Introduction - Vietnamese food

Vietnamese cuisine is known for it's freshness, meat and flavours. In spite of having a food culture of it's own that dates back a couple of thousand years, it has been in parts influenced by cuisines of colonisers (China, France) and close neighbours (Thai).

The key ingredients include rice, meat (beef, pork), sea food (prawn, shrimp), noodles, fish sauce, soya sauce, fresh vegetables (bean sprouts among them) and herbs.

The cuisine varies across North, Central and South Vietnam due to climate and soil quality.

Southern dishes tend to have an abundance of flavours and vegetables, herbs, meat, chilli and fruits due to tropical climate and fertile soil. Northern dishes tend to have less of these due to hard winters.  Sea food is abundant throughout due to the long seacoast of Vietnam and used extensively.

Flavours:
spicy, sour, sweet, chilli and at times bitter.

a TYPICAL meal:

Starters: 
Vietnamese Pancake (bánh xèo)  made out of rice flour with various fillings (beef, pork) and dipping sauce.
Fresh Imperial Rice Paper Rolls with prawn, pork or Prawn on Sugar Cane and dipping sauce.

Soups: 
Pho noodle soup, suited for the hard winters of the North
Vegetable broth soup (Canh Rau)

Main course:
Steamed fish or Caramel pork with prawn (tom rang thit) served with tossed morning glory and garlic with Steamed rice.

Desert:
Crème caramel, a dish of French influence.

PS: If you've found this information useful and tried the Vietnamese cuisine, I'd LOVE to know about it. Drop me a mail at ikadakimasuu@gmail.com or leave a comment at this page.
Thanks in advance!!!