Cao Lau

I feel guilty for having long been idle. Here's a post I did a while back. Hoping to tie you over until my visit to Los Angeles next week!

In the central province of Quang Nam lies a sleepy riverside town by the name of Hoi An. It is home to my mother’s childhood and one of Viet-Nam’s best unknown delicacies: cao lau. When translated to English, ‘cao lau’ literally means high stairs or stories. Cao lau has a certain regal tone to it, perhaps attributed to Hoi An’s ancient history of once having been the Indianized Kingdom of Champa. 

The dish of cao lau consists of noodles, pork, greens, and only enough sauce for taste. What makes cao lau so distinctive from other Viet-Namese noodle dishes is the noodles itself. Rumored to be made with water from an ancient Cham well just outside of town, these noodles can only be acquired in Hoi An. 

I call this dish a delicacy, because in fact, it is. On the rare occasion that I am on a visit to Hoi An, I recall of only a few shops that specialize in serving the dish. Here in America, those whom I talk to have never even heard of it. Once in a while when my aunts take a trip to Hoi An, they kindly bring back a small box of these noodles and thus we rejoice with my mother making cao lau for a few exceptional members of the family. We tend to keep it under wraps, because there’s never enough to go around!