Cha Ca

Hanoi's most famous dish — turmeric and dill marinated catfish cooked tableside in sizzling butter, served with vermicelli and peanuts.

Cha ca — turmeric and dill fish — is Hanoi's most famous dish and one of the most distinctive in Vietnamese cuisine. The dish is so associated with one street in Hanoi's Old Quarter that the street was renamed Cha Ca Street. The restaurant that created it, Cha Ca La Vong, has been serving the same dish from the same location since 1871. The combination of turmeric, dill and fish is unique in Southeast Asian cooking — dill is not a typical Vietnamese herb — suggesting French colonial influence. The dish is cooked tableside over charcoal in a clay pot, the fish sizzling in butter with an enormous quantity of fresh dill added at the last moment.

Use catfish or snakehead fish. The turmeric and dill combination is unique to this dish. Cook tableside in a clay pot over charcoal. The dill must be added at the very last moment.