Eating Rice In Vietnam $2 Vs. $20

So these shrimp you just eat whole with the shell on and everything. I love it. Welcome to Vietnam, where rice takes as many forms as possible. From the cheapest to more affordable, and even upscale, your perfect plate is available everywhere. But first, let's go back. This is Breakfast for a Buck, and today we're gonna talk about rice. It's a big deal here. I'm Chad Kupinaf, I'm a chef living in Vietnam. Right now we're at a gao shop, which is an uncooked rice. So this is a vendor that sells every kind of variety of rice throughout the whole country, and also they import different races from Thailand and India, everywhere. They got everything. This is Japanese rice. Let's go eat some rice. I was just shocked by how many varieties of rice there are. Literally 20 different kinds of rice. All this rice is graded and named depending on its size, its texture, its aroma. They all are named after different things, like smells like pineapple, or chewy, or fragrant, or wherever it comes from. It's just cool. I'm still learning. So when we're talking about cooked rice, we're no longer talking about gao, which is uncooked rice. We're talking about cam, C-O-M, O-O-O, C-O-M, that one right there. But this spot is cam tam. We're not gonna get cam tam today. Cam tam is broken rice. That's a very special thing in Saigon, and needs its own episode. Today we're just looking for cam, which you're gonna find everywhere throughout Vietnam. And no matter whether you're rich or poor, there is the perfect rice restaurant for you. First we're gonna focus on the more affordably priced restaurant, which is called a cam binh yen, or a cam binh dan. I don't remember. We'll work on that later. All right, so first we're gonna show you just like a normal, everyday cam binh yen. Cam meaning rice, binh yen meaning average, or affordable. This is like a medium-sized one. You can find big ones. But it's pretty much everyday, every meal, average rice restaurant. Let's go check it out. Oh, and this spot specializes in tou num. So if you want, you can order it in a hot bowl, or a hot stone bowl. Maybe we'll get that too. So anytime you come to a cam binh yen, all the food's just gonna be laid out. It's kind of like cafeteria style. So you just pick what you want. You just check out all the food, and whatever looks good, you get it. So I'm gonna get cam yia, so I'm just gonna get a plate, and I'll pile it on with whatever I want. So they have all kinds of fish, and stewed pork, everything. Lots of stuff. This is my favorite. Every time I see this braised shrimp thing, I always get it. Thi oi, moc cam yia. Moc yia co khou qua. Moc yia khou qua. Khou qua, dao san, and tom rang. When you finish ordering, they will scoop your food into a stone bowl, and reheat it, and then carefully bring it to your table. Some kind of vegetable, some kind of protein. One will be served dry, one will be served as a soup. This is the basic rice setup for every family meal in Vietnam. Chup ngon mi. So I think there was some confusion. I ordered cam yia, meaning a plate, and putting everything on top of it. They served it as cam fan, which is family style, which is a little bit bigger, but that's okay. They probably just wanted it to look good on camera. So this is super typical, super normal meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You'll always get your pile of rice, and then you pick your toppings. No matter what, you're always gonna get some sort of automatic side vegetable. Here, it's gonna be bean sprout and lettuce, really just something simple. And then you're always gonna get some sort of side soup, which is, another name for that is gan. Typically, the automatic one is just gonna be like a light broth with some vegetable. You can also order more complicated ones that have fish inside, or have like a whole stuffed bitter melon. So I ordered some stir fried green bean, stir fried bitter melon with egg, and these braised shrimps. This is shrimp braised with pork belly, and the shrimp is shell on, and it has been cooked until the meat like shrinks inside the shell. I love it. It's got a cool texture. Before living in Vietnam, I never would have eaten a shrimp shell. And now with this style, where they're cooked a long time, I actually prefer the shell. It's so good. I know bitter melon is not for everybody, but I love it. And this style, stir fried with egg, is one of the best styles. Bitter melon is definitely called bitter melon for a reason. It definitely is bitter. Cooking with the egg helps reduce the bitterness, so it's really good. I know a lot of kids were forced to eat it though, so a lot of people are traumatized. Luckily, I don't have that memory. And it's very common, especially in the older generation, and in the countryside, that people don't really drink while they're eating. A lot of times my family members don't even have a glass next to them while they're eating. They kind of drink the soup. The soup is their drink while they're eating. But I think that's why you always get served a small soup on the side. Wow, that's a lot of food. So the green beans are just stir fried with some carrots and a little bit of sliced pork in here. Simple, crunchy, good. These rice restaurants, they're so popular. I've never been here before. We just drove by and stopped in. They're always good. If you were on a keto diet too, you could always just come here and order all the stuff on the side without the rice. It can be fairly easy to eat keto in Vietnam. Now that we tried a cơm bánh nhán, let's go try a cơm bánh phộng, which is like for the office people or office class. Slightly more upscale. We'll check it out. That's super interesting. That's how they phrase it. Wow, that's cool. So this next level of a rice restaurant is called cơm bánh phộng, meaning it's for the office worker. Bánh phộng is like the office. So this is like medium level rice. A little bit more expensive, a little bit higher quality, and they sell a ton of takeout orders to all the office workers in big buildings around here. Let's try this spot next. Một cơm dĩa, đậu ấu nhỗi thịt và ghẹt khô. Anh ăn ở đây hả? Anh ăn ở đây. We're ready. So you can see this place has similar vibes to the last spot. But this one, maybe the portions of the meat are a little bit bigger. So at this spot, the automatic vegetable they're gonna give you here is boiled cabbage. And then our can, our side soup here is gonna be with cơm bánh phộng. This is like a green squash side soup. If you saw up front, there was so many different kinds of braised fish. This is a braised cash fish, which is super delicious and really fatty. So I'm definitely gonna take some of that free sauce, that braising liquid I get with the fish. This fish is so good. It's so fatty, soft. It has a big fillet too. I love this style of caramelized fish sauce, the braising technique. It just makes everything taste good. All of these braised fishes are so good. They're so like sweet and complex in flavor. So they're sweet, but dark. And then they have the fish sauce too. So it's a little bit funky, a little bit salty. Excellent. This one's easy to just pull the bone out. There's a few more up at the top, but you do it a few times, you get some practice. And then the belly is gonna be even fattier than the fillet was. I love this one. And then here I ordered tofu that's stuffed with pork and braised with tomato. Super traditional dish. I love it too. And I just love the idea of stuffing tofu with pork. I just think it's funny and delicious. And if you need more seasoning, they have some fish sauce on the table too. They have straight fish sauce, which is what I just used. And then they have some nuoc cham, which is like a sweet fish sauce too. So maybe the straight fish sauce, I might just dip my cabbage straight in there. Carefully, it's very salty. But it's good. Definitely a bigger meat portion here. Definitely a better quality rice too. It's a little bit more fragrant than the last spot. All these dishes you're seeing are super common. Pretty much at every rice vendor, you'll see stuff like this. It's a good spot too. But let's go show you the next level up in rice restaurants. Gum Niu. Right now we're in An Phu, which is an area of District 2. Now we're at a restaurant called Gum Niu Ga Fau. Gum is rice, Niu is the name of a special clay pot that the rice is cooked in. And this is a style of restaurant that's definitely a more upscale rice type restaurant. That's why we're here. Ga Fau is the name of a little white eggplant that's super popular as well. Let's go check this spot out. My family's here with me today, so that means we can order a lot of food. So we're going to order a lot of food. I'd like a plate of boiled pork and cao phao. 3 rolls, 1 naan. A bowl of vegetable soup. A fried catfish. Fried catfish. Okay. And a cup of iced fish tea. That's it. A cup of iced tea. We'll see, that's a lot of stuff. And I got the little eggplant that the restaurant's named after because we have to, right? The upscale rice dishes require upscale skill and upscale presentation. Here they make everything to order to make sure everything is as fresh and delicious as possible. The fish cake is fried till nice and golden brown, finished with a fresh green mango salad and a slightly spicy dressing. The sweet and sour pork rib, the sliced boiled pork belly and these little white eggplants paired with the shrimp paste is such a popular combo in Vietnam. For this special rice dish, after it's been cleaned and rinsed, they put it in a small pot and steam it in a very large steamer. You have to be careful because it's super hot, but this creates a slightly different texture to the rice. A more upscale way to serve an old school family meal. This might be the new Vietnamese food experience for your family to try. Hey, this is Tri. And this is Liam. And this is our first time here. And there's a lot of new things that they've never tried before. So it should be fun. Let's try some stuff. You want to try some stuff? That's a yes. You want to try some stuff? I know he does. All right, let's try it. I'm like all mung. Bacai mung. What does mung mean? Mung is spoon. I want a spoon. Like I'm gonna eat you. Do you know what this is? No. This is a fried fish and it's got a green mango salad, which is pretty darn good to me. I think it's gà tứ. It's like a mackerel style fish. And then we got fried pork belly. But the cool thing about this one is they say it's dried on one side, which I've never heard of that before. That sounds good to me. This is a chả cá. Do you know what this one is? Chả cá, that's right. What's chả cá? That's right. Do you know what's special about this fish cake? It has dill inside. Do you know what this one is, Tri? This is sweet and sour pork rib. So I think you'll like that. This is a soup that I hate so much. It has like a slimy soft vegetable and a soft squash. I really don't like it, but my wife loves it, so we got it for her. Then we have boiled pork. And you know what this one is? This is gà pháo. This is the name of the restaurant. The restaurant is named after this. And it's always gonna be dipped in shrimp paste. So we're gonna make the shrimp paste now. Oh, you wanna squirt this in here, Liam? You wanna make the sauce? Okay. So this is just straight shrimp paste. They're gonna squirt some kumquat inside. You can squirt both in. The seeds, okay, just squirt it in there. That's good. All right, let's mix it. I doubt the kids will like this. You wanna try it? We don't even like the smell. You like it? Is that a no? All right, so I'm gonna put some chili in. Since the kids don't like it, I'm gonna put chili in this one. You wanna try it? You can try it. You like it? So this is what the whole restaurant is named after. It's gà miu, is the rice in the pot. So let's try some. It's so flat. It's so flat? It's not that flat. Does it smell good? Wow, look at that. Do you like the fish cake? It's good. It's good? I'm very curious about this one-side dried pork. You wanna try this? I like the pork a lot. It's very firm, it's salty, and it has a really strong lemongrass flavor. I've never seen this where it's dried on one side, like dried in the sun on one side. You want a little fish? Fish cake smells really good. Really? Really. Are there bones in there? No, there shouldn't be any bones in there. Thumbs up? I always love Northern-style food because they use a lot of dill, so I'm curious about the fish cake. Mm, it's strong. Which one? Spicy. What's spicy? The fish is spicy? Really? Let me see. Anything spicy? I think it's good. What do you like? Have you tried the fish already? The fish cake. The fish cake? The fish cake is super chewy, more chewy than I've ever had before, but it has a nice dill flavor. I like it a lot. It's cool you get a green mango salad, too. That's awesome. This one has a little bone, okay, so you eat around it. Daddy, try two. What do you think? Not too good, but pretty good. Not too good, but pretty good? I think it's pretty good. Not too good, but pretty good? When you get this kind of rice coming to you, you can always order it burnt, aka toasted or grilled or crunchy, or you can order it white, not burnt at all. So this is the toasted version, so it's a little crunchy on the bottom. So this thing is just like a little explosion of seed. It's slightly pickled. It's very crunchy, but filled with seeds. It's cool. I think the kids have reached their limit. They just ran. I don't know what happened. Well, you can see that's a much more upscale rice experience. There's a lot of classic dishes that are always gonna be served with rice that pretty much every single restaurant will serve, no matter what price level they're at. And of course, some places have a specialty that they're known for. Really what you're getting for and the difference of price is you're getting a better eating environment, you're getting food that's cooked to order and a little bit higher quality proteins as well. So this is a really cool spot. Nice vibes. You can see it's got really nice atmosphere to it. It's a nice place to eat. That's it though. There's a lot of rice in Vietnam. You should probably eat rice while you're in Vietnam and you should probably watch every single video that we've ever made and make sure you hit the subscribe button because we're gonna keep making them. So see you later.