Con Dao Special Food - What to eat In Con Dao

VU NANG SNAIL ON CON DAO ISLAND

This is a special snail with its shape, color, and flavor. The snail has a one-piece shape, its flesh is white and plump and it is seen as the woman's mound. Vu nang snail has a number of recipes such as grilling, boiling, frying, and making salad, etc. Each recipes has a unique flavor that is difficult to mix, but perhaps the most attractive one is the famous grilled Vu nang dish. The fragrant, sweet, creamy, fatty snails will surely conquer all diners. However, according to local people, the best taste is still the grilled Vu nang with scallion oil onion. This is a famous specialty of Con Dao, so at any restaurant, you can enjoy.

OYSTER CON DAO

On the island, there are many species of seafood such as grouper, parrotfish, lobster, squid, crab, etc but coming to Con Dao, tourists love oysters so much because this seafood provides high nutrition and freshness.

 In Con Dao, there are many restaurants and eateries with a variety of popular and luxury foods and drinks which please all tourists when arriving in this beautiful land. Along the street of Pham Van Dong - Nguyen Van Troi, there are many eating-houses selling delicious seafood near Con Dao market with all kinds of sea snails. Some dishes you should try such as Vu Nang snail, moon crab, squid, earthworm (sa sung), crab, etc In particular, Con Dao Oysters are considered to be fresh, delicious and processed with flour, cheese, grilled onions, lemon, and mustard, etc. It depends on the preferences and needs of tourists.

SAM DAT (CON DAO GINSENG) IS THE TYPICAL PRODUCT, ONLY IN CON DAO.

In recent years, people of Con Dao have successfully planted and exploited the species of Con Dao ginseng for soaking wine, chicken pot, duck stew to enrich the body which is chosen by many tourists as souvenirs.

Sam Dat, also known as sand ginseng, often grows along the high rocky, sandy mountains. Sam Dat has a round root of 3 cm long, 50 cm high, hairy, oval leafy leaves, thin hair on the upper surface, and hard hair on the edge. In Con Dao, Sam Dat which grows on small islands is the most valuable)

According to the residents and prisoners in Con Dao who discovered the wonderful medical use and health improvement of Sam Dat, while they were under hard labor, they ate Sam Dat to overcome. Until 2012, technical engineers of Con Dao National Park had discovered Sam Dat’s medical use and has deployed a successful experimental plant, then popularized to residents. Sam Dat is adult finger size, with thin sweet, smelling as Korean ginseng, going with the price around 1 – 1,2 milllion vnd per kg, depending on the size.   

 SPECIAL FOODS OF CON DAO - NHUM SAUCE

     

Con Dao is not only famous for jam of  terminalia catappa’s seed,moon crab or  her breast snail but also noted about a kind of fish sauce which was called  Nhum sauce, a noble sauce.

Nhum is a kind of sea urchin which hasa normal size. Not much meat in a nhum individual and no easy to catch nhum, but it is used to create anattractive  red sauce. When using boiled dishes or rice paper roll with nhum sauce, you can easy to recognize the sweetness of nhum meatmelted in your mouth with a little salty taste of thesea,  somewhatsour and greasy taste.

It is not easy to catch nhum. The way to cook it is also sophisticated.  To makeveritableopaque red and aromatic sauce bottle,  they must put cleaned nhum meat into the jar or stoneware pot. Then sprinkle more salt on the surface. The jar after sealed will be buried under ashor dried in the sun about 20 days.

 After that, it is time for enjoying. Perhaps, they only need a bowl of nhum sauce and some steam of boiled vegetable to keep a strong attachment to the remote island all their life.

Formerly, nhum sauce is also a type of food to donate for kings by a typical delicious taste.