EAT
Restaurants abound in Cua Lo Beach (the Vietnamese love to eat). The beachside restaurants serve up a vast array of seafood specialties and provide outdoor and indoor dining. The town itself is chock-full of dining options, including the popular street-food stalls and curbside barbeques. Food in Cua Lo is inexpensive, and the variety, freshness and taste are incomparable.
If you’re fortunate enough to be invited to dine at the home of a local (and it happens—food is friendship in Viet Nam) be prepared to sit on bamboo mats laid out on marble floors. Be hungry and prepared to drink. The Vietnamese are as fond of sharing their “wine” as they are of sharing their food. And don’t be surprised, if while dining out, a neighboring table of locals salutes you with a toast.
Since the Nghe An Province is famous for its spicy fare (lots of garlic, ginger, lemongrass, red peppers et al), dishes are piquant and savory. Viet Nam is also famous for its wide variety of exotic fruits and vegetables—they’re fresh in Cua Lo and included in most meals—such delightful medleys. The seafood comes right out of the ocean, ponds and streams. While the pork, beef, goat, chicken and duck come straight from local farms.
No matter your taste or dietary inclinations (be it vegan, vegetarian or all others) Cua Lo Beach offers a plethora of palate pleasing cuisine—on the cheap!
