Top 4 delicious and unique specialties of Dak Nong

Serepok River Catfish

When mentioning Dak Nong specialties, we cannot fail to mention dishes made from Serepok River catfish. Catfish belongs to the catfish family, often living in rivers with fast-flowing water and many rapids. Among them, red-tailed catfish often lives in Serepok River, flowing through Krong No district and Cu Jut district, Dak Nong province. Catfish meat here is famous for being fatty, firm, sweet, often processed cleanly and transformed into many delicious dishes such as steamed catfish, catfish porridge, catfish patties, etc. Of which, the two most popular and favorite dishes are grilled catfish and catfish hotpot with sour bamboo shoots.

Grilled catfish and catfish hotpot are two delicious dishes that attract customers in Dak Nong (Photo: My Lan Quan)

If you have the opportunity to travel to Dak Nong, you can find and enjoy delicious specialties made from Serepok river catfish at some local restaurants such as Dien Trang Hoa Mai 2 (Dien Bien Phu street, Nghia Trung ward, Gia Nghia city), Tay Nguyen restaurant (530 Ton Duc Thang, Nghia Thanh ward, Gia Nghia city, Dak Nong),...

Cloud Top Soup

Canh thut is a unique and delicious specialty of the M'Nong and Ma ethnic groups in Dak Nong province. This dish is made from homegrown ingredients typical of this land such as bep leaves (also known as nip leaves), rattan shoots, bitter eggplants and stream fish. The reason it is called canh thut is because in the past, when going to work, local people often cooked the soup in bamboo tubes growing in the forest. When cooking, they had to use chopsticks to stir the ingredients until they were soft.

When cooked, the soup will have a strangely thick and chewy texture. Diners who try a bite will feel the bitter, spicy, rich, fatty flavors... blending together (Photo: Thi Lam, Nguyen Thi Vui)

Nowadays, the Dak Nong people’s thut soup is known and enjoyed by many diners. To suit everyone’s taste, the locals here also combine thut soup with other ingredients such as small intestine, pork ribs, canned fish, etc.

Ant Sour Soup

The sour ant soup was created and passed down for many years by the Ede people in Tam Thang commune, Cu Jut district (Dak Nong). The ants usually live on tree branches and make nests in high places. During the rainy season, local people go hunting for the ants because this is when they start making nests and laying eggs.

Ant sour soup (Photo: Nguyen Thi My Hanh)

To make this soup, in addition to yellow ants, people also combine other ingredients such as shrimp, fish, river crab, “djam tang” flowers, coriander, and shallots. Instead of using giang leaves or tamarind like sour soups in other regions, the Ede people use yellow ants to give the dish a more unique sour taste, which anyone who eats it once will remember forever.

Grilled wild boar

Like some other provinces in the Central Highlands, pigs in Dak Nong are also raised naturally by local people, so they have little fat, thin skin, thick, soft meat and a mild sweetness, and have a fragrant smell when processed.

Dak Nong people often make grilled pork in bamboo tubes, marinated with spices such as chili, salt, shallots, etc., crushed (Photo: Vinh Gau)

The special marinating and processing method is also the secret to making the wild boar in this land more attractive to customers. Accordingly, before grilling, people must brush a layer of malt and lemon juice mixture on the surface of the pork. This method helps the grilled meat to have both a fragrant smell and an eye-catching color. In addition to the above dishes, Dak Nong is also famous for many other types of coffee, pepper and fruit, which tourists can choose and buy as gifts for friends and relatives when traveling here such as Duc Lap coffee, Dak N'rung pepper, Dak Mil avocado, etc. Phan Dau

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