Cuisines in Ninh Binh

Cơm Cháy Ninh Bình (Burned Rice)

Come to Ninh Binh City, enter the Hotel or the Restaurant, the excursionist can contemplate the Burned rice. Burned rice is made of unburned rice, which is flatted into a flat round. After drying, the flat round unburned rice is fried in boiling vegetable oil until crispy before being broken into small pieces and ransferred to a bowl.  

Burned rice is eaten with the mixture of sliced beef and pig kidney fried with spices, tomato, carrot, onion and nam huong (a kind of mushroom).

Mắm Tép Gia Viễn (Tiny Shrimp Sauce)

Various kinds of nuoc mam (fish sauce) are now being produced in Vietnam. Among them, Gia Vien mam tep is still a special kind that is extensively interested to locals of Ninh Binh.

As a plain district, Gia Vien’s locals have long been fond of making mam tep, which is processed from tiny shrimps. Tiny shrimps must be fresh and old with indigo-blue round bodies. They should be wiped before being dried. The next step is to roast powdered grilled rice, which is then mixed with salt and pounded. Afterwards, mixing dried tiny shrimps with pounded powdered grilled rice and putting the mixture into a jar which is covered tightly for one month or more.

Mam tep is scarlet, well smelt and delicious. Mam tep can be fried with thit ba chi (lean and fat pork).

Rượu Lai Thành (or Lai Thành Rice Wine)

Lai Thanh is a rural area locating at the south pole of Kim Son district, which possesses various specialties like gao tam xoan (Tam Xoan rice), nep mua (mua sticky rice), nep hoa cau (areca sticky rice), etc. Among them, the most well-known is the so-called Lai Thanh wine rice that is distilled from rice planted in Lai Thanh commune.

The ferment, which is used to brew wine, is made from some precious types of pharmaceutical materials that help circulate blood and sterilize

Nem Chua Yên Mạc (Fermented Pork Roll)

Yen Mac Nem Chua has been made for a long time. The number of locals in Yen Mac who can make this kind of nem chua is small because the work requires not only secret formula but also passion for the work.  

Yen Mac Nem Chua is eaten with guava leaves, fig leaves and aroma vegetables dotted into nuoc mam (fish sauce) which is mixed with mingled with garlic, lemon juice, pepper and chilli.

Rượu Cần Nho Quan (Wine Drunk Out Of A Jar Through Pipes)

Ruou can is a kind of Vietnamese rice wine. The ingredients of ruou can include cooked sticky rice brewed with ferment. The whole brew is put into a jar that is covered tightly for 3 months or more prior to becoming rice wine. The ferment must be made from the mixture of bark of ebony-tree and galingale, ginger and guava leaves, which is grinded for water to be mixed with sticky rice powder.

The jar containing ruou can is put at a fixed place so that as many people as possible can drink it. Pipes are put into the jar prior to drinking and a basinful of pure water is placed beside it.

Drinking ruou can, everybody will forget all their daily worries and enjoy to the utmost the pleasure of tasting ruou can

Tai Dê Hoa Lư (Rare Goat Meat)