There are almost no restaurants in the villages of Pu Luong, so eating here means whatever the kitchen at your homestay cooks. That is better than it sounds. This is what to order, how far ahead to ask for it, and roughly what a meal costs.
Working out what to eat in Pu Luong is not a question of choosing a restaurant, because in the villages there barely are any. You eat what the kitchen at your homestay or lodge cooks, served as a spread of shared dishes in the middle of the table. That sounds passive and is actually the best thing about eating here: the ingredients come from the village and the surrounding forest, and they are cooked the way Thai and Muong families in this part of Thanh Hoa province have always cooked them. The Thai here are a Vietnamese upland minority, unrelated to Thailand, and nothing on the table is fiery by Bangkok or Delhi standards, and none of it is fussy: the register is smoky, herbal, sour and salty, built around whatever the household raised, caught or gathered that week. Here is what is worth ordering.
Co Lung duck, the dish of the district
This is the one local specialty everyone in the region will tell you about. The ducks are a local breed raised loose on the cold streams around Co Lung, which gives them small bones, firm meat, thin skin and none of the muddiness of lowland duck. It is normally boiled and served with a ginger and fish sauce dip, or grilled over charcoal. The only drawback is time. Preparing a bird takes well over an hour, so order it in the early afternoon if you want it for dinner.
Grilled stream fish
The fish pulled out of the local streams are usually about two fingers long. They are clamped between split bamboo, grilled whole over charcoal until you can eat them bones and all, and dipped in salt mixed with chili and crushed doi seed, a fragrant highland spice that tastes faintly of citrus and pepper. Households nearer the Ma river sometimes get larger fish, cooked in a sour bamboo-shoot soup or steamed. Ask your hosts what came in that day rather than ordering from memory.
Hill pig and free-range chicken
Hill pig is a small local breed raised outdoors, reaching only a fraction of the weight of a commercial pig, so the meat is lean and firm with a thin layer of fat that does not turn greasy on the grill. It is rubbed with mac khen, a wild highland pepper, or with doi seed, roasted in a slab and chopped into pieces to eat with foraged leaves. Hill chicken is best boiled or grilled. Both suit a group; order a small portion if there are only two of you.
The bitter-leaf soup
Canh la dang is the most argued-over bowl on any table here. The leaves are shredded fine and simmered with minced pork or pork offal and a fermented rice souring agent, producing a thick dark green soup that hits sharply bitter and then turns sweet. Local families treat it as a hangover cure and a way to cool the body down. If you have never had it, take three or four slow spoonfuls before deciding, because almost nobody likes the first one.
Stone snails, bitter bamboo shoots and steamed greens
Stone snails live in damp crevices in the limestone and are plentiful mainly in the rainy months. They are boiled with lime leaf and winkled out with a pin, crunchier and sweeter than stream snails. Bitter bamboo shoots are roasted whole over coals, then peeled and dipped in a chili and herb paste. Wild greens are steamed in a wooden basket rather than stir-fried, which keeps their flavor plain and green, and they are the easiest dish on the table for anyone wary of bitterness.
Bamboo-tube rice, sticky rice and the shared wine jar
Com lam is sticky rice cooked inside a young bamboo tube over a fire; when you peel back the charred casing a thin silky membrane clings to the rice, and it is eaten with sesame salt or grilled meat. Plain hillside sticky rice is fragrant and chewy, and some households tint it several colors with forest plants. Dinner often ends with a communal jar of rice wine drunk through long bamboo straws. Take a token sip and stop if you are driving a mountain road in the morning.
Order dinner at the same moment you book the room, and say how many of you there are and whether anyone is vegetarian or bringing small children. Village kitchens shop on market days, not on demand. Tell them at six in the evening and what remains in the house is eggs and vegetables.
What to eat in Pu Luong: ordering, prices and taking food home
Meals are priced either per person or per tray of shared dishes, and it is worth asking which before the food arrives. A full dinner is an estimated 150,000-250,000d per person (roughly US$6-10), while a whole duck or a roast pig is charged by weight on top of that. If you want to take something home, Pho Doan market on Thursdays and Sundays sells dried bamboo shoots, forest honey and doi seed, all of which travel well in a suitcase.
Notes on eating here
- Order at least half a day ahead, and the day before for anything involving a whole animal
- Ask whether the price is per person or per tray at the moment you order, not at checkout
- Bring cash: village kitchens rarely take cards and the mobile signal for transfers is weak
- Say in advance if you are vegetarian, and the kitchen will build the meal around steamed greens, tofu and eggs
- Go easy on the homemade infused spirits if your stomach is at all sensitive
- Breakfast is usually simple, so if you are leaving early ask for it the night before
- If you want to eat outside your homestay at least once, the small eateries near Pho Doan market are the realistic option
