The food here belongs to the Thai people of the northwest uplands, not to the Vietnam of pho and banh mi: charcoal grills, a numbing mountain pepper, sticky rice steamed in wood, and smoked buffalo. This is what each dish is and how to order it.
The cooking in this valley is not the Vietnam most visitors arrive expecting. There is little of the delicate herb-and-fish-sauce balance of the deltas, and pho is a breakfast import rather than the local dish. What to eat in Dien Bien Phu means eating with the Thai people of the northwest uplands, a group unrelated to Thailand who have farmed this basin for centuries: charcoal grills, a numbing wild pepper, sticky rice steamed in wood, and meat dried in the smoke of a kitchen fire. Here is what each thing is and how to get it in front of you.
Xoi nep nuong: the sticky rice everything comes with
Xoi nep nuong is upland glutinous rice, soaked and then steamed in a tall wooden pot rather than boiled, which leaves the grains separate, fragrant and unusually chewy. It arrives in a lidded bamboo basket and you eat it with your fingers, pinching off a lump and using it to mop up whatever is on the grill. Some meals bring xoi ngu sac, the five-color version tinted with plant dyes for festivals. This is the base of every proper Thai meal here, and it is noticeably better rice than you will have eaten elsewhere in the country, which is a sentence worth taking seriously in a country that grows a great deal of rice.
Pa pinh top: the folded grilled fish
The dish worth planning a meal around. A river fish is split along the backbone, opened flat and packed with a paste of mountain pepper, ginger, lemongrass, chili, spring onion and wild herbs, then folded closed, clamped in split bamboo and grilled slowly over charcoal until the skin blisters. The result is smoky, aromatic and much more intensely seasoned than a coastal Vietnamese grilled fish. Expect an estimated 150,000 to 350,000d for a whole one, roughly US$6 to 14, depending on size.
Mac khen and the grill
Mac khen is the flavor that makes northwest food taste like nowhere else in Vietnam: a wild pepper related to Sichuan pepper, dried and crushed, sharply citrus-scented, leaving a faint tingling numbness rather than heat. It goes onto everything that meets charcoal. A grilled tray for two or three people usually lands somewhere around an estimated 200,000 to 450,000d, roughly US$8 to 18.
- Ga nuong mac khen: chicken rubbed with the mountain pepper and grilled until the skin crackles
- Grilled pork and buffalo, marinated with the same forest spices
- Cham cheo: the dipping mix everything is eaten with, pounded from salt, chili, mountain pepper and herbs
- Wild greens and bamboo shoots from the hills, grilled or blanched, served alongside
Thit trau gac bep: smoked buffalo
Common across the northwest and done well here. Buffalo is cut into thick strips, rubbed with mountain pepper and chili and hung above the kitchen fire for weeks until it dries hard and takes on the smoke. You tear it apart, or the kitchen pounds it soft, and it comes out chewy, salty and deeply smoky. It is a drinking snack more than a main course, torn into shreds and eaten with corn spirit rather than served as a dish in its own right, and it is the single most popular thing visitors carry home in a vacuum pack. Check your own country's rules on importing meat before you buy a bag at the market.
The unfamiliar ones
If you want to eat the way local families do rather than the way visitors are catered for, these are the dishes to point at. None of them will be on an English menu, and all of them are worth trying once.
- Reu da: river moss gathered from stones in the streams, wrapped in leaves and grilled over embers, mild and faintly oceanic
- Mang dang: bitter bamboo shoots, boiled or grilled, seasonal and an acquired taste that most people acquire quickly
- Ruou ngo: corn spirit, poured freely at village meals and stronger than it looks
- Ruou sau chit: an infused spirit made with a moth larva that lives in bamboo, offered as a local specialty and best approached with humor
Dien Bien rice, and why people talk about it
The Muong Thanh valley is the biggest rice basin in the northwest, and its rice has a national reputation. Gao tam Dien Bien, the fragrant long-grain variety, is sold in every market in town and Vietnamese travelers buy it by the sackful. It costs very little, it is genuinely different from supermarket rice at home, and it makes a better souvenir than anything on a stall of keyrings.
Order Thai food as a shared tray rather than as individual plates. A meal here is built as one spread of grilled fish, meat, wild greens, sticky rice and dipping mix for the whole table, and ordering a dish each gets you an awkward amount of the same thing. Two or three people, one tray, is the right unit.
What to eat in Dien Bien Phu: how to order it
- Eat where local families eat, and treat a busy room at midday as the best signal available
- Ask the price before ordering fish or a grill tray, since both are priced by weight and can climb
- The best Thai meals are arranged rather than stumbled upon, so ask your hotel or homestay a day ahead
- A simple noodle or rice plate in town runs an estimated 30,000 to 80,000d, roughly US$1 to 3
- Carry cash, as small kitchens and village hosts rarely take cards
- If you have a nut, shellfish or MSG issue, write it in Vietnamese on your phone before you sit down, because English is limited here
