From a simple dish, the grilled Lui of Mrs. Dinh Thi Chinh has become a specialty of Gia Lai, “fascinating” for both locals and tourists to the mountain town.

Pleiku city (Gia Lai) has always been famous for its attractive specialties. In addition to famous dishes such as dry pho, rice bowl, and crab vermicelli, the popular baked goods of Mrs. Dinh Thi Chinh are associated with the childhood of many people in the mountain town.

In the cold weather, we had the opportunity to visit the famous Ba Chinh restaurant in Pleiku City to enjoy hot and crispy ram skewers. This is considered the first barbecue restaurant in Gia Lai. Ms. Chinh’s shop (122 Cao Ba Quat, Pleiku City) has been open for sale in the mountain town for more than 20 years.

According to Ms. Chinh, in the past, she followed her husband to work as a pig butcher, then she found a new business direction and came up with a grilled dish to open a shop.

At that time, Ms. Chinh gave food to her family members and everyone praised it. In 2002, she started to open a bar that sells grilled pork belly, which many diners come to enjoy.

“When I first opened the shop, I only sold grilled Lui with fish sauce and roasted pork in the morning for students. Every morning, I sold out 5kg of pork with 5kg of vermicelli, and grilled Lui was just a side dish. But because Customers often come to eat, so I have switched to selling grilled meat for 20 years,” Ms. Chinh shared.

Ms. Chinh’s grilled pork belly is eaten by many people in the mountain town every afternoon. Ms. Chinh’s grilled dish is made from rice paper rolls with minced pork and then cooked on a hot coal stove. Each skewer has 4 pieces of ram. When grilling, Mrs. Chinh often holds the whole bunch while baking, and spreads pork fat on the charcoal stove.

Made from simple ingredients only pork and rice paper, but this dish “fascinates” diners because of the taste and crispiness of the baked rice paper layer.

Grilled Lui is delicious because of the crispy taste of the hot ram. Diners often have dinner in the afternoon, especially in the cold weather of the mountain town of Pleiku.

A delicious dish cannot be complete without sweet and sour tamarind dipping sauce. This is a “divine” dipping sauce that is prepared by Ms. Chinh according to her own recipe, which is also the “secret” that makes Ms. Chinh’s baked goods “fascinated” diners. 

“I make it very simply, only tamarind sauce, soy sauce and sugar. When eating, I have to dip the grilled pork belly into the cup and eat it right away. A little bit of dipping is not good,” Ms. Chinh instructs guests to eat to feel the taste. Get the best taste of grilled pork belly.

In addition to grilled Lui , the shop also sells 2 more dishes, which are beef with guise leaves and Banh Cuon. In particular, beef is marinated with 13 “exclusive” spices of the family. In addition, that roll cake is also used with beef leaves to make the filling.

Every day, Ba Sau’s restaurant is open from early afternoon until about 20 pm. Each grilled skewers is only from 1,500 VND / skewers, previously it cost 1,000 VND / skewers. This simple dish makes many young people in the mountain town fascinated. Every day, Ms. Chinh sells nearly 500 skewers, and on holidays, a few thousand grilled skewers.

Ms. Tran Thi Minh Lien (22 years old, residing in Hoi Thuong Ward, Pleiku City) said that she has been eating this dish since she was very young, so far the dish still retains that flavor.

“I really like the feeling of eating hot, crispy pieces and then dipping them in sweet and sour tamarind juice. Although the dish is simple, it contains my whole childhood”, Ms. Lien said.

Mr. Nguyen Van Tuan (27 years old, residing in Tuy Hoa city, Phu Yen province) is a long-time customer of Lui restaurant. Mr. Luan said: “Every time I go to Gia Lai, I stop at Mrs. Chinh’s restaurant to enjoy crispy hot skewers. So every time I go, I usually eat nearly 30 skewers without getting bored.”