Delicious and mouth-watering: 5 specialties from the mountainous city of Gia Lai.

When talking about Central Highlands cuisine, people always think of grilled chicken, bamboo rice, and rice wine. But Gia Lai cuisine is much more than that; it offers a rich and diverse range of dishes, from upscale restaurants to street food, creating a unique character for this sun-drenched, windy basalt land.

Gia Lai's two-bowl pho – unique and delicious.

If beef noodle soup is a specialty of Hue, and eel vermicelli is famous throughout Nghe An, then pho (pho with two bowls) is the dish that has made a name for the cuisine of the mountainous city of Gia Lai, leaving many unforgettable impressions on diners from afar.

The name "Two-Bowl Pho" comes from its unique serving method: one bowl for the dry pho noodles and another for the special broth. This difference is easily recognizable from the name itself. Usually, pho is served with broth, but in Gia Lai, people prefer dry pho, more similar to mixed pho.

Gia Lai rice noodles are also unique. They are made from rice flour, but they are not pressed thin and soft like regular rice noodles. Instead, they are round, thin, and quite chewy. When served in a bowl, the noodles are topped with fried onions, blanched bean sprouts, pork cracklings, minced pork, and minced beef. Alongside this, diners also find a bowl of sweet and savory broth, sprinkled with scallions for added aroma and freshness.

The owner of Pho Nu, a 40-year-old dry pho restaurant in Gia Lai that is very popular with locals, said: "However, the true soul of this dish lies in the pho sauce. This is not the usual black sauce, but a rich, creamy sauce with a unique nutty, salty, and sweet flavor. This sauce is made from finely ground soybeans, fermented to create a special sauce that makes the flavor of this two-bowl pho dish unmistakable."

Crab noodle soup with fermented fish sauce - a unique and unforgettable flavor.

This dish has a distinctive aroma, which might be quite challenging for those encountering it for the first time. That's why crab noodle soup is also known locally as "stinky crab noodle soup," as a way to distinguish it from other types of crab noodle soup.

Making this noodle dish is not easy at all. Fresh, large freshwater crabs are selected, the body of the crab is used, the rest is discarded, and then it is crushed to extract the crab juice. The crab meat is filtered, finely ground, and then fermented for 1-2 days until it develops a strong aroma. The fresh crab juice is also fermented for about a day until it turns black and has a pungent, slightly unpleasant smell before being used in cooking.

Ms. Chi, the owner of a famous crab noodle soup restaurant in Pleiku, brings out a bowl of her finished dish to offer to customers. The bowl is overflowing with bamboo shoots, crispy fried pork skin, spring rolls, and fermented pork sausage arranged on top of fresh noodles, along with the fragrant crab sauce generously poured over the noodles.

"This dish should be eaten with fresh raw vegetables, a little lime, and finely ground fresh chili. To make the fermented crab noodle soup richer and more flavorful, enjoy it with duck eggs simmered in the broth. The eggs are dyed a dark, glossy color, with a subtle fermented crab flavor that's quite unique. Some people have eaten one or two bowls and are still hungry, because this unique combination of flavors isn't easily found anywhere else," Ms. Chi shared.

Grilled skewers and grilled beef from Gia Lai are so delicious you'll forget your way home.

Grilled skewers or beef wrapped in betel leaves in Pleiku are alluring snacks that not only captivate the city's youth during nighttime strolls but also completely enchant visitors from afar with their unique flavors, making them forget their way home.

The skewers are neatly arranged on the grill, placed over glowing charcoal, emitting an intoxicating aroma that fills a corner of the street. Each skewer contains 4 to 5 small pieces of grilled meat, evenly coated with fragrant, fatty oil while being grilled. The sizzling sound and the aroma of the grilled skewers awaken all the senses. The skewers here are always crispy; when wrapped in rice paper with fresh vegetables and vermicelli, and dipped generously in the sweet and sour tamarind sauce, the flavors blend together to create an irresistible taste.

Ha Vy (Pleiku City, Gia Lai) shared: "This dish is associated with the childhood of many people, including myself. On late afternoons after school, when the mountain town was chilly, we would all gather around the grilled skewers stall on the street corner near the school. You won't find grilled skewers with such delicious, distinctive flavor anywhere else as in Gia Lai."

Equally delicious, grilled beef wrapped in betel leaves is also a wonderful culinary experience that diners should try on a chilly night in Pleiku. The beef is tender and sweet, wrapped in fragrant, chewy betel leaves. The most special thing lies in the dipping sauce, which acts as a "highlight" that makes everything on the table perfect. The dipping sauce, with its distinctive aroma and diverse flavors of sour, spicy, salty, and sweet, further enhances the deliciousness of this dish.

Sun-dried beef with yellow ant salt dip

Visiting the scorching Krông Pa region during the sweltering summer days, you'll witness locals preparing Gia Lai's specialty: sun-dried beef with yellow ant salt. Amidst the intense heat, local women diligently sit and dry large pieces of meat. To create this dish, locals select high-quality beef, raised free-range in the mountains year-round, feeding naturally on grass and plants.

The beef is marinated thoroughly with special spices. When eaten, the beef only needs to be lightly grilled over charcoal to preserve its natural sweetness and tenderness. An indispensable element of this dish is the yellow ant salt, made from yellow ants that live naturally in the forest. This salt must be prepared according to the traditional secret recipe of the Krông Pa ethnic group to be truly delicious.

Upon tasting, diners will immediately experience the delicious aroma of lemongrass, the rich, savory flavor of yellow ants, and the distinctive fragrance of basil leaves spreading throughout their mouths. This is a culinary experience you'll find hard to forget on your journey exploring Gia Lai's cuisine.

Rice noodle soup - a unique dish of the mountain town.

Gia Lai's banh canh (rice noodle soup) is both familiar and unique. Familiar because a bowl of banh canh can be found in almost any other province or city, but unique because the banh canh here has a very distinctive flavor, evoking the taste of the Gia Lai highlands.

When cooked and served, the bowl of banh canh (Vietnamese rice noodle soup) has a harmonious blend of colors from its various ingredients. According to the owner of O Hai banh canh restaurant (54 Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street, Pleiku City): "A good broth has a beautiful golden color. The flavor of the banh canh becomes even more unique at this point because of the combination of ingredients added to the pot. People in Gia Lai can handle spicy food well, so almost every pot of banh canh has a pungent, spicy flavor from pepper and chili. On the table, there are also jars of chili peppers pickled in fish sauce, which truly explodes the taste and smell senses of the diner with the delicious, well-rounded flavor of this special dish."

Typically, when enjoying Gia Lai-style rice noodle soup, people add various fresh vegetables such as baby cabbage, herbs, and bean sprouts to the bowl to make the dish more flavorful. You will also often find pepper and finely chopped cilantro on top of the soup, making the dish more visually appealing and attractive.

Although the ingredients may seem similar to banh canh in other places, perhaps due to the different cooking method, Gia Lai banh canh has a unique flavor that you'll never forget after just one bite.

Ha Mai Trinh