Fish salad
Ingredients: Anchovy, raw vegetables, cucumber, star fruit, rice paper, garlic, chili, tamarind, roasted peanuts, lemon, fish sauce, salt. How to make: Choose fresh anchovy, clean the scales, remove the head, tail, fins, then wash, remove the bones and drain. Boil water at about 700C, dip the fish in to blanch, then remove and drain.
Squeeze the lemon juice, add the fish that has been blanched in boiling water to make it rare, take the fish out and continue to squeeze out the water. Remove the chili seeds, puree with garlic, mix with tamarind, salt, sugar, fish sauce. Mix this spice with the fish that has been rare with lemon. Season to taste. Puree the chili, garlic, peanuts, mix with tamarind, sugar, salt, fish sauce to make the dipping sauce. Arrange the fish that has been mixed with spices on a round plate. Sprinkle the pureed peanuts on top. Peel the cucumber, cut lengthwise. Cut the sour star fruit or green mango lengthwise and arrange with the raw vegetables on a plate. Serve the fish salad with rice paper. It should be eaten right after it is made and this dish must be a bit spicy, eat and "sniff" to feel the delicious taste of the sea fish.
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Grilled dried squid
Grilled fresh squid, also known as grilled one-sun-dried squid, is the most delicious specialty that can only be found in Binh Thuan. Domestic and foreign tourists cannot miss this special and new dish when coming here.
The squid must be fresh from the sea, only dried briefly in the sun. When grilled, the squid still retains its freshness, the white meat is fragrant and chewy. Enjoying grilled fresh squid, visitors will feel the sun, wind and saltiness of Binh Thuan sea.
Mai fish salad
Mai fish salad is a famous dish of Phan Thiet sea. With the special ingredients and elaborate processing, it has created a very "Phan Thiet" flavor that makes everyone excited and impressed when enjoying it once. Fish salad can be made from many types of fish such as herring, sardines, mackerel, stream fish, ... but none of them are as delicious as mai fish. Mai fish is a small fish with a shape similar to anchovies, clear meat but especially has very little fishy smell, so when used to make salad, it makes the dish more unique and attractive.
Phan Thiet people buy large kilos of anchovies and take them home, clean them themselves, remove the head, gently squeeze the fish's flank to separate the fish into two pieces, and then remove the bones. If you want the fish meat to be firmer, put it in ice cold water. Before making the salad, people marinate the fish with a glass of lemon juice or vinegar, then gently squeeze to drain the water, shake the fish with a little seasoning, then arrange the fish on a plate, sprinkle with crushed rice bran and a little green onion. For those who like fatty foods, they can add a little chopped pork belly to have a dish of fish salad as desired.
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Like other salads, mai fish salad is always served with dipping sauce. But the dipping sauce of this dish is especially important and quite elaborate. Garlic, chili, ripe tamarind, remove seeds and mash with sugar. Roasted peanuts are crushed into a fine powder, add a few ripe bananas, all mixed with pure Phan Thiet fish sauce to create a thick dipping sauce with sour, spicy, salty, and sweet flavors.
Mai fish salad is served with rice paper, herbs and dipping sauce. When enjoying, you will feel the sweet aroma of the fish, the richness of the dipping sauce, the fatty taste of peanuts, rice powder, the astringent taste of green banana, the sourness of star fruit, the crunchiness of cucumber, the spiciness of garlic and chili and the aroma of vegetables. All create an extremely attractive dish not only for locals, tourists, but also for culinary connoisseurs.