Gỏi Cuốn

Gỏi cuốn are translucent rice-paper rolls wrapped cold around rice vermicelli, boiled shrimp and pork, lettuce and fresh herbs, served with a peanut-hoisin or fish-sauce-based dip. The name means "salad rolls," and the distinction from a fried spring roll is the whole point: nothing inside is cooked after the wrapping, so what a guest bites into is crunch and herb rather than crust and oil.

What it really is

A sheet of dried rice paper is briefly dipped in warm water until pliable, then laid flat and loaded with a small bundle of rice vermicelli, a few slices of boiled pork belly, two or three halved shrimp arranged so they show pink through the wrapper, lettuce, mint and garlic chives left long enough to poke out one end. Rolled tight and cut in half, it goes to the table with a dipping sauce on the side — peanut and hoisin in most restaurants outside Vietnam, a lime-and-fish-sauce nước chấm more often within it.

The shrimp facing outward through the wrapper is a deliberate piece of plating, not a coincidence. Cooks arrange it that way specifically so the colour shows through the translucent rice paper before the roll is cut — it's how a guest recognises the dish on sight, long before tasting it.

How it's served

• Cold, cut in half on the diagonal, dipping sauce served separately, never poured over.
• Two dipping sauces are common: peanut-hoisin (sweeter, thicker) or nước chấm (fish sauce, lime, chilli, sharper).
• As a starter or light shared plate, always eaten by hand or with chopsticks for balance, not cutlery.

How to write it on the menu

• Say which dipping sauce comes with it — peanut and fish-sauce versions taste very different and guests may have a preference.
• Flag shellfish and peanuts clearly; both sit right at the surface of a translucent wrapper, but a guest with an allergy still needs it stated.
• A tofu version, swapping in fried or fresh tofu for the shrimp and pork, is a straightforward vegetarian listing.