Hey everyone hope you're having an amazing day! It's Mark Wiens I'm in the province of Hajjang which is in very Northern Vietnam on the border of China. This is one of the most spectacular natural scenery province in the entire country and they also have some incredibly delicious food. So today we are at a home state. It's going to be a huge traditional meal where they're gonna make some of the local Specialties like five colored sticky rice plus an entire Pig and an entire barbecue duck.

We're gonna eat some unbelievably delicious local and extreme fresh Vietnamese food I'm gonna share it all with you coming up right now in this video. Thank you! Very nice to meet you, Nice to meet you sir! Mark So your name is Tune right? Yes, how do you pronounce this province? Okay and what's on the menu today? The minute today we have the pigs. we can make a few this is from this pick and then we have a duck. Okay and we have a fists.

One of the traditional fish of the local people. the great the race in the pond in here. it's cold water. okay they're very tasty and we still have a five colors to.

Sticky Rice Oh yeah that's another one. It's another specialty in this region. it's the five colored sticky rice. so we're gonna have a chance to see the entire process.

Very excited in this region of Northern Vietnam one of the Specialties here that they're going to be preparing is a whole pig. Right as we arrived they have just butchered the pig. Oh what do you have here? A duck this is or eating also? Yeah, Oh wow. For um, barbecue proteins are in full swing Now the the pig is all the hairs are being burned off the pig.

The duck is getting splanched in hot water to pluck off all those feathers. Everything is fresh and nothing's gonna go to waste. All right. These are the rice grains which are all natural colors right? Yes, so we have five different colors and so Auntie is going to get started as they're still preparing the protein.

Santee is going to get started steaming the sticky rice because that's going to take a couple of hours. Okay and is this dish eaten every day or is it more of a celebration or a festival dish or a special dish? Uh before we just make it when we have some festivals special days. okay but nowaday sometime because of the tourism some this local this uh this so they will make it and sell it as Market on on a Sunday market every places. Okay okay but it is so it is very a very special dish.

Yes okay good you can see this Yellow yeah made from turmeric. Oh okay oh very nice. this red color made from sweetgar. Oh wow and they are saying some of them She said that just have local name it's a very uh difficult to pronounce yes okay oh and really nice blue and then like a lighter blue and then an orange as well.

Mrs Duke She is the expert with the sticky rice five colored sticky rice. so she's going to be preparing it for us right now. She's getting started and this is such a cool. It's a wooden steamer right? Yes, this is where it's going to be steamed.

So actually the first rice goes in and then she puts on some leaves thank you. He adds in some leaves to separate it and then the next layer is going in foreign. So that's the entire process. All five layers of the colorful sticky rice.

And she does it so strategically because putting putting the leaves in between layers of rice but also poking holes in the leaves so that the steam is going to go through and the steamer is so cool. Then she tops it with more leaves. She added in some pandan leaves for fragrance as well and you can just see how the colors of the sticky rice. It's been marinated overnight so it just completely like the color has just embedded into each grain of glutinous rice and now she's just topping it with cover and that's going to steam for a couple of hours.

Oh and look at all this dried smoked meat up here from the fire. What a kitchen! That's the process for the sticky rice. It now needs to steam for two hours and in the meantime they're gonna get prepared starting on all of the rest of the dishes. All of that fresh pork, all of the the fresh barbecue uh, duck and all the side dishes that we're gonna eat together.

with the five colored sticky rice, it's a seat from, uh, from the tree from forest? Oh yeah, this is a spice. Better Who smell? Oh yeah for barbecue? Very good. Okay, so this is a spice that you'll be using for the pig. Yeah, or the duck puppy for pig.

Okay, so this will be for a barbecue pork. Okay, Barbecue? Uh fish? Okay. Barbecue or dark? Yes. Commences Rice Fermented rice.

Oh nice. Actually the Orange is the taste of this. uh, fermented rice is sour. Okay, so when you add a lot more Spice in it and more salt, we add some.

Some fermented straight like this. So Tomatoes This Light Liquid some. It's going deep inside the meat so it can. it can keep lenses between the fat and the taste of the meat.

Yeah, Oh yeah. you can smell the sourness. So those pork belly slabs get marinated with some spices, some local seasonings, and that ingredient. which that's incredible.

Fermented rice. It almost looks like yogurt. and you can smell that sourness that's gonna hold the spices within the meat, let it soak in, absorb. and yeah, that's a what a marinating process.

Foreign is getting exciting Now she is pounding up some kumquat leaves which is an ingredient they're going to use to barbecue and grill the duck. That's going to be an amazing fragrance and then over here we're in this side of the kitchen. He's chopping up the organs of the pig and they're going to fill that into the the intestines. I Believe for a blood sausage? Ultra Fresh blood sausage.

Good afternoon with the Banana Leaf okay yes with banana leaves. Oh nice. Another dish. yeah, how many dishes from the pig? Um about um six.

six different dishes. Yeah Wow. Oh yeah. foreign.

What an incredible duck recipe. All of those kumquat leaves were just bruised with garlic. uh to bring out their fragrance and Aroma then with pepper with soy sauce goings into those leaves. uh just tossed like a like a kumquat Leaf salad and that just gets stuffed into the cavity of the duck.

that's gonna be so frigrant and that gets tied up to go on the barbecue. Foreign. Thank you Thank you. Sit back over here to the sausage station.

Talk about a genius sausage maker. He makes the bottle and then he cuts off the lid and then he uh like slices off the lid and then he attaches the intestines and re-screws on the the top lid so that you have a scooper that's the most ingenious homemade sausage filler. I'm not a genius. What a technique? Oh that's I think already all of those organs.

The fresh blood is in that sausage mixture plus some of the fat which he hand chopped everything. everything manually by hand and then some herbs, some green onions, some Vietnamese coriander goes in that's ready to be filled up into the intestines. Thank you, thank you! So just in the span of like an hour, they've gone from well live Pig and live duck. not only just like barbecuing, roasting the whole animal, but these are like straight up gourmet dishes.

I mean fresh blood sausage, duck that's marinated in the cavity with kumquat leaves. They're making another pork dish which they sliced up uh, mixing with some marination and some herbs and some ingredients which is going to be cooked within a banana packet and grilled. And I mean these are just just incredible dishes, nothing going to waste and everything local, they raise, they produce, they grow I think every single ingredient that you're using in their cooking I mean whenever you need a herb, whenever the he was making the blood sausage, whenever he needed some lemongrass and some green onions, you just darted out the the hallway here, straight to the Garden to pick up the ingredients and then straight to the to the pan. I mean everything is local and fresh.

Don't know the ribs. He's just preparing the ribs now to be boiled his last neck. That one is Huge. You have to stand up.

You're going to stand up to fill it up. How long will it cook for like I think one hour? One hour. Okay yeah. okay.

so the duck is on a rotisserie little motor with a rotisserie over fire that's gonna roast and spin for the next hour. I'm sure it's gonna get crispy and then just again just embed itself with those kumquat leaves in that marinade that the internal marinade and after two hours steaming. Mrs Dukes Five colored sticky rice is ready. It's so fragrant, you can see how the grains are perfect and actually they just remain perfect in the the basket there.

uh, the layers, the even layers. So she's just scooping it out onto a platter. The colors of that sticky rice. It's so vibrant that's such a beautiful deep purple.

and then oh, one more color. I Almost forgot the black sticky rice at the very bottom. It's so fragrant and just so hot. What a tradition! The sticky rice is ready, but we still have a lot more dishes to prepare like they're getting started.

About to get started on some more grilled pork coming soon as well. Is it boiling? That's the the sausage and the pork is boiling. Now the next dish that he's making which is the thin slices of pork with some herbs chopped up in there and a light seasoning marinated salt. and then that goes into some very young banana leaves.

He's wrapping it into a packet and that's going to be grilled as well. And I think they're preparing a fire in the backyard to grill the pork and these Banana Leaf packets. hello back here in the backyard Mountainside They're grilling up some more of that. That's the marinated pork as well as the the packet right on the fire on the Mountainside Oh, that's gonna be so good it's gonna be Smoky and it's just oh the pure.

Grill Like the real deal with so many different dishes going on. I Almost totally forgot about the fish, but all of a sudden a fish just appeared straight from the pond. uh, that they raised himself again, everything and looks like a carp. I Think that's also going to be, uh, grilled everybody.

Once the sticky rice has cooled down, then Auntie then uh, she gets some fresh galangal leaves, all the sticky rice into packets of galanga leaves and that's how it's presented. and that's how it's uh, served. Duck is actually ready, the pork, the intestines are finished, the sausage, and then they're still grilling up some things. But I think we're actually getting pretty close to eating.

I'm hungry and ready? What? Yes, yes, he is a sausage. Chef Over here it's it's ready. Oh it's fresh. Oh you can smell the sweetness.

Oh wow, That's the greatest blood sausage you'll ever have. It is so fresh and so sweet. Not irony at all. We want to make the outer crispy.

Okay dude. Okay, so it's almost time to eat. They're just plating up everything but another kitchen snack s Oh oh wow, that is insanely juicy. Oh you taste that sourness from the fermented rice marinade? Oh that's incredible.

Oh that duck is just so oily and hot. Oh and as soon as he you cut it open, you can really smell the aroma of those leaves coming out. Wow. So we will eat the leaves also.

Yeah. okay. but not only is all the dishes important for this traditional meal, but also the presentation. And so if they're just like parting everything out onto the platters on banana leaves Foreign, foreign, get out, thank you very much.

Is there a way that you typically choose one first? Or do you just choose anything you want? Choose anything, anything you want, and then you can eat it together with the sticky rice. Okay, okay, I'm gonna try that. Hmm oh wow, that's the fresh duck that is just unbelievably juicy and tender. huge with the leaves, those kumquat leaves which kind of had this a little bit of a citrusy fragrance, that duck is incredible.

and then also the sticky rice. This is a traditional dish here I'll go in for that. Center one. Yeah okay I'm gonna try this.

the sausage which I already had a bite of in the kitchen but now it's been grilled as well. This dip sauce with a little bit of salt with chili. All right. the sausage.

Hmm oh wow. this outfit is amazing. that herbalness and then the freshness of the sweetness of the blood. and I think it's the way you use coriander in there that really tastes incredible.

Thank you thank you very much! This is an amazing fish. One of the amazing things is that because the the Thai people are from the same ethno Linguistics or culture um as the Thai people, there's so many similar words that crossover from Thai language to to their native language. and the fish was also marinated in that fermented rice. so it has this showers.

What is that one? Spiced okay, it has a little bit of a pepper pepperiness and a little bit of a kind of peppery but not spicy. Okay, I'm gonna try the pork belly. This is the boiled pork belly which is cut and sliced perfectly so you have the skin you have. um yeah, I think I mean for sure what stands out to me about this meal is just the freshness of all the ingredients.

and again, like I said how they produce all of the ingredients. but you can taste the sweetness of the pork and that duck is just unbelievable. I mean a free-range duck, The oiliness, the richness, the crispiness of the skin. I mean it's just a an outstanding protein packed meal.

I Love the flavor of those spices that Zoe the pepper in there I mean the flavors are not like a lot of spices, they're simple country remote. Northern Vietnamese Like using recipes that use ingredients that are all found right here in this region and that's what stands out to me. Oh yes, the homemade rice Brew is definitely free-flowing and it's It's definitely turning into a wonderful Lively atmosphere, but we're going to keep on eating. The food is just spectacular.

What a what a special meal! Let me try some more of this sticky rice we have. This is the the red sticky rice. next color of sticky rice has a different taste. um and if you really think about it, some of them have more of a pronounced taste like the turmeric.

I mean I'm some more I have no have a neutral taste but it's really a special dish here in Hajjang. this is the grilled the grilled pork belly. Look at the fattiness of that thank you. You can taste the showerness coming from that fermented rice.

like literally like it's like rice yogurt with sourness that just goes into the meat. gives us this amazing contrast of sourness to the fattiness of the pork. Something I haven't tried yet is the packet. This is like chopped up belly and pieces of pork with some more spices and then wrapped in the Banana Leaf Gooey and fatty.

you can taste the skin in there. Okay I think this is the liver. Wow! The freshness, the sweetness I Love that dried dip with the salt with the chilies and the lime juice in there. Oh that's delicious.

This sausage. oh this is the kind of the type of meal that you just keep on drinking and then you just keep on snacking like all night long, right? Just meat snacks all night long. just take bite to mute. Nobody eats too fast, you just enjoy your time hanging out.

I Think that's part of the meal talking yeah, talking party, hanging out, drinking and then just taking bites of meat and that sausage. I Haven't got my pizza. My favorite part of the whole pig leaves. Duck drumstick.

That's a real deal duck. so natural, a little bit chewy but so much flavor, especially with the skin and the fat. And those kumquat leaves. Thank you! Very nice to meet you! Thank you so much! Very good, very good.

Thank you. Come on! Oh it's a beautiful morning. good morning. Things got a little bit hectic last night and then we ended up sitting around hanging out, snacking on all of that meat and just hanging out.

But it was definitely a great cultural experience and a great time to hang out with. Mr Tien and Tung and family and also friends that came by from the village as well. I Want to say a huge thank you especially to Yes D travels, who arranged this entire trip for me here and who set this experience up. They specialize in responsible tourism and especially giving back to the community and cultural authentic tourism.

So highly recommended! I'll have their Link in the description box below so that's going to be it for this video. I Want to say a huge thank you for watching? Please remember to give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it. Leave a comment below I'd Love to hear from you and if you're not already subscribed, make sure you subscribe now for lots more food and travel videos. and make sure you keep on watching this entire video now I'm a series.

There'll be a few more videos from here in Hajjang which you're not going to want to miss and then also some videos from Hanoi so stay tuned! Amazing! Vietnamese food and I will see you on the next video. Foreign.