Vietnamese pancakes: banh xeo, banh khot and banh cuon

Three quite different dishes reach English menus as Vietnamese pancakes. Two are fried and crisp, one is steamed and soft, and ordering the wrong one is the most common disappointment in this corner of the menu.

What are the three?

Banh xeo, banh khot and banh cuon. They share a category and almost nothing else.

What is banh xeo, exactly?

A large rice-flour pancake cooked in a very hot pan and folded over prawns, sliced pork and bean sprouts. The name means sizzling cake, after the sound the batter makes when it hits the oil. The banh xeo page covers the wrapping, the sauces and what a crepe costs.

The pancake arrives with a plate of lettuce and herbs, and it is not eaten on its own. Tear off a piece, wrap it in a leaf with whatever herbs you like, dip it in nuoc cham, eat it with your hands. Doing it with cutlery works and loses the balance the dish is built on — the herbs page explains what is on that plate.

Why is it yellow?

Turmeric, not egg. The batter is rice flour, water and coconut milk with turmeric for colour, and there is no egg in it at all.

The absence of egg surprises most people and it has a practical consequence. Banh xeo is naturally dairy-free and egg-free, which the allergy guide covers alongside the shellfish that usually is in it.

What about banh khot?

The same idea, made small. A dimpled cast-iron mould with room for about a dozen produces thick little pancakes roughly 5 cm across, each topped with a single prawn, crisp at the edge and soft in the middle.

Banh khot belongs to Vung Tau, about two hours from Saigon, and to the southern coast, and it is eaten exactly like its larger relative: wrapped in a leaf, dipped, eaten by hand. A plate is eight to twelve and is a meal for one person or a starter for two.

And banh cuon?

Not fried at all. The cook steams a thin rice batter on cloth into a sheet, then rolls it around minced pork and wood ear mushroom. It is served barely warm, with fried shallots, sliced cha and nuoc cham.

Banh cuon is a northern breakfast dish, sold in the morning and gone by mid-morning like most of the food in the breakfast guide. Watching it made is worth as much as eating it: the sheet comes off the cloth in one movement.

What do they cost?

Around 30,000 to 60,000 dong for a banh xeo at a local place, and about the same for a plate of banh khot. Banh cuon is cheaper, usually 25,000 to 45,000.

At about 26,000 dong to the dollar that is one to two dollars, which puts all three among the better value dishes in the country. The trip cost guide sets daily eating in context.

Where should you eat them?

Regionally, and this matters more than usual. Banh xeo is southern and central: the version in Ho Chi Minh City is large and thin, while the central version around Hue and Da Nang is smaller and thicker.

Banh khot means Vung Tau. Banh cuon means the north, and specifically breakfast in Hanoi. Ordering any of them outside its home region is how people conclude that Vietnamese pancakes are overrated — the what to eat guide covers which dish belongs where.

Can you eat them vegetarian?

Banh xeo and banh khot both centre on prawn and pork, so the standard versions are out. Chay restaurants make vegetarian banh xeo with mushroom and tofu and it works well, because the pleasure is in the batter and the wrapping rather than the filling.

Banh cuon is harder, since the roll is built around minced pork. The vegetarian guide covers the phrasing that gets you the chay version, and the nuoc cham beside all three is fish-based unless you ask.