When in My Tho Town in the Mekong Delta Province of Tien Giang and in the hunt for local delicacies, Hu tieu My Tho or My Tho rice noodles is one of the locality’s pride, a South Vietnam specialty which has been around for almost 100 years and currently among the Top 100 Dishes of Asia.
Hu tieu My Tho may look like hu tieu Nam Vang (Phnom Penh rice noodle soup) at first, another popular Asian specialty, but rice noodles is an Asian dish staple which may be easily mistaken as the same in all versions especially for foreigners who are not familiar with the food. But the My Tho recipe stands out from all the rest in that its noodles and broth are made from pure rice flour. Most rice noodles are mixed with wheat flour or tapioca flour. Hu tieu My Tho’s rice noodles are transparent, sweet-smelling and chewy, unlike others which are either salty or sour. Moreover, its broth blends with the noodles perfectly, and do not crumble or have a sour or salty taste like the others. And like the traditional rice noodles dish, it is served together or separately with the broth and topped with shrimps, minced or sliced pork, pig innards and quail eggs.
One of the best rice noodles maker in My Tho is Chin Xe Factory. Owned by the Phuc family, it has been in the business for 70 years, a guarantee of its high quality of rice noodles. Despite the advancement all around, it has maintained the manual process of making rice noodles to ensure excellent quality and exceptional taste of its product. Moreover, only the family members themselves perform the process of making rice noodles for fear that entrusting the recipe to others may compromise the quality and leak its long-held treasure. Phuc’s rice noodles recipe is composed of the following elements: high starch content; 120 Degrees Celsius oven temperature to achieve the right noodle chewiness; wrapping the cooked rice papers around bamboo tubes; spreading the wrapped rice papers on bamboo frames; drying under the sunlight for three hours; cutting the rice papers into strips.
Photo by http://vietnamfoodtour.com/
Quan Ky Eatery is another famous family-owned diner in My Tho which makes good rice noodles. Situated at Ngo Quyen Street, Ward 1, it has been making the popular meal for over 50 years using the traditional recipe. It serves an average of 100 rice noodles a day, using up about 20 kilograms of pig bones. Following the original method, it stews the soup together with pig bones, meat, offal, dried shrimps and dried squid between two to three hours. Local and foreign customers alike frequent the store because of its time-tested rice noodles recipe.
Hu Tien My Tho is growing increasingly popular and the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism sees this as a tourism development and oppurtunity as well to promote the place. As such, instructional classes are being set up to teach rice noodles makers the traditionally correct way of preparing the local delicacy. As a century-old dish, Vietnamese rice noodles can be considered a part of the culture which it can share to the rest of the world.