Nha Trang food blog — 4 famous Nha Trang foods you must-try

A trip to Nha Trang would not be complete if you miss experiencing these seafood delicacies such as Ca Mai salad (white sardine salad), blood cookle, lobster congee, or grilled unicorn filefish. Here is the list of specialties of this coastal city

Lobster Congee

Binh Ba lobster is one the most popular Nha Trang delicacies that tourists often look for a try. The famous lobster with good big size and lots of fresh and sweet meat inside could be prepared in different ways from simply steamed, grilled, simmered to more complex like local way of making sweet and sour lobster soup.

Lobster congee is another way of cooking which could bring a distinct flavor to lobster whilst still keeps its natural sweetness. Lobster congee added a bit of taste and smell from perilla leaf, spring onion, and pepper in harmony with the fresh lobster meat is absolutely worth trying if you travel to Nha Trang.

Ca Mai salad (white sardine salad)

The main ingredient of this dish is white sardine, freshly caught from the sea. The fish bone will be extracted and the fishy smell will be got rid of by tamarind, lime, or sour star fruit. Fish meat after turned into ivory-white color (or dim and solid gray) will be mixed with “thinh”(very thin sliced pork skin with smashed peanut). To add more flavor to the dish, other ingredients of sliced onion and julienne-style matchsticks ginger, mixed herbs and other spices are combined as well. This is a very famous dish of Nha Trang and served in a lot of restaurants.

To complete the taste of Ca mai salad, there is a need for good sauce. The sauce is normally made out of fish bone stock; then mixed with minced meat, chili, lemon milk and garlic. The fish salad can be wrapped in rice paper and mixed green leaves, herbs, sour star fruit and green banana. Dip the wrapped roll into the delicious sauce, the sweetness of the fish in combination with the light smell of herbs can be felt clearly in your mouth. Why not give it a try as you have a chance?

Grilled unicorn filefish

One of the gifts that local people and this beautiful coastline city has to offer tourists is grilled unicorn filefish thanks to its very natural sweetness. There is no need for any complicated way of cooking, unicorn filefish is simply washed carefully, then marinated in chili salt, soaked for about 30 minutes then grilled on charcoal.

It needs a bit of skill when grilling so the fish is not burned while the meat inside has to be cooked just right, and the skin outside is crunchy. Once again, the sauce with the mixture of all taste of sour, spicy, salty, and sweet is what enhances the flavor of the dish. Depends on tourists taste, the sauce for this dish is different. An irresistible dish is waiting to be picked!

Thuy Trieu blood cookle (or blood clam) salad

Thuy Trieu is a big Swamp in Cam Ranh Peninsula. There are 2 well-known and desirable kinds of blood cookle thanks to its nutrition.

Blood clams are firstly soaked in salt and chili to clean the sand out of their shells, left in boil water for a couple of minutes then shucked to take the clam meat out. After that, the meat is mixed with sliced onion, chopped herb, added a bit of fish sauce, kumquat sauce, and chili to complete a perfectly interesting sour and sweet dish.

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