6 TRENDS

GOURMET NEWS FRENCH MAKEOVER

Vietnam goes la carte

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Gemma Price foodandwine@scmp.com When EU regulations made it impossible to continue working in France, oyster farmer JeanChristophe Sevin left Brittany for Vietnam and its 2,000-kilometre coastline. It might not seem an obvious choice, but visitors to the country may have sampled items such as cured meats and cheeses at five-star hotels nowadays often sourced from local producers. Weve been producing seafood just outside of Nha Trang for five years, Sevin says. We sell sea urchins, lobsters and other crustaceans, but our main business is organic oysters Crassostrea gigas, or Pacific oysters which have a thin skin, strong taste and a full and milky meat; and Ostrea edulis, or European flats, which are saltier and very tasty a little like Boulogne oysters. In December, Sevin produced six tonnes of oysters for the holiday season most of which was consumed in the high-end hotels and restaurants of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, but he hopes to be exporting around 80 per cent of his product within a few years. These are not the only Vietnamese-produced delicacies that could be heading Hong Kongs way this year. Inland, 1,500 metres above sea level, the lakes dotted around former colonial hill station Dalat teem with more than 40,000 sturgeon, with 64,000 more in Dami Lake in the northwest part of Binh Thuan province, just outside Ho Chi Minh City. Although most of the worlds caviar is produced in cold countries, Catam Vietnam Group says that a government-run experiment in 2006 proved that these waters provided a suitable, cost-effective habitat for the fish. Were raising the rarest fish, such as the Beluga, and feeding them with worms and fish, rather than dry food, to make the caviar more tasty and nutritious, says marketing director Hien Ha. Our first big order was from the Park Hyatt in Saigon, but now we sell to hotels and resorts throughout the country, as well as the Metropole Hotel boutique in Hanoi. In 2011 we produced more than 500 kilos. This year well produce maybe three times more. Other epicureans are looking to refine, repackage and promote local specialities as a premium gourmet product. Self-confessed dinosaur of the Hanoi dining scene Didier Corlou has been championing local spices and seasonings for over a decade, sourcing indigenous flavours from all over Vietnam to use at his Hanoi restaurants, Madame Hien and La Verticale. Phu Quoc Island, off the south coast of Vietnam, is famous for its nuoc mam, or fish sauce, but I find it too sweet. I prefer Cat Hai nuoc mam as its saltier, and, for me, its the taste of the north, he says. He lays out a line of small dishes and spoons, ranging from a supermarket brand fish sauce to his own premium nuoc mam blends, and proffers a small spoon of each in succession. Taste this its fish sauce thats been aged 15 years. You can see its darker and not so salty. And this, the 20-year-old sauce, is even blacker. The older the sauce, the more complex the flavour: as we progress down the line, the olfactory elixir becomes less and less salty and fishy, with more subtle vanilla and caramel tones. The secret is to put fish sauce on the food at the end, he tells me. If you cook it too much, its not good for the nuoc mam. Marinate first, then use a light dipping sauce after. And if you add sugar, the flavour stays in the mouth longer. Most of Corlous signature spices and sauces, available to purchase at his ground-floor La Verticale boutique, have been sniffed out by long-time friend and ally Laurent the nose Severac in Vietnams highland jungles. Every year I make around 200 kilos of spices for Didier. Nuoc mam salt is still our biggest seller, but I also find wild pepper, Sichuan pepper and citrus spices for him, he enthuses. Usually a chef will ask me to find something specific. For instance, this year, Ill try to develop another product special wild ginger from Ha Giang province with Pierre Gagnaire, one of the best chefs in Paris. He wants to use it in venison dishes, and with apples and pears. Les Vergers du Mekong, based in the Mekong Delta, believes that Vietnams fresh, natural, feel-good vibe can be bottled literally. We have some 30 tropical fruits in Vietnam to work with, says founder and managing director Jean-Luc Voisin. Were producing lots of tropical fruit juices and nine different kinds of jam, everything from strawberry everyones favourite to dragon fruit and banana, with many different recipes ready to be launched, he says. Voisin says his favourite fruit is the acerola, also known as the Western Indies or Barbados cherry, valued for high levels of vitamin C. Many manufacturers use chemical ascorbic acid to protect their products, but we use acerola, he says. We tested it and found that oranges have 60mg of vitamin C per 100 grams of fruit, but acerola contains 3,000 to 4,000mg for the same weight up to 66 times more! I think its amazing that one cherry can provide your full daily allowance, and its certainly the best product that I have discovered in Vietnam. Vietnam could soon be famous for another highly prized beverage. In September this year, Vaucluseborn viticulturist Daniel Carsol is planning Vietnams first harvest of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and shiraz grapes planted in the central highlands in 2007. Ive worked in Singapore, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, but couldnt find the right land, he says. It is very important to get the right aroma and grape colour: you need the right difference in daily temperature. Dalat has a daily high of 25 degrees Celsius, and a low of 12 degrees, so its perfect. Carsol estimates that at first hell produce 1,000 to 2,000 litres per hectare, about 30,000 bottles; but this will increase to about 5,000 litres per hectare, or 60,000 bottles, within five years. First he plans to produce a pure shiraz before creating a blend with merlot, and hes confident hell have white varieties before 2015. Carsol has also chosen a name that encapsulates his French know-how, Dalats French colonial history and Vietnams majestic regal heritage. Ive decided to call it Domaine Imperial, as Emperor Bao Dai had some palaces in Dalat and spent a lot of time here, he smiles.

BROTH OF FRESH AIR

One of the longest established Vietnamese-born chefs in Hong Kong, Joe Lee Kam-kee, grew up in Ho Chi Minh Citys Cholon district, moved to Hong Kong in 1972 and opened his first restaurant in the Jordan Road area in 1990. Today, Lee Kam Kee Vietnamese Restaurant (498-500 Nathan Rd, Yau Ma Tei, tel: 2781 2028) offers a spread of almost 100 well-known dishes claypot curry chicken with French bread, rice paper rolls, Vietnamese pork sausage (cha lua), shrimp and green papaya salad and 19 types of soup with rice noodles. Lee says his beef broth cooks for 10 hours. Ask about the most authentic tasting dish and hell recommend the beef pho with everything rice noodle soup with raw beef, stewed beef, tripe, tendon and beef balls. To ensure authentic fresh flavours, he imports hard-to-find fresh herbs. Another native of Ho Chi Minh City revisiting her culinary heritage is Mai Lam, who opened Bun Me! (shop A, 6 Bonham Strand, Sheung Wan, tel: 2581 0000) in 2009. I felt the timing was good since Hongkongers were eating more and more Vietnamese food, and the city lacked a good banh mi [Vietnamese-style French baguette sandwich, see below] place, says Lam. Bun Me! offers freshly made baguette sandwiches, salads, rice paper rolls and cold vermicelli dishes mainly to takeaway. The No 1 item on the menu is the Vietnamese classic, a traditional Ho Chi Minh City-style banh mi thats all about the pork. Crusty French bread comes with a smear of pork pt, roast pork and salami. Pickled carrot and daikon, plus cucumber, onion, fresh coriander and a snip of chilli burst from the baguette to make the flavours sing. It is our own recipe. Everything is made in-house except for the baguettes and the Vietnamese salami cua hua which we import from Vietnam, says Lam. Ruth Williams

Clockwise from top: rice cakes with salmon roe and caviar; Jean-Luc Voisin and a dragon fruit farmer in the Mekong Delta; chef Didier Corlou checks various dishes in the kitchen of the National Convention Centre in Hanoi. Photos AFP, Corbis, Edmond So