Foreigners learn to make Vietnamese dishes

PANO - A cooking class for foreigners costing USD 30-40 per person has been attractive to many international tourists to Vietnam.

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The class is situated in a house on Yersin street, District 1, some 450 meters from Ben Thanh Market, Ho Chi Minh City. The menu of four dishes is changed for every three months. In the photo, an instructor is making preparation for the class for nine tourists from the Philippines, the U.S. Canada, and Malaysia.

In this time’s class, foreigners learn how to make four Southern dishes of goi cuon (fresh spring rolls), goi hoa chuoi (banana blossom salad), bo cuon la lot (grilled beef wrapped in piper betle leaves) and banh xeo (crispy stuffed pancakes). They could go shopping with the instructor to explore local ingredients. In the photo: Ingredients for the first dish – fresh spring rolls - are available.

Tourists wrap fresh spring rolls and make dipping sauce by themselves following the instructor’s guide. Jami, a Canadian living in Ho Chi Minh City, said that he has joined the class twice. He loves Vietnamese food and wants to learn more about cuisine of each region in the country.

The instructor introduces each ingredient for the banana blossom salad. Vin Saxena, a U.S. tourist, is surprised knowing that banana blossom is a familiar ingredient of Vietnamese food.

The task of tourists is mixing dipping sauce with sliced banana blossom.

The third dish is grilled beef wrapped in piper betle leaves.

In the third dish, beef is replaced by shrimp for Sarah, a Malaysian tourist, who gave the instructor a note of not eating meat. She shared that she learnt about banh mi and pho and did not think that Vietnamese food is diverse.

Bo la lot is charcoaled.

Side dishes for bo la lot.

Nguyen Dinh Le Hoa, the founder of M.O.M Cooking Class, said that ingredients for dishes in the menu are easy to find in Vietnamese supermarkets overseas. After the class, tourists bring home recipes of the dishes.

The last dish is banh xeo. To make banh xeo crispy, soda is used in stead of water when mixing it with flour.

Clarissa from the Philippines said that she spent the last day of her four-day visit to Ho Chi Minh City in this class. According to her, ingredients for banh xeo are available in her country. However, it is difficult to find a cast iron cook there.

Vin Saxena is excited with making banh xeo for the first time. Almost all tourists book for this class via online tourism applications. According to Le Hoa, the cost for such a class is USD 30-35 during off-travel season from June to September, and USD 40-50 during peak travel season from October to May.

In off-travel season, Hoa’s class welcomes 10 tourists and the number of tourists is doubled or tripled during peak season.