Ha Giang is fascinating to visitors thanks to not only grandiose scenery with impressive mountains, unique customs and diverse festivals but also being the culinary paradise of cuisines made from natural ingredients. If you want to see all of the above, you have no choice but visiting Ha Giang to find yourself interesting and special experience.

1. Banh cuon trung (Egg steamed rolled rice pancake)

In the cold land of Ha Giang, people have to eat something hot and spicy to fight against the regional cold climate. Egg steamed rolled rice pancake, however, is a “cold dish” used with the hot and sweet broth of cooked bones. After that, all you need to do is enjoying the flavor of the particular soup to confirm the unique feature of this land.

Recommended restaurants serving egg steamed rolled rice pancake.

Mrs.Lan’s restaurant

Address: 116A Ly Tu Trong Street, Ha Giang City.

Dong Van restaurant

Address: Opposite the old Dong Van market.

2. Water caltrop porridge (Chao Au Tau)

Water caltrop porridge is also a dish which no visitor should ignore once being in Ha Giang. It’s so great if you wander around Ha Giang at night in winter, find a small restaurant and enjoy a bowl of this dish among the cold breeze. Surely you will be fascinated by its flavor: traditional rice mixed with water caltrop, pork, herb and spice leaves. What a perfect combination! To cook this dish is not easy: After being soaked in rice water thoroughly, water caltrops are simmered about 4 hours; yellow-flower sticky rice mixed with fragrant sticky rice must be cooked in the broth of pork leg’s bones and caltrop flour; a little chopped meat and extra spice more. Many people call this “bitter porridge” because of its bitter taste.

A diversity of visitors enjoying this dish once will find it again as if they fall in love with this particular cuisine. Called “dish” but it’s not simply a dish only, it’s also good for health. It’s available all year round but you just can buy and enjoy it at night. Sitting in a small restaurant, savoring its flavor and forgetting cold weather outside is interesting for those who want to explore something brand-new.

3. Thang Co

The fragrance of cardamom, regional seeds, and citronella mingled with the tasting meat can warm the freezing air here. All H’ mong men in Dong Van market wish to enjoy a bowl of “thang co” and wine with friends. The locals said that the drunker they are when they are back home from the market, the happier they feel because they have many friends.

The gate of Dong Van market has been restructured and looks like lowland markets but still remains the traditional ambiance. Entering the middle of the market, you can see many booths selling “thang co” around, even a half of cow and pig are hanged here. Moreover, the plastic cans of wine at the beside booth were actually carried to here at the early morning or at night of the day before. Smell so good.

H’mong people often bring “men men” before they go to the market where they will buy “thang co” and wine, and then offer friends to enjoy. “When in Rome do as the Romans do” – if you want to enjoy “thang co” at its best, you have to hunker, put your dish on a long wooden panel and enjoy by a wooden ladle as many other locals usually do. A bowl of extremely soup is also indispensable to enrich the taste. Enjoying “thang co” will not be complete without friends who gather to ask about family, with better health and make the ambiance noisy by laughs. When the drinkers are drunk enough, they will sing and play Khen. Girls might be as drunk as boys.

4. Bac Me bamboo cooked rice

If Ha Giang is famous for kinds of sticky rice, Bac Me is also particular with bamboo cooked rice of Tay minorities.

The receipt of this food is quite simple: The sticky rice is soaked in water thoroughly, the broth is usually natural, put in a stick of bamboo and covered by banana leaves. People here usually use young plants in the family of bamboo, cut aside and cover the other. The clean sticky rice was scattered with salt and then put inside the bamboo stick, the amount of water is just average and enough. The amount of the stick is filled up by banana leaves before being grilled. During grilling, the bamboo sticks are scrolled in about 1 hour (depending on the side of sticks). When you smell the fragrance of sticky rice, it means the rice ripens.

Before savoring, people usually cut off the outer burned coating of bamboo stick and then cut off the white coating inside. Rice now is shaped in the form of a tube and covered by a white layer. Bamboo cooked rice once was prior food for pregnant women and during lactation, because they are not influenced by metal like bronze, cast iron or aluminum. During enjoying, this food is very fragrant and can be more wonderful with sesame salt or grilled lake fish.

5. Grilled Moss

Commonly, moss is considered a normal aquatic organism without benefit. However, it is chosen to be a cuisine of Tay in Xuan Giang Commune, Quang Binh District, Ha Giang.

The dishes made from moss are also called “que” which is delicious, good for health and offer a unique flavor. According to the locals, they have to select them from large moss areas where they are plentiful and delicious. They take it back home and separate the external alluvial viscosity to mix with some spices such as salt and coriander before processing.

Although lake moss is various, the delicious one is limited. Besides, moss which can be eaten just grows indefinite season. That’s why this dish is a valuable cuisine to the people here. There are many kinds of moss dishes such as fried moss, dry moss but the most particular is mixed with spices before being grilled.

Tay people have their own receipt of processing cuisine, especially grilling. If you want to observe how they do, just come here and look. Because of depending on the season, many locals dry it and save it as stored food. Dry moss is served for distinguished visitors only.

6. 5-color sticky rice

The northern mountainous area is the concentration of culinary art including the particular 5-colour sticky rice sheltering traditional value of the universe, philosophy of “yin and yang” as well as humanity. 

The name says all, this kind of sticky rice is different from others because it is made from 5 types of sticky rice in 5 different colors consisting of red, yellow, green, purple and white. This dish is easily found at markets in Ha Giang.

The receipt of processing 5-color sticky rice is quite similar in different regions. However, the color of this dish is sometimes different from basic colors, depending on regional condition. The ingredients consist of sticky rice mixed with forest leaves to make colors: Gac (or Momordica cochinchinensis) for red, ginger leaves, grapefruit peel or bitter bamboo shoots for green, turmeric for yellow and black rice leaves for purple. 

Before making the color, sticky rice must be soaked in water in around 6-8 hours and then separated into 5 parts of 5 colors. Next, to step of steaming, this requires good skill to create an ideal dish. Which is easy to be faded will be put in bamboo steamers first, and then next to the others. Many regions put it in different shape looking delicious.

7. Thang Den in Dong Van

Thang Den is a very popular party cake in Ha Giang. It has been mistaken with “banh troi” in the lowlands, but actually, Thang Den is processed in a completely different way.

It is made from glutinous flour, sugar and then shaped into balls. When customers order, it is boiled and following covered with a layer of special sugar, coconut, and ginger. All the ingredients are suitable for the cool atmosphere in Ha Giang, especially in winter.

8. Smoking-shelf sausage

The meat of the shoulder is the most appropriate to make sausage. Its skin is removed. Then, the meat is cut into medium pieces and marinated in salt, sugar and other spices; wine and ginger are also indispensable when the meat is marinated, they help to preserve this food as well as make it fragrant. 

After being dried, the sausage will be fried before sliced into pieces which will be enjoyed with ginger soup. Or it can be sliced into medium thick pieces and fried with soup and young onion. It’s hard to deny its flavor. On Tet holiday, there are many traditional delicious dishes but smoking-shelf sausage is always the first priority.