The Napa Valley of fish sauce Phú Quốc island

I awoke at seven in Rach Gia to catch my five-hour boat to the Island of Phú Quốc. Phú Quốc is where some of the worlds best fish sauce comes from and I intended to see how it was made and made to take a dip on their famous beaches.    My love affair with fish sauce started in 2005 with my first trip to Thailand.  In Thailand they don’t have salt and pepper shakers on the table but small tubs of fish sauce with chili to put over your food.  It is a flavor I have learned to love certainly an acquired taste.  Once you get over the smell you can enjoy the depth that it brings to your food whether it is used as a marinade with pork or chicken or as a dipping sauce to cut the fat on some greasy spring rolls.  This past year I lived in Boston with a large Vietnamese population and when I would go shopping at the local supermarket I would always look for high quality fish sauce but never find any (the sad thing is that most Americans consume Thai fish which is mass produced and really uninteresting on palate.  It has only one note, salty, not what the real product can offer).   Only in the last year have I noticed a fish sauce that is worthy of mention.  

 Red Boat fish sauce comes from the island of Phú Quốc and is a first pressing.  Just like olive oil the first pressing is usually the best with the cleanest taste with more complex flavor.  On subsequent extractions, which most of us consume, they have reloaded the vats with more salt and put big rocks on top to extract the same anchovies again, creating just a salty product.  Like any product on the shelves today, science is playing a part.  Producers have started to use non-lethal chemicals to extract even more from the fish faster with some techniques that value quantity of quality.  Red Boat has taken the opposite approach and gone the extra mile to bottle a product that is superior and with much more flavor.  Look for it the next time your in an Asian supermarket.  It is a more expensive product so many store owners have not started selling it, but if people mention Red Boat by name there is greater chance that we will see it on our shelves in the future and thus enjoy fish sauce in its true form instead of it just being a salty condiment.  

Pork with cabbage and a quail egg

My fish sauce fascination lead me to the “Napa valley of fish sauce” to see what I could find.  The island of Phú Quốc is still an island that is in the process of being discovered.  There are large parts of the island that are still dirt roads and very difficult to pass on motorbike or car. Phú Quốc is also experiencing the same problems that Malibu or other Californian coastal communities are having, the privatization of public land.  The main beach on the island is called long beach.  It is a nice beach with white sand and blue waters.  The largest concentration of hotels, resorts and bungalows are here.  Like Malibu, the entire beach has been cut off from the rest of the island making it de facto privatized.  I had to trespass through a hotel to even go swimming.  Not the greatest introduction to the island.  

The next day I rented a motorbike which is what all should do on Phú Quốc.  To experience this island and see the untouched beaches it is a must.  This day I choose to explore the northern beaches.  It is easy to ride your motorbike 5 minutes out of the main town of Dương Đông and be in someone’s front yard.  The roads leading out of the city change into dirt roads, sand and patches of farm land very quickly.  It can really throw you when you are driving and suddenly don’t know where to go because the drive has become sand.  I got so turned around that at one point some nice children took pity on me and lead me through their cow pasture and opened up a gate and took me down another trail to a large main road.  Who knows what would have happened if they hadn’t stepped in.

This is a military island; there are four or five major bases on the island (this had been disputed territory with Cambodia and you can see Cambodian islands from certain vistas on the north-west coast).  These bases have meant that certain parts of the island have major roadways that are new and well paved (for transport of troops and weapons), it is a strange juxtaposition to come from a trail of sand onto a four lane road that would not look out of place as a interstate highway.

Bai Dai beach north west of the main town

Turtle island in the distance

I continued north exchanging new roadways with washed out red dirt until I got to my favorite beach on the Island.  Bai Dai is in the northern tip of the island in an area that the military in the last couple of years have eased their grip on and is now traversable by tourists.  I love to find beaches where you are the only one about.  They are becoming harder and harder to find but this island has plenty of them and as you can see from the pictures the scene is quite idyllic.  This day I rode my motorbike almost 25 miles exploring the many beaches and generally just getting happily lost.  

This is an example of the kind of roads I rode on

The next day I rented the bike again to explore the southern part of the island but before I could explore I had to see the fish sauce factory.  Fish sauce is an ancient art and its process is just as archaic.  Small anchovies are loaded into a gigantic vat with a spout attached to the bottom.  Salt is layered into the vats with more anchovies being placed on top to create layers of fish and salt.  Through the power of gravity and osmosis a liquid is created.  Making fish sauce is a simple process that creates a complex flavor.   

There is not much else to report except the smell of tons of fermenting fish in a concentrated space does leave your nose tingling. I walked around the factory and discovered the room where they store specimens from past years and compare them for quality control.   

The color variation is so hard to see but there is a difference

I hope that you can see the difference in colors between first pressing and the second and third.  The difference is not huge but the flavor is.   There is also a variance in the years where there was more salinity in the vats or less and that yielded a different strength and color. I was happy to have gone to the factory but I like my fish sauce in smaller amounts.     

After a quick breakfast next to the factory of coffee and decaying fish smells I was off to discover the southern part of the island, but it instead it turned into a day of monsoon like rains and lots of stopping and starting. 

I always go to the markets in the towns I visit to see the regional differences, plus there is usually good pickens for you to graze on.   

Readymade lemongrass, garlic, chili and turmeric

These chickens will be killed for you as you watch

The market on Phú Quốc was quite lively and really had some interesting things to see.  When walking through these markets it makes me wish I had a kitchen to take some of these foods back to and cook them.  The freshness and verdant quality of the greens does make you miss a kitchen.  

Quail eggs in a bit of vinegar and chili

Phuc Quos Island is a place on the cusp of being totally discovered.  Gladly the touristy places are still concentrated in one area leaving a lot of the island quiet and rarely visited.  If you are looking for that classic island getaway you can get it here.  That is if you brave the roads and rent a motorbike.  

My trusty steed