For those with a sweet tooth and a love for unique culinary delights, Vietnam’s traditional snack, chạo tôm, is a must-try. Ranking 28th on the list of tasty treats, this delicacy consists of a savory shrimp paste wrapped around a sugar cane stick. The shrimp paste is often enhanced with a garlicky punch and a blend of spices, sometimes even incorporating pork paste, before it’s shaped around the cane and cooked to perfection—whether steamed, grilled, or fried.
Hailing from Hue in Central Vietnam, this snack has now captured the taste buds of the entire nation. While it was once a specialty reserved for special occasions, it has evolved into a popular appetizer or light bite, enjoyed as a whole or deconstructed. The latter involves sliding the shrimp off the cane, wrapping it in fresh lettuce, and dipping it in the classic nước chấm sauce for an explosion of flavors.
Chạo tôm is often served with a side of fresh vegetable slices and bánh hỏi rice noodles, adding a crunchy and textural contrast to the soft and juicy shrimp. It’s a dish that truly celebrates the balance of flavors and textures that Vietnamese cuisine is renowned for.
Another Vietnamese favorite, chả giò, secures 85th place on the list. These fried spring rolls are a crispy, golden delight, with a delicate rice paper wrapping around a juicy filling of pork and shrimp. The stuffing is often enhanced with carrots, cabbage, mushrooms, glass noodles, and bean sprouts, creating a harmonious blend of flavors and textures. A quick fry in hot oil transforms these rolls into a crispy, light, and incredibly moreish treat.
The list of top-rated snacks on TasteAtlas is a true celebration of global flavors, with representatives from across the world. From Japan’s hamamatsu to China’s guotie and smacked cucumber, Indonesia’s pempek and batagor, Malaysia’s karipap and roti canai, Brazil’s pão de queijo, and Mexico’s esquites and antojitos—it’s a mouth-watering journey through different cultures and culinary traditions.
TasteAtlas, an online encyclopedia of flavors, takes food enthusiasts on a journey to discover traditional dishes, local ingredients, and authentic restaurants from around the world. With over 10,000 foods and drinks already cataloged, it continues to expand its reach, uncovering the dozens of thousands of culinary delights yet to be explored and mapped.
Cultural week brings a glimpse of Hungarian culture to Can Tho
NDO – A wide range of activities will be held under the framework of the Hungarian Cultural Week in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho from November 14 to 17.
Vietnam boasts street food in Moscow
NDO –The Vietnamese Street Food Festival, the eight of its kind, opened at the Hanoi-Moscow Trade Centre complex (Incentra) in Moscow, Russia, on March 8, with the aim of promoting the Vietnamese culinary culture to Russian people and international friends.
Streetside service station serves up surprise
When you travel a long distance these days you stop by a service station to take a rest and get some food. The trick then was to spot where the trucks were to find good fresh at a reasonable price.
Rice paddy crab hotpot
Vietnamese cuisine revolves around produce found in the paddy fields. A nation with over a thousand years of wet rice culture, Vietnamese people have been using everything rice-related for centuries.
Xoi Xeo – a popular sticky rice in Hanoi
There is nowhere in Vietnam that so many types of sticky rice- or “xoi” present like they do in Hanoi. But standing out among the various kinds, “xoi xeo” is not only creative art with a sophisticated combination of ingredients and color but the sophistication even leaks out to its odd name.
