"Grilled snakehead fish street" with billowing smoke preparing for God of Wealth's day

On the afternoon of February 6 (the 9th day of the first lunar month), the "grilled snakehead fish street" on Tan Ky Tan Quy Street (Tan Phu District, Ho Chi Minh City) was quite bustling, with smoke billowing from snakehead fish shops, and employees busily preparing goods to sell on God of Wealth Day tomorrow.

The urgent atmosphere on "grilled snakehead fish street" started at noon on January 9.

Most of the shops selling grilled snakehead fish here get their fish from Binh Dien wholesale market (Binh Chanh district). Snakehead fish weighing 1-2kg are cleaned, then skewered with sugarcane stalks along the fish's body to grill.

Using sugarcane stalks to skewer fish when grilling will make the fish meat sweeter, more fragrant and the skewers will not burn.

Mr. Le Van Hung, owner of a grilled snakehead fish shop here, said that this year his family grilled about 200 to 250kg of fish.

"This year, we see that people's purchasing power has decreased a lot, and the price of imported fish has also increased a bit, so it will be harder to sell. We are afraid that we won't be able to sell if we grill too much, so my family only imports a smaller quantity than every year," said Mr. Hung.

Vegetables and vermicelli eaten with snakehead fish are selected, washed, and divided into small bags by staff.

The charcoal stoves are constantly burning to grill fish from noon today until noon tomorrow, January 10th.

Each batch of fish is grilled for 35-40 minutes. Once cooked, the burnt scales on the outside of the fish are scraped off.

Grilled snakehead fish costs from 200,000-220,000 VND/fish depending on size, with herbs, dipping sauce and a package of vermicelli noodles.

This year, Mr. Nguyen Trung's grilled snakehead fish shop imported about 1,500 fish (about 2.5 tons of snakehead fish).

According to Mr. Trung, this year, seeing that people's purchasing power has decreased, the amount of fish taken is not as much as every year, and the store staff is not hired as much as in previous years.

When there is a buyer, the fish will be reheated and scallion oil will be added, and wrapped tightly in foil to keep it warm.

Ms. Lai Thi Lieu (Binh Chanh district) traveled more than 10km to her familiar store on Tan Ky Tan Quy street to buy grilled snakehead fish for God of Wealth day.

"This year my family only bought one to worship tomorrow morning. I was afraid that tomorrow there would be a lot of people buying and jostling, so I went to buy it first today," Ms. Lieu shared.

Hundreds of grilled snakehead fish are neatly arranged on shelves, ready to be sold to serve the needs of the masses tomorrow morning, the God of Wealth's day, January 10th.

Dantri.com.vn

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/xa-hoi/pho-ca-loc-nuong-nghi-ngut-khoi-chuan-bi-cho-ngay-via-than-tai-20250206181228951.htm