Phu Quoc Things to eat
Phu Quoc Sardinella Salad
Enriched with the flavor of the sea, the sardinella salad is loved by many people. This bucolic meal, yet elegant, is the reason why so many people come to Phu Quoc every year to enjoy the sea and the delicious sardinella salad.
After washing and removing the fins, the chef will have to slice the sardine into many thin slices. Then he or she will use lemon juice, thinly sliced chili, and sliced onion to mix with the sardines. Rice paper, herbs, and dried coconut meat are essential to this dish. Eating the sardinella salad, it is requires having both the home-grown vegetables and the herbs from the jungle. There are a total of 8 types of herbs, while the home-grown vegetables include spinach, basil, and many others. When eating the salad, you can taste the soft and slightly sour taste of the fish, the fat of the coconut, peanuts, and the bitterness of the jungle herbs. The herbs or their bitterness will help food lovers who haven’t eaten salad with coconut milk from having a stomachache. The rice papers from Phu Quoc, big and limber, are also quite different from many other regions. Because of that, when making the rolls, the rice paper won’t be broken. This is also a special feature of the rice paper in Phu Quoc.
The sauce is also special. Made of chili, garlic, and fried peanuts, the sauce is a harmonious combination of fat and chili, sour and sweet. Food lovers will have to come back for more.
Last but not least is the wine to drink along. While the fish is nutritious, it can be tough for the digestive system. A bit of Sim Wine will help you eat better and tastier.
Rose Myrtle Wine of Phu Quoc
As one of Phu Quoc's finest wines, Sim (the Vietnamese name of Rose Myrtle) is also rated as one of the best wines in Vietnam. The wine is made of the ripe Rose Myrtle and a little bit of yeast, and has a very special flavor. The jungle Rose Myrtle is uniquely special because its bitterness combines with sweetness.
Phu Quoc has a cool climate, suitable for the Rose Myrtle to grow all year, but it only ripens in the first month of the lunar new year. The rose myrtle, when it was growing, had a color like a rose, but when it ripened, the color turned purple. The wine is not only a drink of nature but also a cure for many types of illnesses. It helps the drinker eat better, sleep better, strengthen the muscles of the elderly, treat diarrhea, and treat illnesses. It also helps patients with kidney diseases.
Grilled Snail (Còi Biên Mai)
Còi Biên Mai is a type of snail that should to be missed when visiting Phu Quoc. The snail, thanks to the creative mind of the locals, can be turned into many dishes, which are all equally delicious. There are many recipes for the snail, such as sweet-n-sour fried, steamed, soup, or hotpot, but the best is the chili-salt grilled snail or the spicy tofu and lemongrass grilled.
The snail can be easily found in the night market at Master Phu Quoc Palace or at almost any restaurant in Duong Dong Town. Grilling the snail requires technique and timing. As soon as the snail turns from milky white to yellow, it is ready to be served. If grilling for too long, the snail will be tough and dry. The snail is perfect if it is served with grilled corn, herbs such as basil, lettuce, salad, raw banana, cucumber, pineapple, and dipped in spicy tofu or salt-n-chili lemon sauce. You can also roll it and dip it into the fish sauce. In any form, it is just irresistibly delicious.
Grilled Jack mackerel or Trachurus
Many people know about the famous sardinella salad, but not about the equally flavorful Jack mackerels. Not because it is less delicious or too hard to cook, but because the fish only arrives in season. In the calm day of the sea, maybe you can catch a few, but in the rough sea, it is impossible to find one. There are also many ways to make the fish, but the best and also the simplest is to steam and dip in lemon salt-n-pepper sauce. You can also roll it into a fish roll with a little bit of herbs, and you will want to make a second one.
The grilled Jack is very different, sweet but not fishy, and the meat is a bit tough but just perfect. These features are not easy to detect, but only the mackerels of Phu Quoc possess these.
Sea Urchin
Sea urchin, or the spike ball, is an amazing dish that you should definitely try when visiting Phu Quoc. Among many sea species, not one is as good as the sea urchin, especially its eggs. Splitting the urchin in half, the ball is hollow, but there is meat stuck to the surface. The meat has a yellow color like cream cheese. The best part is the urchin’s eggs, which are fat and sweet and are considered a gift of nature. The urchin is also known as the ginseng of the sea, which is very nutritious and good for your health.
The locals cook the urchin in so many ways. The most complicated one is that they will take all the meat inside, fried with fat and garlic, and drop all into the boiling pot of porridge. The urchin porridge is fat, sweet, and nutritious, and it will help you recover promptly after many days of traveling. The most common way is to cut the urchin in half and grill it over fire. Grilling the urchin for a few minutes on the fire, removing the meat, and dipping it in the sauce, and you will never forget it.
Grilled Egged Squid
The grilled squid is a bucolic dish, just like people in Phu Quoc, simple and hospitality. The egg squid is bigger than an adult’s thumb with a belly full of eggs. The squid season is from February to May of the Lunar year. There are many ways to cook them. You can make porridge, steam, boil, grill, and fry; all are delightful in the same way.
The squid needs to be cleaned first, seasoned with chili salt, cooking oil for 15 minutes for the seasoning to be absorbed. Lastly, putting it on the firing charcoal until the meat has a yellow color, adding some herbs, and dipping the squid in the sauce, and you will know that you are in wonderland.
Phu Quoc Crab Rice
The crab rice is few things you have to try when coming to Phu Quoc. Tasting the rice, you will understand more about the earth, the sea, and the people who live between the two.
The main ingredient of the dish is rice, while the crab, mixed with garlic, onions, and a bit of sauce, will be the crown. The rice, when finished, will have a yellow color, and the rice is usually fatty, and the crab is sweet. You can choose some vegetables to eat with the crab rice, such as cucumber or tomatoes, and most importantly, the fish sauce that can neutralize or increase any flavor.
There are many ways to cook crab. You can boil and dip in salt-n-pepper lemon dip, grill, soup, cake, or hot pot. The best crab is in Ham Ninh, where the crab is small but the meat is solid and better than anywhere else.
Melaleuca mushroom (Phu Quoc jungle mushroom)
This type of mushroom appears a lot in the primeval forest in Phu Quoc, and it can be cooked with everything from chicken to fish and meat.
The Melaleuca mushroom grows only after the first rains in the mangrove forest. The leaves from the trees will fall down, cover the ground, and create a type of mud that is suitable for the mushroom to grow. Season after season, the mushroom will grow and break through the previous layer. After the rains, the mushrooms will stop growing.
In Phu Quoc, the mushroom is cooked with shrimp, squid, and this is a common dish for the locals. If you look harder, maybe you can find some machete or swordfish to make fish balls, which is perfect for the mushroom.
Dried Shredded Shrimp Noodle
In Phu Quoc, there are many delicious cuisines such as fish sauce, Rose wine, or pepper, but it also has a special dish: Dried Shredded Shrimp Noodle.
Dried Shredded Shrimp Noodle requires some basic ingredients such as thin noodles, herbs such as basil, cilantro, cucumber, bean sprouts, and raw papaya. The most important ingredient is the dried, shredded shrimp, and the broth made of fish.
Coming to Phu Quoc, after days of eating grilled seafood, a bit of noodles to change the flavor will help you enormously on the journey to enjoy everything in Phu Quoc.
Visiting Phu Quoc, alongside the delicious seafood, is the delightful tuna soup cake that is sold every night on almost every street food stall. The delicious bowl of soup cake must have the equally delicious sauce, the famous Phu Quoc fish sauce, to have with it. The cake is soft and chewy, made from rice. Nowhere in Vietnam has that had better soup cake than Phu Quoc.
You enjoy a wonderful bowl of soup cake at Master Palace market, where you can find almost anything on the island, such as shrimp, fish, snails…
