Friday 23 November 2012

Spring roll (Chả giò) in Vietnam

“Chả giò” (or Nem Rán in the North) is one of the most popular traditional Vietnamese food, literally meaning minced pork roll.

 

The most common English translation of “Chả giò” is spring roll, though this is just a fancy name since the food has nothing to do with spring.

Ingredients

The main ingredients of a roll of “chả giò” are commonly seasonal ground meat, mushrooms, and diced vegetables such as carrots and jicama, rolled up in a sheet of moist rice paper. The roll is then deeply fried until the rice paper coat turns crispy and golden brown. The ingredients, however, are not fixed. 

The most commonly used meat is pork, but one can also use crab, shrimp, sometimes snails (in northern Vietnam), and tofu (for vegan chả giò). If diced carrots and jicama are used, the stuffs inside the rolls are a little bit crunchy, and match well with the crispy fried rice paper. Nevertheless, the juice from these vegetables can soon cause the rolls to soften after only a short time. 

To keep the rolls crispy for a long time, mashed sweet potato or mung beans may be used instead. One may also include bean sprouts and rice vermicelli in the stuffing mix, yet, this is a rare practice. Eggs and various spices can be added based on each one's preference.

“Chả giò rế” is a rare kind of “chả giò” that uses “bánh hỏi” (thin rice vermicelli woven into a sheet) instead of rice paper. The stuffs inside the roll are the same as normal chả giò, and the roll is also deeply fried. Since the sheets of “bánh hỏi” themselves are not very wide, and the rice vermicelli is too easily shattered, “chả giò rế” rolls are often small and difficult to make. They are only seen at big parties and restaurants.

Side notes

At some restaurants, “chả giò” is incorrectly translated in English as "Egg rolls", and sometimes "Imperial rolls". Egg rolls are significantly different from “chả giò”, as the wrapper is a wheat flour sheet instead of moistened rice paper. However, many Vietnamese restaurants in America have adopted the wheat flour sheet to make their “chả giò”, since it makes the rolls harder to shatter when fried, and the rolls stay crispy for longer time.

Traveling to Cam Ranh Bay

Cam Ranh Bay is one of the jewels of Vietnam. The long protective seaward peninsula and natural inner and outer harbors form what many believe to be the best and most beautiful deep water port facility in the entire world.

Many tourists in Vietnam travel described Cam Ranh Bay as the pearl of central Vietnam because of its natural landscape that is formed by islands, beautiful beaches, green hills and mountains.

Cam Ranh Bay (Vietnamese: Vịnh Cam Ranh) is a deep-water bay in Vietnam in the province of Khanh Hoa. Cam Ranh Bay is considered the finest deepwater shelter in Southeast Asia.

Cam Ranh Bay
Sunrise in Cam Ranh Bay
Cam Ranh Bay
Large view of Cam Ranh Bay
Cam Ranh Bay
High view down of Cam Ranh Bay
Cam Ranh Bay
Cam Ranh Bay - one of the most attractive destinations
Cam Ranh Bay
Cam Ranh Air Port
Cam Ranh Bay
Cam Ranh Bay -  attractive tours
Cam Ranh Bay
The peaceful site of Cam Ranh Bay
Hong Tam
(Collected)

Friday 2 November 2012

Dalat Truc Lam Zen Monastery in Vietnam

On the way from National Road 20 to Tuyen Lam Lake, tourists in Vietnam travel have to run right onto a zigzagging tar road at the mountain side to Phoenix Summit, on which stands beautiful famous Truc Lam Zen Monastery in an open poetic natural environment. 

Established in special social conditions, with the aim of restoring Truc Lam Yen Tu Xen School founded by the King Tran Thanh Tong, this Zen school has harmoniously combined different Zen schools with culture in Vietnam and tradition into Vietnamese Zen. Truc Lam Zen Monastery lies on a protected forest of 23,2 hectares, of which 2 hectares is the building area.

Visiting Dalat Truc Lam Zen Monastery in Vietnam Tourism

Besides the Main Hall in the middle, on the right are the consulting room, the belfry and displaying room on the right; on the left are the sitting room, library, abbot’s room and contemplation hall. Before reaching the Main Hall, tourists travel to Vietnam may take two ways. They may start at the bus stop, take the side gate up 61 steps or, from the lake, climb the 222 steps through the triple gate onto the court in front. 

Inside the Main Hall, statues are displayed simply but meditatively. In the bright spacious sanctuary is the only statue of Sakyamuni Buddha raising a lotus in his hand – a symbolic image of Buddha in Linh Son Dharma Conference, expressing the philosophy of ‘existence in nihilism’ in Buddhist Zen.


Zen helps you to live in "full awareness" and bring your soul back into peaceful state. Truc Lam Buddhist Zen emphasizes on every one’s interior concentration, either a religious or someone in your family. This introspective soul training process leads to personal purification, builds a care-free mind and help one’s good nature to show up; this is the real peace in everyone’s interior, not in a certain paradise in a faraway world.

Thus, visiting Truc Lam Zen Monastery in the quietness of hills and mountains, tourists are free from everyday worries and seem to be able to regain themselves in the greatness of the nature.