Vegetarian in Vietnam, and the fish sauce problem

Eating vegetarian in Vietnam is easier than most travellers expect, and easier to get wrong than they expect too. Both halves come from the same place. The country has a Buddhist vegetarian tradition with its own word, its own restaurants and its own days in the month. It also has a national seasoning made of fermented fish.

Travellers who learn only the first half order a plate of vegetables that arrives dressed in fish sauce. Learning both halves is a matter of one word and one phrase.

What does chay mean, and is it vegan?

Chay means vegetarian, and it comes out of Buddhist practice rather than out of diet culture. A sign reading quan chay or com chay marks a place that serves no meat at all. Most are built around steamed rice with tofu and vegetable dishes. The word does the work of a whole conversation. Read it on a shopfront and you can stop asking questions.

Vegetarian eating here grew out of Buddhist ideas about non-violence, and it is old. Many pagodas cook chay food daily, and small places sitting near one are almost always vegetarian the whole way through, and cheap with it.

Com chay is the everyday form of it: steamed rice with an assortment of tofu and vegetable dishes. People eat it as an ordinary lunch rather than as a statement. Nothing in the room announces itself. The word on the sign already did.

Chay is usually vegan in practice, which surprises people who expect the Western split. A Buddhist kitchen leaves out eggs and dairy as well as meat and fish sauce, and the stricter ones also drop the five pungent vegetables, garlic and onion among them. Ask about egg specifically if a place is a tourist-facing restaurant rather than a chay one.

Which days is vegetarian food everywhere?

The 1st and the 15th of every lunar month — mung mot and ngay ram, the new moon and the full moon. Millions of Vietnamese Buddhists eat no meat on those two days, and vegetarian restaurants fill up accordingly. Kitchens that cook meat the rest of the month put out a chay menu on both. Plan around them and the choice is at its widest.

The dates move against the Gregorian calendar, so a lunar converter beats guessing. Our guide to the best time to visit works in solar months, and the chay days do not line up with any of them.

Ram thang bay, the full moon of the 7th lunar month, is the largest of these by a distance. Vu Lan, observed on the 14th and 15th of that month, turns vegetarian cooking from an option into the main event across the country.

Why is fish sauce the problem the rest of the time?

Nuoc mam, fermented fish sauce, seasons a great deal of Vietnamese cooking, including dishes that arrive looking entirely plant-based. A plate of greens, a bowl of noodles and the sauce next to them can all carry it. Asking for no meat solves half the problem. Asking for chay, or naming the sauce, solves the other half.

Nuoc cham, the dipping sauce that comes beside so much of the food here, is built on fish sauce. Broths are the second trap: a bowl can read as vegetables and noodles and still start from a meat stock.

Vietnamese cooks solved all of this long before any tourist asked them to. Nuoc mam chay — vegetarian fish sauce — exists both as a bottled product and as a house recipe. Buddhist kitchens use it as a matter of course. A quan chay has made every one of these substitutions before you walk in.

What does the chay version of each dish look like?

Almost every staple has a chay twin, and it is usually the same name with chay added to the end. Pho chay swaps the beef broth for a vegetable one, still built on star anise and cinnamon. Com chay does the same for a rice plate. Learning the pattern beats learning a list, because the pattern also works on a menu you have never seen before.

Our guide to what to eat in Vietnam is written around the meat versions of these dishes. Most of it maps across one word at a time, which is a better way to eat than hunting for salads.

What should you say when you order?

Toi an chay means I eat vegetarian. Khong nuoc mam means no fish sauce. The first is the sentence Vietnamese vegetarians use about themselves, not a phrasebook approximation, and it lands as a practice rather than a preference. The second closes the gap the first leaves open in a kitchen that also cooks meat. Written on a phone screen, both work with no pronunciation at all.

Order in a quan chay and neither phrase is needed, because the kitchen has no fish sauce in it. Order anywhere else and both earn their keep.

Vegans need one extra step, and drinks are where a careful day usually comes apart. The default coffee order in Vietnam is made with condensed milk, as our coffee guide sets out. Black is the order to learn alongside the two phrases above.

Where is it easiest to eat vegetarian in Vietnam?

Hue, by a distance. The old imperial capital has the strongest Buddhist vegetarian tradition of any major Vietnamese city, and vegetarian places run along street after street. Ho Chi Minh City carries the largest number of dedicated vegan restaurants.

Anywhere with a working pagoda usually has somewhere cooking chay food nearby. The same Buddhist kitchens are the reliable route for eating with an allergy, because they never had fish sauce in the first place.

Hue took part of its vegetarian technique from the royal court. The cooking there is finer than a tray of rice and tofu suggests. Eating chay in Hue is not a compromise on the local food. Chay is the local food.

Ho Chi Minh City runs the other way, with a modern all-vegan scene: HappyCow's city page lists close to 100 fully vegan places. Between the two, the country covers both ends of the idea.

What is worth remembering before the first meal?

One word, one phrase and one date. Chay on a sign means the whole place is safe. Toi an chay plus khong nuoc mam covers everywhere else. And the 1st and 15th of the lunar month turn ordinary restaurants into vegetarian ones for a day.

Nothing about eating vegetarian in Vietnam requires explaining yourself. The tradition is older than the question, and the vocabulary for it was ready long before you arrived.

If it helps to know what you are asking about, fish sauce in Vietnam explains what nuoc mam is, how it becomes the nuoc cham on your table, and what the chay kitchens use instead.