Thit xien nuong (grilled pork skewers) is a popular street food in Hoi An, Vietnam. Both locals and tourists like it. A full set includes grilled pork bamboo skewers, rice papers, raw vegetables, herbs, and savoury dipping sauce. To eat, it’s needed to wrap and roll. In this article, HoiAn Day Trip Company will tell you everything about Hoi An grilled pork.
You may also like: Street Food in Hoi An, Vietnam
• Content by Tam Le, founder of HOIAN DAY TRIP CO.,LTD
• Designed by Giang Cong Minh, co-founder of LS E&C LTD and his team
• Photo by Dang Cong Loi, Dao Xuan Son, Tam Le & others
Must Knows about Hoi An Grilled Pork
– Main ingredients: grilled pork, wet & dried rice papers, raw vegetables, herbs, savoury dipping sauce
– Origin: central Vietnam provinces
– Where to find: local street food vendors & eateries around Hoi An Ancient Town, Hoi An Night Market, Hoi An Central Market
– Time: 3 to 10 PM daily
– Price: 10,000-15,000 VND/skewer (full ingredients will be served for a dish of 10+ skewers)
– Calories:
– Travel blog: https://hoiandaytrip.com/hoi-an-grilled-pork
– Fact:
Ingredients & How to Make Hoi An Grilled Pork
A full set of Hoi An Grilled Pork has 10+ pork skewers, rice paper (banh trang), fresh/wet rice paper (banh uot), raw vegetables, herbs, pickles, and a small bowl of dipping sauce.
The most important ingredient is pork. It should be half lean, half fat (pork belly) and sliced thinly. Local people often have to visit fresh markets in the morning, to find the freshest pork as they can. After that, they wash it with tap water, and marinate with fish sauce, sugar, sesame seeds, and spices (pepper, lemongrass, five spice powder,…). This marination step should be at least 30 minutes.
Next, local people will use one-time-use chopsticks as skewers (instead of bamboo sticks in the tradition or lemongrass in nem lui). Reasons are to save money and to save time. They chop one of chopstick’s ends (about 30% of total length), and place the marinated pork in the middle. To tie, a small string of banana leaf is used. This string is soft enough to tie, and is easy to remove after grilling. It’s also an eco-friendly material.
Raw vegetables and herbs are bought at local fresh markets. Sure, in Hoi An, the best ones come from Tra Que vegetable village where growers still use traditional ways of farming. Popular vegetables are cucumber, green mango, star fruit, green banana (all sliced thinly to roll easily) as well as lettuce, shallot leaf, heart leaf (rau diep ca), sweet basil leaf (rau hung que), lemon basil leaf (rau hung chanh), knotgrass or bitter grass (rau dang). The herbs are kind of similar to Hoi An’s local noodle dishes, such as Mi Quang noodles, Cao Lau noodles, grilled pork noodles (bun thit nuong), anchovy sauce rice noodles (bun mam nem),… Most raw vegetables must be washed carefully by tap water many times, and kept drained. Pickles are popularly cabbages.
The dipping sauce is also important to have a delicious meal. It’s made from soybeans, peanuts and sesame seeds that are grinded well and cooked with fish sauce and spices. This sauce is often served when it’s still warm. Rice papers include both fresh/wet rice papers (banh uot) and dried rice paper (banh trang).
Local people just grill the pork when customers come and tell them how many skewers they want to eat. It’s quick. On the streets of Hoi An, visitors can see people grilling the skewers on hot charcoal, and the smoke flies around.
How to Eat Hoi An Grilled Pork Like a Hoi An Local
A full set of Hoi An Grilled Pork has 10+ pork skewers, rice paper (banh trang), fresh/wet rice paper (banh uot), raw vegetables, herbs, pickles, and a small bowl of dipping sauce.
To eat like a local, it’s needed to wrap and roll. Firstly, visitors use a dried rice paper to stick on the wet rice papers, to pick up one layer. Another way is using the hands to pick up wet rice paper and then place it on the dried rice paper. Because the dried rice paper is made with a little bit of tapioca flour, so no water dipping is needed.
Secondly, take a pork skewer, remove the banana leaf tie, and take off the pork from the bamboo stick. After that, place the meat on the wet rice paper.
Thirdly, pick up favourite vegetarians, herbs and pickles, based on personal liking. After that, place them on the rice paper, and roll everything together (just like making a fresh spring roll). Don’t forget to dip the roll into the sauce. It’s not spicy in the beginning, therefore visitors should add chilli if like to eat spicy food.
The next step is enjoying the roll, and repeat the first step. Thus, how to eat Hoi An’s grilled pork skewers is similar to other barbecue dishes in the region.
Where to Eat Hoi An Grilled Pork in Hoi An?
The most delicious grilled pork skewers are sold at street vendors around the Hoi An Ancient Town. Here are some good places:
– the vendor on Nguyen Hue street (in front of the Old Town ticket counter). Owner is Ms Loi.
– the vendor on Phan Chu Trinh street (near the big banyan tree & Phan Chu Trinh-Cao Hong Lanh crossroad). Owner is Ms Mot.
– the local restaurant at Hai Ba Trung-Nguyen Thai Hoc crossroad
– the vendors on streets outside the Hoi An Central Market
– the vendors on Nguyen Hoang street (Hoi An Night Market)
Better to Know about Eating Local in Hoi An
– Local family-run restaurants always serve better local foods than tourist restaurants. Places inside small alleyways potentially are hidden gems. The price is even more affordable at these lesser known spots.
– Restaurants where you can see a queue or crowds, food or drinks there are absolutely better or safer than others. Vietnamese people also avoid places without people eating, such as roadside eateries.
– Hot foods are often safe to eat for non-Vietnamese people. Refuse cold food (especially ones sold on the street, markets) or things you don’t see people cooking.
– Make sure that you learn some basic Vietnamese words or sentences to order foods, such as xin chao (hello, hi), cho toi mot (something) (I want one…), toi an chay (I am vegetarian), khong cay (no spicy), cam on (thank you), tam biet (goodbye) or numbers (mot/one, hai/two, ba/three, bon/four, nam/five, sau/six, bay/seven, tam/eight, chin/nine, and muoi/ten).
– Ask any local people you know (tour guide, driver, hotel receptionists, bellmen, etc) to receive their recommendation for good places to eat local.
– Raw vegetables are popularly used in local dishes, such as noodles or noodle soup or sandwich. They are often washed by tap water or unwashed. If can not drink tap water, remove or refuse them. Likewise, in most iced drinks (such as coffee or herbal tea), people add ice made by tap water also.
– On the 1st day and 14th-15th days of each lunar month, Hoi An citizens eat vegetarians. Many local restaurants and street businesses will be closed by that.
– If you don’t eat pork or beef, due to diet or religious restrictions, be careful when want to try local food here, if don’t see the ingredient description. Pork and beef are very popular meats, so they will be in numerous dishes. Street vendors may say ‘no pork’ or ‘no beef’ for better business, but please check before buying!
– Consider joining a food tour guided by locals who know much better about dishes in the city, including things never mentioned in guidebooks or on the internet.
– If have an allergy (milk, egg, peanut, wheat,…), ask anybody you know before trying or search for ingredients on the internet. By the way, fish sauce is popularly used to marinate Vietnamese foods, so make sure that you know this information if you’re fish allergic.
– Food portion (or size) here is often not really big (locals prefer eating with their family at home). You may try double or some different dishes for main meals.
– If don’t see the price on the menu, please ask in advance to avoid overcharging, especially when you are not a local. In Vietnamese, how much is bao nhieu.
– Most popular cutleries are chopsticks and spoons. To know how to use it, browse here
