The Dien Khanh version of banh uot is served one freshly steamed sheet per small plate, with scallion oil, floss and fish sauce, and the empty plates stack up in front of you. The street known for it is on National Route 1A in Phu Khanh Trung, 10 km west of Nha Trang. It is a breakfast dish; go early and eat it before walking the citadel.
Bánh ướt in Diên Khánh is worth the ten kilometres for the way it is served rather than for what it is. One paper-thin rice sheet is steamed while you sit there and put in front of you on its own small plate with scallion oil, a pinch of shrimp or pork floss and fish sauce; you eat it, the next plate arrives, and the empty plates stack up until you say stop. Ten plates is a normal sitting, which is why the local name is bánh ướt chồng đĩa, stacked-plate bánh ướt.
It is a breakfast. The street known for it is the strip of eateries along National Route 1A in Phú Khánh Trung, on the way into the citadel town, 10 km west of Nha Trang. Go before eight, then walk the citadel while it is still cool.
Bánh ướt is a sheet of rice batter steamed on cloth stretched over a pot, lifted off with a stick and served soft, which is what the name means: wet cake. It is eaten in some form all over the country, and in Nha Trang it usually comes as a plate of several sheets folded together under fried shallot, with slices of chả (fish cake or pork sausage) and a bowl of fish sauce on the side. A filling plate, and a slightly anonymous one.
The Diên Khánh version changes one thing, and it changes everything. Each sheet is steamed to order and served alone, hot, the moment it comes off the cloth, with scallion oil and chà bông or ruốc, the pork or shrimp floss, on top. You eat it in three or four bites while the next one steams. Because the sheets come one at a time, none of them has had a chance to cool and stick to its neighbour, and the meal becomes a rhythm rather than a plate: eat, stack, wait, eat.
The empty plates are the bill. Nobody writes anything down; when you are done, the pile is counted. I have not found a written source for that, so take it as what I have seen at the tables I have sat at, but it is the whole logic of serving the dish this way.
On National Route 1A in Phú Khánh Trung, a village on the Nha Trang side of Diên Khánh town, which is 10 km west of the city along đường 23 tháng 10; the road changes its name to the highway and the shops are on it, a run of small open-fronted eateries with steamers at the front. The SGTourism write-up of November 2024 names the street and not the shops, and I am going to follow it, because the eatery I use is a family front room with no sign I could point you to, and the one you find will be as good. Choose the one with the most motorbikes outside at seven in the morning. That method has not failed me here.
I have not verified opening hours for any of them. They are breakfast places; the steamers are going early, and my experience is that by mid-morning the choice narrows. If you come in the afternoon, expect to be disappointed, or to be eating something else.
The sister guide’s 2026 research gives 2,000 to 20,000 VND a plate depending on how the shop counts, with a serving most commonly 15,000 to 20,000 VND. In practice the price of a single plate is small and the total is however many plates you stacked. It cost less than I expected the first time and it still does; I have not kept the receipts and I am not going to invent a figure.
| Where | Address | Note |
|---|---|---|
| The bánh ướt street, Diên Khánh | National Route 1A, Phú Khánh Trung, 10 km west of Nha Trang | The original; one plate at a time |
| Bánh ướt Diên Khánh 16A | 16A Hồng Lĩnh, Phước Hòa, Nha Trang | Named for the town; one of the city’s best-known addresses |
| Bánh ướt cô Hà | 716 đường 23 tháng 10, Vĩnh Thạnh, Nha Trang | On the road out towards Diên Khánh |
| Quán Bình Minh | 139 Ngô Gia Tự, Tân Lập, Nha Trang | Central; the one I send people to who will not leave the city |
The three Nha Trang addresses are from the same November 2024 source, and I have not confirmed their hours. Ward names changed in July 2025 and the shop signs mostly have not, so use the street and the number.
Sit down and it starts; you rarely need to order, because there is one thing. The plate comes with the sheet already dressed. Spoon fish sauce over it or dip, add chilli if the pot is there, fold the sheet with chopsticks and eat. The floss gives it salt and texture, the scallion oil gives it fat, and the sheet itself tastes of rice and steam and not much else, which is the point. Some shops put out a plate of herbs and bean sprouts; some do not.
The two words are thêm, more, and thôi, enough. You will not need the first, because the plates keep coming until you say the second. Stop one plate before you think you should; a sheet is small and ten of them is not.
Field note: the stack tells you the pace of the place. Tall stacks in front of the builders at the next table mean the steamers are hot and the sheets are coming fast; a slow stack is a slow morning. Both are fine.
The town is the point. Eat at seven, then ride the last stretch to the citadel and walk the four gates before the sun gets onto the ramparts; the restoration there is meant to finish by 31 October 2026, and my notes on what is open are in an afternoon at the Dien Khanh citadel. Diên Khánh is also known for bún cá, the fish noodle soup, if one breakfast is not enough.
It belongs to a small set of dishes in this province that are better in the town they are named for, and the other one is nem nướng, about which I make the same argument in nem nuong in its home town. If you would rather stay in the city, the coffee that goes with a stacked-plate breakfast is in Nha Trang coffee mornings, and the wider picture of what to eat in the city is on the Nha Trang Guide food page.
Do not do it the other way round. Bánh ướt in the afternoon, when I once tried it in the city, came as a plate of sheets that had been waiting, which is exactly what the Diên Khánh way of serving it exists to prevent.
Stacked-plate bánh ướt: each thin steamed rice sheet is served alone on a small plate with scallion oil, shrimp or pork floss and fish sauce, and the empty plates pile up as you eat. It is the Dien Khanh way of serving the dish, and ten plates is a normal sitting.
A strip of small eateries along National Route 1A in Phu Khanh Trung, on the Nha Trang side of Dien Khanh town, 10 km west of the city along duong 23 thang 10. The published source names the street, not the shops; pick the busiest one.
The 2026 research I rely on gives 2,000 to 20,000 VND a plate depending on how the shop counts, with a serving most commonly 15,000 to 20,000 VND. The bill is the number of empty plates in your stack.
Morning. It is a breakfast dish and the steamers are going early. I have not verified the hours of any shop on the street, and my experience is that the choice narrows by mid-morning.
Yes. A November 2024 source names Banh uot Dien Khanh 16A at 16A Hong Linh, Banh uot co Ha at 716 duong 23 thang 10 and Quan Binh Minh at 139 Ngo Gia Tu. I have not confirmed their hours.
Read on 15 September 2026. Prices, hours and rules change; these are the pages the figures came from.
Dien Khanh's citadel is a 1793 Vauban-style fort ten kilometres west of Nha Trang, with four of its six gates standing on the town's streets. In September 2026 the restoration begun in early 2025 was about 75 percent done and due to finish by 31 October 2026, so expect works. I have never found a fee or opening hours.
Nem nuong, grilled pork on bamboo skewers rolled in rice paper with herbs and a thick sauce, is named for Ninh Hoa, 33 km north of Nha Trang. No source I found documents a recipe difference between town and city; the reason to eat it in Ninh Hoa is the small family shops at local prices. Quan Nem Ba Nam at 142 Nguyen Thi Ngoc Oanh is the address I can give.
Mango in April and May in Cam Lam, durian in late July and August in Khanh Son, grapes in three crops around Phan Rang with the sweetest in August and September, green apples from March to May, pomelo from late July in Khanh Vinh. October to December is the gap. The table has the months, the sections have where I buy and what a sourced price looked like.
Vietnam's only grape country is worth seeing: trellised rows in the driest corner of the country, with fruit that is sweetest in August and September. The wine sold in the gardens is a farm product made from table grapes, sweet and closer to a cordial; buy grapes, raisins and the green apple instead. Thai An is free to walk, 07:00 to 18:00.
