What ingredients make the special touch for the Northwest feast at Halosa Restaurant?

The Northwest feast at Halosa Restaurant brings together all the elements: the culture, the people, and the nature of the Northwestern region, leaving a lasting impression on diners.

The unique culinary regions:

The Northwestern region is an area rich in community-based tourism. Here, diverse cultures of various ethnic communities converge, preserving and showcasing the cultural values of these communities. This includes customs, festivals, decorative arts, cuisine, and cultural activities such as spring festivals, traditional markets, weddings, funerals, forest worship ceremonies, and celebrations for the new rice crop.

Within these cultural traits, traditional cuisine is intricately linked to the indigenous culture of each ethnic group. It is diligently preserved, passed down, and celebrated in both cultural life and community-based tourism in every village, playing a crucial role in defining the uniqueness of each tourist destination.

In localities such as Son La, Lao Cai, Lai Chau, Yen Bai, Lang Son, Hoa Binh, Dien Bien, there are numerous community-based tourism areas such as Ta Xua, Moc Chau, Ban Lac, Nghia Lo, Tu Le, Mu Cang Chai, Y Ty, Bac Ha, Tram Tau, Muong Lo, Sin Ho, and more. In these places, besides the inherent potentials for tourism development like landscapes, stilt houses, ecology, and customs, traditional cuisine always takes center stage in the meals served to tourists when they stop at these villages.

With the philosophy of tourism based on leveraging traditional cultural values to create uniqueness, ethnic groups such as Tay, Mong, Dao, Thai, Ha Nhi, and others always prepare their traditional dishes to meet the curiosity of tourists about their unique culinary traditions.

Preserving and promoting:

To have meals with rich traditional flavors, in these villages, people from ethnic groups search for ingredients in the forests and gardens around their homes to cook dishes without buying external ingredients. Depending on the season, ingredients used in the dishes are always fresh and flavorful, such as forest bamboo shoots, stream fish, dried pork, colorful leafy sticky rice, various types of cakes, wild vegetables picked near the streams, and more.

After obtaining the ingredients, people personally cook the dishes using traditional recipes. To create unique and exotic dishes, cooks use a combination of forest spices such as doi seeds, mac khen, pepper, chili, aromatic leaves, and innovative cooking techniques.

In community-based tourism areas, the market space is always a venue that preserves and showcases the culinary culture of various ethnic communities. It is a space that harmonizes many traditional cultural aspects such as market culture, cuisine, and traditional clothing.

Here, the local residents present and prepare their indigenous dishes to cater to the taste of tourists. These dishes include a variety of colorful sticky rice, thang co (a traditional dish with horse meat), men men (a kind of corn cake), pho (Vietnamese noodle soup), various types of cakes, buffalo meat cooked in bamboo tubes, khau nhuc (smoked buffalo meat), dried pork, forest bamboo shoots, mountain vegetables, and a variety of fruits such as plums, pears, peaches, and wild bananas. The diversity and richness of these culinary offerings contribute to the distinctive character of the Northwest markets, making them appealing to tourists who immerse themselves in the traditional cultural space of the ethnic communities during each market session.

“Mâm cơm Tây Bắc” at Halosa Restaurant:

“Mâm cơm Tây Bắc” at Halosa Restaurant draws inspiration from the festive feasts of ethnic minority communities in the villages around Sapa (Lao Cai). This region is not only a gathering place for the picturesque and majestic beauty of Vietnam but also harbors many distinctive elements of culinary culture.

The dishes in the Northwest Feast are all prepared from fresh, locally sourced ingredients found in the forests and streams of the region, ready to take you on a journey to discover the unique flavors of the lush green mountains. Each set, consisting of 8 unique dishes, carries the essence of Northwest culture, ensuring an unforgettable gastronomic experience.