"Lau tha" - Binh Thuan’s special hot pot marked on the Vietnamese culinary map.

This Vietnamese cuisine map, the first of its kinds, has detailed research and meticulous preparation with 63 typical dishes of all provinces and cities in 7 regions across the country, including: the Northern Midland and Mountainous areas, Red River Delta and Northeast Coast, North Central, South Central, Central Highlands, Southeast, and Southwest.

This is also an attractive dish for tourists everywhere when coming to Binh Thuan to relax (Illustration).

This model of a typical food map - a specialty of more than 20 meters long is made by more than 50 chefs who are contestants or former contestants from The Future Chef Contest in other seasons. Besides, a team of chefs from 3 regions of Vietnam and cooks from the Ho Chi Minh restaurant system also participated in processing and creating the dishes.

Accordingly, "hot pot" was selected as a representative dish for Binh Thuan province on the Vietnamese culinary map. In addition, This is also an attractive dish for tourists when coming to relax, visit, and entertain at the South Central Coast. In particular, visitors will remember it forever even if they only enjoy it once because the hot pot is made from fresh seafood with a local style and a creative and eye-catching look with many colors. In which the "main" ingredient is fish (smooth fish, opaque fish, or apricot fish) marinated in seasoning fillets, surrounded by boiled pork, steamed shrimp, fried eggs, cucumbers, green mango, etc finely chopped. All are placed on banana peels. "Lau tha" becomes more "complete" when served with the signature dipping sauce (a pure mixture made from porcelain bananas, tamarind, garlic, roasted peanuts, and seasoning to taste), toasted sesame rice paper, assorted Raw vegetables such as basil, marigold, sassafras…

Binh Thuan hot pot dish was chosen to represent on the Vietnamese culinary map (Illustration from the Internet).

Before the event that the first Vietnamese culinary map model was set a record, the Southeast Asian Records Organization once recognized "Lau Tha" (recorded from Binh Thuan) as one of the 10 best dishes and specialties in Southeast Asia's record value in 2018. It is also one of 5 delicious dishes and specialties of Binh Thuan that are recognized by the Vietnam Record Organization (Vietkings) and the Top Vietnam Organization (VietTop) as the Top 100 special dishes and Top 100 gift specialties (2020 - 2021) nationwide.

Locally, over the past time, the topic "Building a model of conservation and exploitation of intellectual property in the field of Binh Thuan cuisine ("banh canh" - fishcake noodle, "banh can" and "Lau Tha") and gift specialties (Phan Thiet fish sauce, one-sun-dried squid, dragon fruit) have been deployed. This topic is chaired by the Provincial Center for Information and Application of Science and Technology Advancement. This is one of the ways to promote Binh Thuan cuisine, notably "Lau Tha" dishes to tourists from everywhere and contribute to local tourism-worthy development.