Com Tam has become a famous dish thanks to the great and sophisticated combination with variety toppings by Sai Gon people. It’s easy to see a Com Tam stall with attractive smell on the streets in the morning or at night.
In Vietnamese, ‘tấm’ refers to the broken rice from the top part of grains during the milling process while ‘cơm’ refers to cooked rice.
This dish usually comes with three main components: cooked broken rice, toppings and sweet mixed fish sauce.
Toppings can be divided into two types: main serving items such as grilled pork cho( sườn nướng), shredded pork skin (bì), steamed egg cake (chả trứng), sunny-side-up fried egg (trứng ốp la), etc. and side serving items such as sices of fresh cucumber and tomato, pickles (đồ chua) and sauté green onions with crispy pork fat (mỡ hành tóp mỡ). Vietnamese pork and egg pie to eat with Com Tam is a secret receipt of Vietnamese people. This pork pie is made from pork, wood ear mushroom, jicama and egg. Pork is ground, mushroom and jicama are shredded before being mixed with egg. Then the mix is steamed until it’s well-done, egg yolk is poured into the mold to make the orange layer on the pie. The cook will cut the pie into small pieces to serve with Com Tam.
Number of main serving items will decide the price. You can pick as many as you want to and order extra cooked rice to finish all ordered items. A small bowl of soup with white radish, carrot and chopped green onion and sweet and sour fish sauce dip are also served with a plate of steamed broken rice and topping.
You should use the spoon to get a little of dip and put onto the steamed broken rice before eating. A fork is used to eat the grilled pork chop as well as pork and egg pie. However, you can adjust its amount due to your own taste. When you enjoy a Com Tam dish, you will feel something very Vietnamese and Com Tam is really a perfect mix to make an amazing food.
At the beginning, broken rice was only sold as breakfast, but due to rising demand of customers, now, broken rice is available the whole day. Shops also provide take-away service for busy customers. In Sai Gon, number of night broken rice shops (Cơm tấm đêm) is increasing rapidly with more diverse toppings.
Another famous version of Com Tam is from Long Xuyen City. Main serving items of the mixed combo includes grilled pork chop, stewed egg and shredded pork skin. The big pork chop is cut into long pieces before adding spices then grilling in a charcoal grill. Eggs are hard stewed until turning into attractive color outside and charming flavours inside. If in Sai Gon, grilled pork is served in a big piece chop and stewed egg is cut length into two halves, these serving items of Long Xuyen's style are cut into slices.
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