When you come to Tuy Phong, remember to eat the oil-studded fish!

I often tell my friends and partners like that if someone intends to go to Tuy Phong to enjoy. However, everyone says I'm telling them to do it for nothing, because it's that special dish that urges them to come to Tuy Phong even just once!

Hearing that, I was very happy, although I did not know if it suited their taste or not, but it was enough to see that the tiny fish with a yellow line running along its back had become a specialty of my hometown's sea. The giant catfish is available everywhere, but the fish caught in Tuy Phong sea is especially delicious. Many people say that the giant catfish is a wonderful product that the ocean has bestowed on Tuy Phong, especially Binh Thanh sea. Perhaps because Binh Thuan sea is one of the rare seas in the world with upwelling water. According to "The phenomenon of upwelling water in Vietnam's sea" recorded by the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, Binh Thuan sea has a rare upwelling water because of the convergence of all the effects of the southwest monsoon, flow regime, topography of the coast and seabed, and stratification of seawater, which seas in other provinces cannot have. This upwelling water has a low temperature, clear water and brings many nutrients from the seabed, making Binh Thuan sea very cool in the summer. The cool and nutrient-rich upwelling water also helps many organisms develop, making the sea of Binh Thuan have abundant aquatic resources with many rare, fresh, and valuable aquatic species, including the giant catfish. Besides the advantage of the upwelling water, according to the explanation of the people who have lived in Tuy Phong for a long time, perhaps thanks to the rocky reefs around La Gan cape, the giant catfish here has delicious, sweet meat that is hard to compare to anywhere else.

Tuy Phong ca liet dau has delicious, sweet meat that is hard to compare to anywhere else.

There are many types of fish such as hammerhead fish, slimy fish, round fish, horizontal fish, and molar fish... Depending on the type, fish can be processed into many different delicious dishes such as: soup, braised, fried, grilled... all fragrant and flavorful. Among them, oil fish is the type with the highest economic value, it is considered a specialty because of its delicious flavor, small quantity, and not easy to find. Oil fish is caught near the shore, is a small fish, the biggest fish is only about the size of an adult's palm. The meat of this fish can be called a masterpiece: white, chewy, fragrant, and has an unmistakable sweet taste. In most coastal areas, this type of fish can be caught, but for some reason, anyone who has been to Tuy Phong to enjoy oil fish here, finds that eating it in other places is not as delicious.

The tiny fish with a yellow line running down its back is a specialty here.

There are many dishes made from the oil-fed fish (also called the oil-fed fish in many places). The simplest is to cook it with tomatoes and ripe pineapple, add onions, coriander, Vietnamese coriander, and spicy pepper. People from the coastal region only need a pot of hot oil-fed fish soup and a plate of delicious chili fish sauce to ensure they eat a lot of rice, especially in the last months of the year when the weather is a bit chilly. In particular, another dish made from the oil-fed fish that everyone raves about when enjoying it is the fresh oil-fed fish grilled over hot coals. Each fish is turned evenly on the grill, the fat flows down and the fish is golden brown and fragrant. Grilled from afar, the special aroma of this fish has already wafted to the table, making those who are hungry "swallow their saliva" many times. The grilled fish is served on a plate, served with tamarind fish sauce and raw vegetables, which is "incomparably" delicious. This is also considered a culinary specialty of the sunny and windy Tuy Phong region, which makes many people miss it. There is another dish that coastal people often prepare in their daily meals, which is braised catfish. It has to be braised really well and spicy to be delicious. Just mentioning it makes me "gulp" and go buy it right away, because I happen to love this delicacy from my hometown.

Grilled catfish with tamarind fish sauce is considered a Tuy Phong specialty.

According to fishermen in Tuy Phong, the fish appear a lot from the 9th lunar month to the Lunar New Year season. Because the fish is "missed" by tourists in the provinces and cities every time they visit Tuy Phong, most restaurants and eateries collect and freeze the fish to serve a large number of customers during holidays and Tet. And of course, the price of the fish is not cheap, so in the last months of the year, locals often replace the fish with black sardines to satisfy their cravings, which is also one of the irresistible specialties here. This specialty and other rustic seafood dishes are also a strength of the locality, making tourists return to Tuy Phong many times just to enjoy them to ease their nostalgia. Thanks to that, Tuy Phong's tourism industry has grown steadily in recent years, with the number of visitors coming to visit Co Thach Pagoda, the 7-color stone beach, the Ta Nang - Phan Dung route or explore Cu Lao Cau increasing.

The catfish is "missed" by tourists from provinces and cities every time they visit Tuy Phong.

However, for Tuy Phong tourism to develop more sustainably and professionally, the district needs to have a long-term strategy, in which it should focus on tourism products, especially regional cuisine; link to form tours and routes with other tourist destinations in the province and neighboring provinces... At the same time, promote the promotion of the beautiful scenery and people here, so that every tourist visiting Tuy Phong is not only impressed by the natural beauty with blue sea and golden sunshine, colorful pebble beaches, clear and peaceful space in Co Thach... but the most attractive is still the incredibly delicious and sweet catfish.

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