Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
rectangular rice noodles that look like a thicker, shorter version of fettuccine. And its mem-
bers have never told anyone the recipe. For these reasons, cao lau is one of the few dishes in
the world that has largely escaped the giant sponge we call globalization. You can't take cao
lau out of Hoi An, nor can you take the Hoi An out of cao lau. It's the ultimate example of
culinary terroir.
I had tried cao lau for the first time a year earlier, when I visited Hoi An after eating my way
around the rest of Vietnam. It was a revelation, or a series of them: the snap of crisp aromat-
ic sprouts, basil, and coriander; the sublime unctuous quality of thinly sliced salty pork; the
crunch of flat, square croutons (made from the same ingredients as the noodles); the silky,
smokybroth,spikedwithChinesefive-spiceseasoning;andattheheartoftheexperience,the
ricenoodles,thickandchewywithacoarsetextureontheoutsideandaslightlystarchytaste.
I'd never had a dish like cao lau in Vietnam. Its flavors and composition were completely
unlike pho, the noodle dish most people associate with the country. I thought, This can't be
Vietnamese.
After my first visit to Hoi An, I did a little research. It seems no one really knows where
cao lau came from. The prevailing origin tale is that Japanese traders brought it with them
when they set up shop in Hoi An in the 16th and 17th centuries. The most famous Japanese
remnant in town is the stout wooden bridge that crosses a small canal and connects the two
major streets of the old quarter. Other versions of the dish's genesis story claim cao lau ori-
ginated with the Cham. There are also tales of Chinese adventurers who turned up with the
noodles in the 19th century and taught someone how to make them. The name does seem to
comefromtheChinesecharactersfor“highsteamer”;unlikemostnoodles,whichareboiled,
cao lau noodles are steamed.
Now, a year later, I had returned, hoping to uncover the mysteries behind a dish that
seemed like an enigma wrapped in rice noodles and shrouded in slices of pork. Where did
cao lau really come from? What made the noodles so magical that the dish couldn't be re-
produced anywhere else? On my first afternoon back in Hoi An, the ordinary-looking Ba Le
well wasn't revealing anything. I walked away even more determined to find the answers.
That evening, I was sitting in a restaurant talking to Thao, a 29-year-old Hoi An local and
friend of a friend, who agreed to help me with my mission. We were at Trung Bac, a restaur-
ant in the center of town that is famous for its cao lau, mostly because it has been serving it
for so long. An engraved wooden sign states (in Vietnamese),
THIS RESTAURANT HAS BEEN
OPEN MORE THAN 100 YEARS
.
Thaosaidhetookmeherenotonlybecausethecaolauisgoodbutalsobecausetheowner
of the restaurant was related to the cao lau noodle-making family.
“Is there anything you want to ask him?”
