VIETNAMESE RICE PANCAKES

Ever tried Vietnamese rice pancakes?  I did and had fun eating eat.  Last Friday, Lai Yoong and I decided to dine at a Vietnamese restaurant that we had gone to once.  We liked the food the last time and was going to try more dishes from this South East Asian country.  

The special dish recommended by the owner was Vietnamese rice pancake.  In the above picture you can see the rice wraps which are paper thin, dry and translucent rice wafers.  Before using them to wrap the omelette that was used as the fillings, one needs to wet each piece with water until soft and foldable. No cooking!

Here you have the Vietnamese waiter demonstrating how to eat the rice pancakes.  The fillings that went with the rice cake was an omelette filled with shredded carrots, bean sprouts and prawns.  The waiter added water to the dry rice pancake with cool water until  the whole surface was dampened on both sides. He waited for a minute or two for the pancake to become soft and foldable.   As the rice pancake is a flat circle, one needs to fill a third of it with the fillings. Then, roll the pancake like a popiah (something like a burrito from one end, folding in the sides as you go). The sticky and stretchy consistency of the wet rice will help seal in the filling.

The wrap is served immediately with a special sweet and sourish sauce.  Very Yummy!  The dish costs RM12.90.  Very reasonable.