Hanoi
Guided tour · 3h 30m
Hanoi: Guided Food Tour with Train Street Visit
Taste some of the favorite daily food of the locals on a Hanoi walking tour. Grab a coffee along a railway track as you watch a train pass by, stroll...
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History
Com tam began as poverty food. Broken rice grains, cracked during milling and unsellable at full price, were cooked and eaten by farmers and workers across the Mekong Delta. Saigon adopted it and dressed it up: the grains kept their nubbly texture but gained a grilled pork chop marinated in lemongrass and fish sauce, plus bi (shredded pork skin), cha (steamed egg meatloaf) and pickles. Today com tam is served everywhere from sidewalk stalls to the Bib Gourmand grill Com Tam Ba Ghien, and the once-humble broken grain is prized in its own right.
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Ho Chi Minh City
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Common allergens: Egg, Fish, Soy
Make it at home
Ingredients
- 2 pork shoulder chops
- 2 tbsp fish sauce, 2 tbsp sugar, 1 stalk lemongrass minced, 2 cloves garlic
- 1 tbsp honey and 1 tbsp oil (for glazing)
- 300g broken rice (or short-grain rice cracked briefly in a blender)
- 2 eggs
- For nuoc cham: 3 tbsp fish sauce, 3 tbsp sugar, 3 tbsp water, 1 lime, 1 chili, 1 garlic clove
- Sliced cucumber and pickled carrot to serve
- Scallion oil (finely sliced spring onion scalded with hot oil)
Method
- Marinate the pork chops in the fish sauce, sugar, lemongrass and garlic for at least 1 hour.
- Rinse and steam or boil the broken rice until tender but still distinct.
- Grill the chops over high heat, brushing with the honey-oil glaze, until caramelised and cooked through, about 4 minutes a side.
- Fry the eggs sunny side up.
- Whisk the nuoc cham ingredients until the sugar dissolves.
- Plate the rice, top with a chop and a fried egg, spoon over scallion oil, and serve with cucumber, pickles and the nuoc cham.
Tip from the editors. No broken rice to hand? Pulse ordinary short-grain rice in a blender for a few seconds to fracture the grains before cooking.
Where to eat com tam
Com tam in Ho Chi Minh City
Com Tam Ba Ghien ★ 4.4
Com Tam Ba Ghien serves the Bib Gourmand broken-rice plate that made it famous: an oversized caramelised grilled pork chop over broken rice.
OrderCom tam with the giant grilled pork chop and a fried egg.
TipIt is a Michelin-listed bargain; the pork chop alone feeds most appetites.
More cities are in research. Want com tam covered somewhere specific? Tell us where you want to eat.