AN GIANG – To beef porridge at Thuy Den restaurant is smoky, hot beef intestines and red undercooked meat make diners come from 6am to enjoy.
Near Cay Me bridge connecting Chau Lang commune with Tri Ton town, there are a few beef porridge shops, but the oldest one is Thuy Den, which has been sold for 3 generations. The name of the shop is rustic and the garden is named after the owner, Ms. Thuy.
Along the highway, the porridge shop puts up a sign for customers to easily find, entering is the restaurant’s food table, the table is low, displaying a tray of chopped beef intestines, looking at all kinds of dishes such as animal spirit, book leaves, liver. , towel, pho, beef breast, brain, marrow, thinly sliced fresh beef… On the table, there are also bean sprouts, vermicelli, bread, dipping sauce… The most eye-catching thing is the steaming porridge pot. Light brown color, beef fat floating on top and covered with blood cut into small pieces, unused beef intestines are also kept in a hot porridge pot.
Every time a customer orders, the owner, Ms. Thuy, quickly takes the bowl, adds the raw bean sprouts, and then puts the beef in the bowl, the fresh beef is covered with fullness, hot porridge makes the piece of red-cooked meat, add a pinch of chopped coriander. small and bring it to the table for guests.
Diners who eat beef porridge will be served with a plate of vegetables, basil, coriander and indispensable chopped coriander leave to increase the aroma, next to a cup of ginger fish sauce used to dip the beef intestines. The porridge is more delicious if you squeeze more juice, it has a sour taste and a strong smell. The fruit in An Giang is like the soul of this dish, like a lemon but with thicker, rougher skin, a long-lasting, cool aroma.
What makes visitors surprised when enjoying beef porridge is being able to eat porridge with a plate of fresh vermicelli, bread. The porridge here is cooked loosely, most of the diners are manual laborers, if you only eat porridge, you will get hungry quickly, add a piece of vermicelli and bread to have more starch, a seemingly absurd combination very convincing, but does not reduce the deliciousness of beef porridge.
Some Chinese restaurants in Saigon also sell beef intestine porridge, but definitely unlike An Giang, porridge and beef intestines are cooked separately, beef intestines only use the leaves, cooked stomach, and thinly sliced for the outside. , when the customer calls, the new owner heats it up. Instead of eating the same price and herbs, Chinese beef porridge only gives chopped scallions, ground pepper and indispensable ginger.
Diner Hoang Ba (Ho Chi Minh City) shared that every time he had the opportunity to return to Tri Ton, he would eat beef porridge at Thuy Den restaurant, the porridge was delicious, sweet, crispy and had no bad smell.
The shop sells in the morning, from 6 am to about 10 pm every day. Customers can come early to choose the part of beef they want and tell the owner to make a bowl of porridge, as thick as you like. The normal bowl costs 30,000 VND and the special bowl with marrow and brain costs 35,000 VND, customers who order more fresh noodles will charge more. The shop is located next to the main road, there is no passenger car park, only space for small cars and motorbikes.
Beef porridge has long been a famous dish in An Giang. Cows in the Bay Nui area are carefully patted, so their meat is fragrant and soft. Beef intestines brought to cook porridge with fresh vermicelli is also a habit of the people here, this way of eating is gradually known and wanted by tourists from all over the world to enjoy every time they have the opportunity to return to Tri Ton. Follow vnexpress/Photo: Quang Thien