Dishes to try
- Roast duck: stuffed with mac mat leaves and roasted crisp, with a distinctive aroma.
- Cao Bang rice rolls: thin sheets served with a bowl of hot pork-bone broth – the classic breakfast.
- Sour pho: a cool noodle salad with roast pork, liver, peanuts, fried taro and a sweet-sour sauce.
- Khau nhuc: pork belly steamed for hours with taro, served at festivals and Tet.
- Bao Lac pho: home-steamed rice sheets dried and cut, in pork-bone broth with roast pork.
- Tram huong fish and roast-duck pho in Trung Khanh.
Seasonal cakes and sweets
- Thong Hue banh khao: roasted sticky-rice flour pressed in wooden moulds with peanut, sugar and pork-fat filling; made mostly at year end.
- Peng mooc: young sticky-rice flakes packed in palm-leaf moulds by the Tay of Ngoc Con, boiled for 2 – 3 hours, made only for festivals and weddings in late autumn and early winter.
- Five-colour dried noodles: coloured with red brown rice, magenta leaf, butterfly pea, purple sweet potato and pandan – five colours for the five elements.
- Che lam, coong phu (rice balls in hot ginger syrup) and khau sli – the essential Tet sweet of the Tay and Nung.
Seasonal forest foods
| Season | What’s in season |
|---|---|
| Mar – Apr | Mac khuoi, a red cherry-like wild berry eaten with chilli salt or steeped in liquor |
| Jul – Aug | Crisp forest bamboo shoots, pickled with mac mat fruit |
| Rainy season | Vegetable fern stir-fried with garlic; rock snails cooked with corn flour by the Nung of Ha Lang |
| Sep – Nov | Trung Khanh chestnuts, Na Po young-rice flakes, crunchy persimmons |
Food souvenirs
Trung Khanh chestnuts (with a geographical indication), sausage and smoked pork, Phia Den arrowroot noodles, Bao Lac fragrant sticky rice, banh khao and Bo To slab sugar. Visit Kim Dong walking street in the provincial centre for its food market.
See the dishes on the Food page
Compiled from the Non nuoc Cao Bang Geopark management, Vietnam’s official tourism portal and the press; updated October 2026. Schedules and rules can change, so check before you travel.
