A cooker prepares Banh Xeo at a restaurant in the coastal city of Phan Thiet.

In Phan Thiet, Tuyen Quang Street joining Nguyen Tat Thanh Boulevard and Thu Khoa Huan Street is romantically named 'street of mist.' Hearing this name, people could think that the street is in a region with a deep valley full of mist. However, the surprising reason the street gets that name is discovered when people actually go to the street.

When it gets dark, the 'street of mist' is full of smoke coming from restaurants that serve the dish banh xeo, a kind of crispy rice pancake, along the street.

Walking along this street, people cannot help hearing the joyful sound of the cooking and the flavor of this dish coming out of the kitchens of the restaurants, which makes it hard to resist the temptation of walking into one of the restaurants along the street to enjoy this delicious banh xeo.

In Vietnam, there are many places that make banh xeo and the flavor and the recipe of the dish is different from region to region. However, there is no place that can make banh xeo the main dish and provide it for birthday parties or festivals.

Only in 'Green Convergence 2005' festival did banh xeo get the advantage over the other dishes in Tuyen Quang Street, as it is a street of only banh xeo.

There are many restaurants along banh xeo street but the best-known one is Cay Phuong Restaurant. This restaurant has a line of special cookers that are always full of smoke and their guests are so patient that they never go away until they are served.

The director of Cay Phuong Restaurant said that the fame of the restaurant comes from its long history of about a half century of three generations.

Because of its fame, Cay Phuong Restaurant dared to attend Sea Festival 2006 in Vung Tau. As a result, they did not have enough banh xeo to sell, although they sold 30,000 dishes in the festival.

Besides Cay Phuong (Flamboyant tree) Restaurant, there are restaurants with the name of trees like Cay Xoai (Mango tree) or Cay Me (Tamarind tree) on banh xeo street. The special feature of these restaurants is the cooker made from terra-cotta.

Banh xeo made from this cooker is very crispy and tasty. The mixture to make banh xeo is a liquid of rice flour, soya bean and sliced spring onion. Some restaurants add the first extract of coconut to the mixture and color it with saffron flour. It is said that some restaurants add beer to the mixture, which was neither denied nor agreed upon by the restaurant directors.

The stuffing of banh xeo includes a mix of meat, sprouts or cork and the seafood of Phan Thiet. The stuffing is seasoned, fried and put in the mixture while the mixture is cooked. The sauce that goes with banh xeo is the secret recipe of each restaurant. It is made of the well-known fish sauce of Phan Thiet, smashed peanuts, wheat flour, chili and tomatoes.

Banh xeo is most delicious when it has just been made and people eat it by dipping the hot, fresh banh xeo in the sauce and enjoy it with many kinds of fresh vegetables and chili.

Besides the streets that remind people of the old Phan Thiet along Ca Ty River, Tuyen Quang or banh xeo street with other streets have formed the new feature in the food culture of Phan Thiet.

Ngoc Buu (Copy Saigon Times)