Dried buffalo meat is one of the “specialties” of this temperate land. The taste of buffalo meat when seasoned with spicy chili is sweet, nutty, chewy but not crumbly. With this meat dish, there is nothing better than a few cups of wine to sip with good friends.
However, the price of dried buffalo meat is quite expensive, about 800,000 to 1 million VND/kg. However, if you want to enjoy dried buffalo meat with friends and relatives, you should not miss this specialty.
“Gong” vegetables, chayote
In a land with a temperate climate like Sapa, vegetables such as chayote, cabbage, and gooseberry are often very delicious and have a sweet taste that cannot be found anywhere else. Chayote or Malabar spinach usually lasts for quite a long time, so you can also buy these vegetables as gifts – a meaningful gift that doesn’t cost a lot of money. Chayote is usually available in the summer, while Malabar spinach is a winter specialty.
Plums and peaches in Sa Pa
In Sapa, the climate is temperate and cool, so fruits such as plums and peaches often grow very well. That’s why mentioning Sapa means mentioning these temperate region specialties.
Plums are quite large green plums that turn golden yellow when ripe. Plums have a sweet, not sour taste and are grown quite a lot in the O Quy Ho area and around Sa Pa town. Plums ripen around May, the same season as peaches in Sa Pa. The price is usually more expensive than Chinese plums, in bad years it can be up to 50,000/kg, and in good years it ranges from 20 – 30,000/kg.
As for Sapa peaches, they have a slightly sour taste, usually not as sweet as Chinese peaches, many people still call it by the beautiful name “gift peach”. If you buy peaches out of season, that is, about 2 months after Tet, the price is quite expensive, about 60,000/kg. However, if peaches are in season, you will see peach bamboo baskets of Mong and Dao people selling along the road near Sapa church costs only about 30 – 40,000/ 1 4kg basket, very cheap, very easy to buy.
Shiitake mushrooms
Another specialty that cannot be missed when coming to Sapa is shiitake mushrooms. Shiitake mushrooms here are very special, they grow on chestnut trees in the deep Hoang Lien Son forest and are considered the most delicious.
Sapa shiitake mushrooms have a sweet taste, a gentle scent like the heaven and earth here, from shiitake mushrooms you can prepare many delicious dishes such as stewed chicken soup with mushrooms, stir-fried chicken with onions and mushrooms, mushroom soup, stir-fried beef with mushrooms…, dishes. Everything is delicious and irresistible. When mushrooms are in prime season, people go to the forest to get mushrooms, string them on bamboo strips, and then bring them to town to sell in large quantities. If anyone lives nearby and returns during the day, they can buy fresh mushrooms as gifts for about 50,000 VND/string.
You can also buy dried mushrooms if you go far away at traditional medicine stores. At the beginning of the season, fresh mushrooms are about 50,000 VND/string. As for tourists from far away, you can buy dried mushrooms. However, be careful because you may be deceived between cultivated mushrooms and wild mushrooms. Sa Pa dried mushrooms have thin wings and bright colors, not dark like cultivated mushrooms. Normally, mushrooms are still strung on a string made of bamboo strips, carrying a very light, characteristic scent of natural mushrooms. Cultivated mushrooms have thick, dark wings and a less fragrant scent than wild shiitake mushrooms.
Tiger hook, cat apple
If peaches and plums are the summer specialties of Sapa, then around September this place begins the season of tiger pear (Sa Pa pear) and cat apple. Mac Tiger fruit has a slightly sour, cool taste and is small, rough looking, not as beautiful as pears imported from China, priced at about 20,000 VND/kg.
In addition to tiger peony, Sapa cat apples are also often bought as gifts. However, Sapa cat apples are currently only grown very rarely in Hoang Lien National Park and are harvested very early by Mong people so the quality is not high. Most of the cat apples in Sa Pa today are brought from Van Chan or Mu Cang Chai in Yen Bai province. The quality of apples from these two regions is considered better than apples in Sa Pa. When buying cat apples, you should choose yellow apples with a light scent. It’s a ripe apple, great for making apple cider vinegar or making wine.
Bamboo shoots in Sapa
In addition to the above gifts, you can also choose Sapa bamboo shoots with a sweet, slightly bitter taste as gifts for friends and relatives. The reason it is called bamboo shoots is because they are young bamboo shoots that have just sprouted about 20-30cm and have been tightly covered by local people and processed into 3 specialty dishes: Boiled bamboo shoots dipped in fish sauce, sour bamboo shoots and sour bamboo shoots. Dried bamboo shoots. Every dish is delicious even if the taste is different.
Muong Khuong chili sauce
Unlike regular chili sauce, Muong Khuong chili sauce is made from a special type of rice chili, combined with garlic, dill seeds, coriander seeds, cardamom, sausage seeds, cinnamon, salt, and wine. and water, in an heirloom ratio. One piece of chili sauce contains more than 10 types of ingredients, which has brought the famous brand name to Muong Khuong chili sauce.
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