These are 6 of 121 Vietnamese culinary dishes that have just been honored by the Vietnam Cuisine Culture Association (VCCA) as typical national dishes in phase I of a project titled "Building and Developing Vietnamese Culinary Culture into a National Brand Name”. All of these 6 dishes, including: Hue beef noodle soup, glutinous rice dumplings stuffed with roasted pork in sweet soup, mussel rice, banh loc (glutinous rice dumplings), vegetarian fig salad, and lotus-leaf-wrapped steamed rice; all are close to the gardens and paddy fields of the land.

Located 5 kilometers away from the center of Hue City to the North, Duc Buu village (Huong So Ward, Hue City) specializes in producing famous specialty dumplings of the ancient capital land, including: banh beo, banh loc goi (the Vietnamese clear shrimp and pork dumpling wrapped in banana leaf), banh nam, and banh ram it, etc.

Only in Hue does banh bot loc become a specialty. Even the mention of its name makes Hue people (in and out of the city) and visitors crave...