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The famous Kim Long Ginger Jam in Hue has a distinct, spicy flavor. The ginger can neither be too old (as the final product will then lack smooth texture), nor can it be too young, because it will not have its characteristic pungency. First, the ginger is peeled and sliced. Thin ginger slices are soaked in cold water with squeezed lemon juice for about 30 minutes in order to clean them, then mixed with sugar. The ginger is then cooked in sugar syrup on wood fires for about an hour until the slices become more firm and the sugar is neatly wrapped around each slice. To make this happen, the mixture has to be continuously stirred with chopsticks, so that it does not get burnt. The ginger jam is then placed on a tray where it is cooled. Here, the jam-maker uses thin bamboo sticks to separate the ginger slices as they can easily stick together when hot. What makes the Kim Long ginger jam special is that every step is done by hand, and it has no other ingredient except ginger and sugar – no additives are used. Regular buyers love the Kim Long ginger jam for its pure spicy-sweet flavour. Currently, the Kim Long Ward has about 20 households making the jam in the traditional way. Besides serving locals during Tet holiday, Kim Long ginger jam is also ordered year-round by dealers in cities across central Vietnam and also Ho Chi Minh City. …

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Located at 4 Phan Boi Chau Street, adjacent to Ben Thanh Market, the food stall was well known as the stomping ground of many foreign visitors, overseas Vietnamese and artists prior to the pandemic. Unlike other versions of crab noodle soup, or bun rieu , the dish here consists of a big chunk of fried tofu, congealed duck blood, a slice of tomato and its huge, signature crab meatball instead of the typically lumpy crab meat with small bite-size pieces on top. It would seem the cook aims to preserve all original flavors pertaining to this dish, allowing guests to enjoy the rich and soft tofu, chewy blood jelly and firm, tasty crab meatball and thin rice vermicelli. The dish is served with a plate of special fish sauce, chili, shrimp paste and tamarind dipping and a plate of fresh split morning glory, mung bean sprouts, thin strips of banana blossom, cilantro and basil leaves. A bowl of noodle soup at "Bun Rieu Ganh" in Saigon. Photo by VnExpress/Huynh Nhi. Mai Thi Lien, 60-year-old owner of "Bun Rieu Ganh", has always been loyal to the traditional soup taste for over 40 years with her mother’s recipe. "The noodle soup is well seasoned. To add sourness, we do not use lime or kumquat juice but tamarind instead," Lien said. Even though the price per serving is VND55,000 ($2.4), considered higher than at other stalls in the city, Lien claims she is not thrifty when spending money on ingredients since when it came to good food, it was quality that counted. Besides, inner-city rent further explains the higher price. "In the past, it used to be a street vending business, my customers had to borrow seats from nearby stalls. So seven years ago, I started to rent a fully equipped place with seats and air conditioners and needless to say, the fee is exorbitant," she said. Special crab meatballs in a bun rieu pot at the shop. Photo by VnExpress/Huynh Nhi. Nguyen Nhat Huy from District 4 first visited the food stall thanks to word …

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It had taken just 30 minutes for Cong, deputy head of the laboratory and diagnostic imaging department at the Binh Thanh District medical center, to finish preparing swabbing kits, protective clothing and necessary documents. It was still dark as the 36-year-old Cong, along with four colleagues, began conducting random Covid-19 tests in areas around the Mien Dong (Eastern Region) Bus Station in Saigon for the 12th day. From 5 a.m. to 7 a.m., they worked with local medics to take 100 samples of people from Hanoi and the provinces of Gia Lai, Kon Tum and Dak Lak in the Central Highlands. Then the group quickly returned to their office to start other work. Medics take random swab samples at the Mien Dong Bus Station every morning, February 2021. Photo by VnExpress/Thu Anh. One of them took the samples to the Thu Duc Hospital for carrying out RT-PCR tests. Some received people coming from Covid-19 hotspots to check their medical declarations and take their swab samples. Others traveled to two quarantine facilities in Wards 21 and 28 to take swab samples of those under centralized quarantine. After a long day, at around 6 p.m., they started traveling with medics in the district to take random swab samples at local restaurants. It was midnight when the medics returned to their office yet again. The team members have been traveling from place to place and working around the clock for a month, Cong said they initially collected test samples at the Tan Son Nhat International Airport; and after an infection chain was found, they moved on to locked down neighborhoods and worked with the residents there. In collecting samples at bus stations, they had to work from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m., said Ho Minh Hoang, head of the medical center in Binh Thanh District’s Ward 26. This means the team members had to be up at 3 a.m. to prepare, which was exhausting. Hoang and Cong later suggested that the HCMC Center for Disease Control (CDC) and bus stations allow …

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