Grilled Chicken and Bamboo-Tube Rice

The first time I ate grilled chicken with cơm lam (sticky rice cooked in bamboo tubes) was atTam Nguyên chicken restaurant on the road into Golden Valley, Đà Lạt. The second time was at a roadside drinks stall at the entrance to Dray Nur waterfall, Buôn Ma Thuột. It is a rustic dish, simply prepared, yet it takes real skill to create a flavour you keep missing – and perhaps it must be enjoyed in the middle of nature to become truly irresistible.

EATING IN ĐÀ LẠT

Tam Nguyên serves guests from 10 a.m. to noon. You must book a table a day ahead and transfer a deposit. Once the owners receive it, they confirm your time, and you must arrive on the dot – if you are late… you don’t eat. A meal includes a whole grilled chicken, grilled pork, boiled cabbage, stir-fried luffa and bamboo-tube rice.

Rumours about the “snobbiest” restaurant in Đà Lạt spread by word of mouth. Two friends invited us to try it. The process went like this: book – transfer – set a time – arrive on time – eat and drink rice wine.

The owners are an elderly couple who live slowly by their own rules. They treat guests as friends needing a place to stop and enjoy a meal. There are no staff; the two of them cook, serve and clear up themselves, so they cannot host too many people.

The reason the booking process and mealtime seem so demanding is that bamboo-tube rice takes eight hours in total, including soaking the rice. Good chicken depends on two things: temperature and time. Whether it is one chicken or five, they must use exactly the same amount of charcoal to keep the temperature right. The chicken grills for about three hours so the bones are cooked, the meat is not dry and the skin is crisp. The art of their cooking lies in that rigour.

Food prepared with such care deserves to be savoured with the finest senses and at the perfect moment, when the meat is just cooked and crisp. Arrive early and it isn’t done yet; arrive late and the chicken dries out or has to be re-grilled, losing its flavour.

We arrived, greeted the couple and chose a spot on the wooden floor. The aroma from the kitchen corner made my stomach rumble. I went over to watch the husband grill. The chicken and pork were golden. He worked silently, absorbed, turning the meat with a steady hand. Another group came in and ordered soft drinks. The wife told them, “Drink later – if you drink now you’ll be too full to eat.” The group answered a loud “Yes, ma’am!” I had never seen customers obey an owner like that and burst out laughing.

The moment the food was ready, she brought it out with careful instructions: “Eat the pork with the rice first, dipped in chẩm chéo. Eat half the pork before the chicken, because the chicken stays hot longer. You must eat with your hands! Got it? Only the vegetables are for chopsticks. The rice wine is home-made, with one for men and one for women. When it’s finished, call me. Drink as much as you like. Understood?!” We nodded obediently. A meal both rustic and meticulous, with so many rules – how strange! But since we had been determined enough to book, we were determined to… eat as instructed. The smell of grilled chicken had been teasing me since I stepped in, along with the wonderfully fragrant rice cooked in bamboo.

As we ate, we tore the chicken and peeled the bamboo by hand. Truly, eating rustic grilled food with your hands brings the greatest delight. The heat of the meat spreads across your skin, then through your mouth. The scent of charcoal clings to your fingertips. And eating by hand brings back childhood memories of sneaking freshly cooked food from grandma’s or mum’s kitchen. Every fibre of meat was juicy and sweet, even richer dipped in a sauce of herbs pounded with salt. I have eaten grilled chicken more times than I can count, but this time I couldn’t help gasping at how good it was.

A ROADSIDE STALL IN ĐẮK LẮK

The second time was during a trip to Buôn Ma Thuột, on the way to Dray Nur waterfall. It was around midday, and to avoid visiting the falls in the heat, we stopped at a roadside stall with a sign for grilled chicken and bamboo-tube rice. The simple stall stood in the middle of the woods on a few posts with a tin roof, with a few tables and chairs for eating and some hammocks for resting.

Having already enjoyed faultless grilled chicken and bamboo-tube rice in Đà Lạt, I honestly didn’t expect much from such a humble stall, even though I knew it is a speciality of the Ê Đê people of Đắk Lắk and everyone told me to try it when visiting Buôn Ma Thuột!

Yet the food on the table was many times better than I had imagined. The owners, an Ê Đê couple, cook it the original way, without adapting it to city tastes. The chicken skin was thin and crisp. The meat kept its natural flavour, with no marinade. Free-range chickens have firm meat. The rice is made from fragrant sticky grains, roasted in the fire inside a bamboo tube sealed with banana leaves.

Here, the dipping salt is called “forest salt”, made from forest leaves, insects, chilli and coarse salt. Dabbing a little on my fingertip, I am certain Buôn Ma Thuột’s grilled chicken owes its fame to this salt. Once again we ate a delicious meal with our hands. And during our week in Buôn Ma Thuột, we went back for it three times.

Thinking back on these two memories, I realised this dish loses much of its charm without the setting. Proof is that apart from those two times, I have eaten it many more times at home or in restaurants specialising in local food, and never found it truly delicious. Looking back, both times we enjoyed lunch while gazing at the sky and trees, in a cool breeze, now and then hearing the rustle of nature.

Indeed, the setting plays a vital role in the dining experience and needs to harmonise with the food. When we eat, all our senses – sight, hearing, smell and touch – take part. Eating rustic food in a rustic space, close to nature or steeped in regional culture, enhances its flavour, because food is not just nourishment but part of culture and tradition. Eating grilled chicken and bamboo-tube rice in the midst of nature makes for a truly special and unforgettable culinary experience.

_Published in Quảng Nam Newspaper, April 2025