Nong Phu – Fried Rice Ball with Spicy Garlic Flavor (CƠM CHÁY VIÊN MẮM TỎI ỚT)

Bitter: ⭐⭐✰✰✰

Salty: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✰

Sour/Tangy: ⭐✰✰✰✰

Sweet: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰

Umami: ⭐⭐⭐✰✰

Heat: ⭐✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰

Quick Flavor Notes: Garlic, onion, fish sauce

Recommended: Yes

Texture: Crunchy with lots of crispy garlic bits

Ingredients: Rice (85%), fried garlic (4%), fried onion, sugar, fish sauce, malt, vegetable oil, chili, flavor enhancer INS (621)

This is something I stumbled upon in a Vietnamese grocery store that looked interesting enough for me to pick up. Vietnam has a long history of creative uses of rice so I thought that if any culture was going to make rice-based snack tasty it would be Vietnam. Nong Phu, the maker of these, also seems to make a variety of other both savory and sweet Vietnamese snacks, and is subtitled “Vietnamese Farmer’s Brand” on the lid.

When it comes to ingredients this is fairly clean and primarily rice and garlic. Fried onion, chili, and fish sauce also add flavor. Vietnam is either first or second in the world in terms of fish sauce consumption depending on the year and how its calculated (trading places with Thailand). Fish sauce is made by fermenting anchovies with salt in large barrels for up to several years and then filtering off the amino-acid rich liquid that develops. Full of umami like other fermented things fish sauce also has a distinctly fishy flavor. Malt and sugar provide sweetness here and there’s also the mystery of “flavor enhancer INS (621)” which a quick google search reveals is MSG.

Anyone who was around in the ’90s probably recalls the Quaker Rice Cakes (I’m not entirely sure if they’re sold anymore). During her occasional diet fads my mother would stock the cabinets with them where they would sit until they went bad because they were uniformly awful in both flavor and texture. Thankfully the Vietnamese seem to know how to do things right because these are crispy and crunchy and don’t have that squeaky cardboardy texture those Quaker rice cakes had. The tub these come in is also loaded with a lot of fried onion and garlic bits which amp the flavor up if you can scoop a bunch up with a ball. The balls themselves do have a nice garlicky and oniony flavor as well as an umami depth. However if eaten without the crispy garlic and onion bits the fish sauce flavor is a bit too forward for me, primarily coming in as a fishy aftertaste. With enough fried garlic however they’re very balanced. In terms of heat Vietnam doesn’t have the reputation for spicy food that its southeast Asian neighbors have, and while there is some chile pepper flavor in these, the heat is rather minimal. Even without much heat however they’re addictively tasty.

I’ll happily recommend Nong Phu Fried Rice Ball with Spicy Garlic Flavor, or as it’s called in Vietnamese, CƠM CHÁY VIÊN MẮM TỎI ỚT. They’re a nice change of pace from chips or nuts and have a uniquely Vietnamese flavor profile with the blend of garlic, onion, and fish sauce. If you happen to find these in your local Asian grocery store pick them up.