Chinese food & Vietnamese Food ? what are the differences ??

Question

A few years ago while in Europe my sister used to cook Vietnamese food, and it was absolutely delicious!!

The dishes are like Chinese food, you know, like vegetables with chicken and beef along with rice.....

BUT the flavor was very different, unique...

do you know why is that? I think it is because of the ingredients of dressings and juices you pour there, or the spices used, but Im not sure really...

Answer 1

I looked this up for you: (The world atlas of food)

Chinese food is heavier and greasier than Vietnamese, and nuoc-mam, the Vietnamese fish sauce, is the salient feature of the cuisine.
ITo make bun-bo - South Vietnamese dish of beef and noodles with cucmber and peanuts.
First prepare all the ingredients: cut 2 pounds of frying steak into strips, crush 3 ounces of roasted peanuts, dice 1 cucmber, finely slice 2 medium-sized onions. Boil 1 pound of rice vermicelli for five minutes. Place the pan under cold running water for a second then drain thoroughly.
Arrange the vermicelli in 6 small bowls and keep hot. Fry the onions in 2 tablespoons of peanut oil until they are golden.. Add the beef and salt and pepper to taste. fry, stirring for a few minutes, until the beef is cooked. Put the diced cucumber over th vermicelli. Arrange the beef and onions over the cucumber and sprinkle a generous layer of crushed peanuts on top. Serve with nuoc-mam.
Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Vietnamese food is a lot healthier for you than Chinese, because, Chinese food (in the US) is mainly fried food, full of grease. Vietnamese food is much more delicate, typically steamed. Vietnamese food has a lot more seafood in the diet, lite on vegetables like bean sprout for example, typically southern vietnamese is rice based, northern cuisine is noodle based. I love the Vietnamese soup called Pho. Also, the spring rolls are not fried like Chinese won tons and Chinese egg rolls. What the vietnamese do is they take a thin rice flour or wheat flour pattie, and dunk it in boiling water and then cool it. They then chop some some fresh crunchy vegetables and take one shrimp or prawn and wrap it in the pattie to make a much healthier spring roll which then can be dipped into several kinds of vietnamese sauces. My favorite Vietnamese sauce is a sweet vinegar hot sauce with fish sauce. It comes hot with tiny bits of finely diced thai pepper and thinkly sliced carrot to garnish for color. The egg rolls are served cold and dipped into the sauce and eaten as an entree or as normal along with other Vietnamese dishes. You should try some Vietnamese recipes and you will see that the food is healthier, a lot less full of fat and grease like Chinese is, and has more vegetables and seafood than Chinese cuisine has.

Answer 3

Their is a fair amount of difference in the spices, combination of foods, and some differences in preparation depending on the dish.

In my experience I have noticed large leaves of herbs being rolled into spring rolls and pork that is grilled and vermicelli noodles that are utilized in many dishes.

To me it kind of feels like a difference between the way two families might have different favorite dishes or different ways to prepare the same type of dish. Fish sauce is commonly used in a lot of dishes as well as having fresh cut vegatables on the side like cucumbers and tomatos and lettuce.

Answer 4

Fish sauce is the main difference... also known as nouc mam (Vietnamese), nam pla (Thai), patis (Filipino)

My college roommates were Vietnamese and they used it to marinade meats and as a seasoning in their cooking.

Answer 5

cat = chinese
dog = vietnamese