Bringing "swidden kitchen" to the city

Central Highlands cuisine can be divided into two parts: festival dishes and everyday dishes.

While traditional restaurants have exploited festival dishes and become familiar to tourists, now simple meals from the field kitchen are being brought to the banquet table.

These "local rice trays" that encapsulate the flavors of everyday life not only captivate diners but also open up a new trend of enjoying local cuisine in the urban space of Pleiku.

Diners enjoy Jrai dishes at Dam San restaurant (Dien Hong ward). **Photo: Minh Chau**

Starting the journey of “finding the scent of the forest in the city” at Dam San restaurant (193 Tran Quy Cap, Dien Hong ward), diners can experience a Jrai meal with the right flavor. In the warm space of the fireplace and wooden stairs, Central Highlands love songs ring in the ears, the smell of grilled dried fish, stir-fried bamboo shoots, mixed soup mixed with the scent of perilla leaves… evokes memories of the village.

Ms. Rah Lan Hue - a Jrai female doctor born in a village more than 90 km from Pleiku - emotionally said: "Looking at the tray of food makes me miss home, miss the village". In particular, in the middle of the tray of food is a bowl of mixed soup made from bitter eggplant, dried fish, squash flowers, perilla leaves, chili peppers, mushrooms... In the middle of the mountain town, those rustic dishes suddenly become a "bridge" bringing diners back to the pristine Central Highlands.

The owner of Dam San restaurant is Ms. Ro Mah H'Nin, a Jrai born in Ayun Pa ( Gia Lai ). At first, Jrai dishes were not on the menu; she only cooked to satisfy her passion, to ease her nostalgia for traditional flavors. Unexpectedly, those rustic dishes became the restaurant's most popular dishes.

Ms. H'Nin shared: "People go to the forest and fields to cook whatever they find for their daily meals. When serving at the restaurant, we still keep that spirit, from the form to the flavor, it must carry the soul of traditional cuisine."

At Lem's Kitchen (169 Ton Duc Thang, Bien Ho Commune), dishes with the flavor of "field kitchen" are included in the menu serving both locals and tourists. Here, there are dishes such as smoked pork, grilled meat in bamboo tubes, bitter eggplant salad with dried fish, a cam - a dish of the H're people with rock snails, stream frogs, stream goby fish, bitter eggplant, wild vegetables, fragrant lemongrass... wrapped in banana leaves and grilled on hot coals.

In particular, Ede sticky rice is a popular dish here. The sticky rice is steamed, placed on banana leaves, sandwiched with grilled pork skewers, then wrapped and placed on hot coals. According to the chef, it must be grilled skillfully so that the meat juice seeps into the sticky rice, and the burnt banana leaves give off a distinctive aroma, quite different from the usual steaming method.

Ms. Hoang Thi Thu Thuy (tourist from Hanoi) said: “In the late afternoon, after walking around Bien Ho Lake, we happened to stop by Lem's Kitchen. The weather was chilly, sitting by the charcoal stove right under the green pine trees, enjoying rustic dishes, listening to the local chefs tell childhood stories associated with each dish, naturally felt that meal was the most delicious and left the most emotional impression on the trip”.

"Com dong dong" is creating a trend in enjoying local cuisine in the city.
**Photo: Minh Chau**

If you want to experience a simple meal like in a local's kitchen, the Dong Bao Rice restaurant (03 Phung Hung, Pleiku ward) is the place to evoke that feeling for diners. The owner is a young Jrai Kpa girl, Nguyen Thu Hong, who brings all her memories of her hometown to the dining table.

The menu is rich and simple with dishes that, just by their names, you can already feel the spicy taste and the faint scent of the forest: fish pounded with perilla leaves, beef squirrel, salted and chili-salted squirrel meat, bamboo shoots mixed with chili, squirrel eggplant, grilled banana flower, cassava soup with shrimp... Even salt has become a "dish" on the menu: yellow ant salt, teng leng leaf salt, and fragrant grass salt.

“The Jrai people only need to cook upland rice, eat it with different types of salt and it is delicious, finishing the whole pot of rice. Many diners who come here also really like the dipping salts with the flavor of the Central Highlands mountains and forests” - Ms. Kpa Nguyen Thu Hong shared.

The mountainous town of Pleiku has many restaurants famous for its traditional cuisine. However, it is only recently that everyday dishes have been strongly exploited in the culinary business with the very popular name "Com dong bao". Currently, many restaurants, eateries, and diners can find a simple meal like at home but with a new and interesting experience.

That shows that the cuisine of the Central Highlands is a treasure, what we know is just a small corner if not brought from the kitchen corner to the banquet table by the owner himself to introduce. The rustic dish makes diners not only enjoy but also want to learn more about the story behind that flavor.

Source: https://baogialai.com.vn/dua-bep-ray-ve-pho-thi-post567907.html