Secretly, it was quite a relief for me that we decided to have fish porridge for dinner. I had eaten way too much the last few days in Ho Chi Minh City and besides, I love fish and porridge 😁
Cháo Cá Lóc Cây Sung is a hyperlocal place far away from the HCMC tourist belt. About 55km from the city centre, it's not a place we can stumble upon by roaming around HCMC. We have to be brought here by a thoroughbred local.
It's my good fortune that my Vietnamese friend Ms Nhi loves porridge which she enjoys almost daily. Cháo Cá Lóc Cây Sung is one of her favourite porridge places in Vietnam.
Cháo Cá Lóc Cây Sung is a spacious restaurant though it has more or less zero decor. It is literally an eating place - it is all about good food and little else matters 😁
Obviously I don't know anything or what to do here, so Ms Nhi did all the ordering. The staff quickly set up the stove which ran on paraffin wax.
Next, they put a pot of bubbling steamy hot porridge over the stove. The paraffin flame kept the porridge tongue scathing hot throughout our meal.
It was an umami savoury sweet porridge with pork balls and clams. The porridge was watery, almost soupy and the rice grains were soft but just partially dissolved.
The aromatic greens and fresh mushrooms added their subtle smells and taste to the porridge.
We had two plates of fish to eat with the porridge - one fish meat and another the fish head. The plates of fish were sprinkled with julienned ginger, chopped scallion, crushed toasted groundnut, and pepper.
Thick slices or meaty chunks of fish.
It's ca loc or snakehead. The meat was tender firm, moist, sweet with a subtle earthiness which was well masked by the ginger, scallion, pepper, etc.
The fish and porridge were eaten with beansprout, aromatic greens, and various sauces, fish sauce, chili, etc.
The sauces and condiments masked the sweet fish's subtle earthiness while adding flavours and heat which accentuated the fish's sweetness. I love it.
Many people prefer the snakehead's boney head because the meat from between the bone crevices are the most tender and the sweetest, with no earthiness.
The combination of pork & seafood porridge, fish, aromatics, sauces and spices was absolutely delicious.
I had three bowls of these. Could have happily spent the whole evening here picking meat from bones, if we didn't have to be back on our way to HCMC. 😁😋
(They have fried crullers [you char kway] to eat with the porridge. I am quite certain it would be great but they were sold out by the time we were here.)
Cháo Cá Lóc Cây Sung is not exactly highly accessible from HCMC but I hope to find my way back here for this absolutely delicious fish porridge again. I would also be looking out alternatives in the big city.
Cost of today's dinner came to Dong 240,000 or S$13.
Address: 577 QL1A, Phường 4, Tân An, Long An
Tel: 0272 382 1459
Hours: 7am - 9pm
Written by Tony Boey on 4 Mar 2024
Long An, this is more than 60 mins from HCM. it is actually riverside. seafood is cheap here. further up, Moc Hoa - Cambodia border, Svay Rieng
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