti retains its texture, avoids being too soft and mixes well with the sauce. But how to master “Al dente”? Nico said you just need to boil the pasta about 2 or 3 minutes less than the packaging indicates.

And that’s how you get an authentic, flavorful tomato spaghetti in just under 20 minutes! The tomato spaghetti pairs well with kale salad and some garlic bread. With Nico’s recipe, who says you can’t bring Italy delicacy to your kitchen?

Hanoi’s cuisine has long been a factor that has attracted lots of travelers. The most significant characteristics of Hanoi cuisine are its sophistication and deliciousness. Thang Long, or Hanoi-style grilled fish is a good example of the sophistication of Hanoi’s cuisine, using a variety of spices and herbs in one dish. 

Thang Long, or Cha Ca, or Hanoi-style grilled fish is a good example of the sophistication of Hanoi’s cuisine, using a variety of spices and herbs in one dish.

On today’s show we have Ms. Nguyen Thanh Van, who is in charge of the Vietnamese restaurant at Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi Hotel. Along with Bun Cha - grilled pork with vermicelli - Thang Long grilled fish is the most popular dish with the restaurant’s foreign guests.

Ms. Van: Cha ca is a very typical dish of Hanoi. To make Cha ca, we use many different spices. You have to choose good fish.

Chi: Hemibagrus catfish (Ca lang) and sheat-fish (Ca anh vu) are two popular kinds of fish that are used to make Cha Ca. What kind of fish do you use?

Ms. Van: Originally, Cha Ca was made with Ca lang from the Red River. But in recent years, Ca lang has become very rare, so people use one of the many other kinds of cat fish. And now people are raising Ca lang on farms.

Chi: Catfish has a very strong smell. How can we get rid of it?

Ms. Van: Catfish doesn’t have a nice smell. So, after we kill the fish, we cut a fillet, remove the smell, bones, then clean it with coarse salt. We use salt to clean the surface of the fish skin. Then we wash it a second time using vinegar to eliminate the smell of the fish. We wash it a third time with clean water.

Chi: The grilled fish has a savory flavor complemented by a sophisticated combination of spices and herbs. Van, how do you marinate the fish?

Ms. Van: The spices we use to make Cha ca are: galangal, turmeric, fermented rice, shrimp sauce, fish sauce, and a little bit of sugar. We serve it with dill, green onion, peanuts, and shallots.

To marinate, we mince the galangal and turmeric very fine. We wet the mixture with water, we squeeze it to have juice. We have yellow color juice with flavorful galangal and turmeric. Then we mix with an amount of fermented rice and shrimp sauce. That one as well we have to take the juice. Then we mix together two kinds of juice. We season with fish sauce and pepper, a little sugar. We marinate the fish for at least 2 hours, even we can cover the fish and keep it in the fridge over night.

Chi: Now wonder the fish has unique flavor. It is marinated with various kinds of strong spices like galangal, turmeric, shrimp sauce. And its flavor is also enhanced with different herbs.

Ms. Van: After that, you prepare the hot oil in the flat pan, you fry the dill and green onion to have flavorful oil, you take out the dill and onion, and you fry the already half-cooked grilled fish. You finish the fish in the hot oil. Then you serve with the peanuts, shallot. The dipping sauce can be lightened nuoc mam or fish sauce or shrimp sauce.

Chi: How you serve the grilled fish?

Ms. Van: Cha ca, normally we don’t eat with rice, we serve with fresh bun or vermicelli, or some kinds of crackers and a few kinds of herbs like basil, coriander, and the white part of the green onion, we cut it julienne with lime juice and fish sauce.

Chi: Thank you Van for being with us on today’s show.

Now, Thang Long grilled fish or Cha ca La Vong are offered in many restaurants not only in Hanoi but also in other areas like Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City. But Hanoi grilled fish still has its own unique flavor.

Find out more recipes and cuisine on VOV24/7 Food Delight. For now, good bye.

Chef Erik Videgård coordinated with the chefs of the Daewoo Hotel to combine a number of delicacies known as Swedish “Mellanmål” with their Vietnamese counterparts.

“Mellanmål” is something we usually have when the kids come back from school in the afternoon. We eat some ‘Mellanmål’. You’re not too hungry and waiting for dinner. ‘Mellanmål’ is very much a Swedish tradition. Usually we have some hot chocolate along with some sandwiches with cheese. Those are typical things we have,” Erik Videgård said.

“Mellanmål” refers to light meals enjoyed between main courses, typically in the afternoon or at midday. These delightful bites provide nourishment, help maintain focus, and emphasize the importance of taking breaks during the day, Erik said. But “Mellanmål” was just one of the many dishes he introduced at the “Taste of Sweden”.

“I brought some ingredients from Sweden. For example, the sausage is a very old Swedish recipe as is the casing around the sausage. I brought it with me from home. The recipe for the sausage is from the 1900s. The outer casing is made from lamb intestines. The lamb casing makes it crunchy when you bite into it. Here we are making it with a ‘Banh Xeo’ wrapping outside,” Erik Videgård said.

When asked about his Swedish version of “Banh Xeo” (sizzling pancakes), a popular Vietnamese dish, Erik Videgård said, “Well, it’s the normal Vietnamese style with the ingredients of turmeric, herbs, and flour. You can see, we wrap ‘Banh Xeo’ around the sausage and inside, there’s also a shrimp salad. The shrimp salad is combined with horseradish, mayonnaise and dill, a lot of dill.”

With a career spanning more than four decades, Videgård has established himself as a trailblazer, introducing new flavors and cuisines to Swedish palates. In the early 1990s, he established a groundbreaking move by introducing Asian flavors, including Vietnamese cuisines such as “Nem Cuon” and “Banh Mi” to Sweden when they were relatively unknown in the country. This bold step revolutionized Swedish palates and paved the way for a broader appreciation of exotic flavors.

At the “Taste of Sweden”, Videgård once again showed his creativity beyond the border with Vietnamese “Banh Mi” stuffed with Swedish meatballs, and beetroot salad.

“We have put beetroot, cabbage, and Swedish meatballs inside in which I’ve included Vietnamese fish sauce instead of salt,” he said. 

For Chef Dang Ngoc Son, who helped chef Videgård prepare the dishes, “Taste of Sweden” creates a space for a culinary exchange between the two cultures.

“The cooking techniques are sophisticated. For example, to make Swedish meatballs, we have to stir-fry the onion until it becomes translucent. Then we mix it with minced pork, spices, and herbs. This dish is served with a special kind of sauce made from Vietnamese herbs, including coriander, basil and beefsteak plants mixed with ground almond and olive oil,” said Son.

The lavish menu offered at “Taste of Sweden” pleased crowds of participants, particularly youngsters from schools in the area.

“I like the fish the most. I can feel the western flavor in the creamy sauce. Normally, Vietnamese fish is saltier, and spicier, but the sauce lessens the fatness of the dish,” said a visitor.

“This is the first time my family have tried Swedish cuisine. I am impressed with his Vietnamese ‘Banh Mi’ with distinctive flavors thanks to his creativity,” another visitor shared her feeling.