Located on a sidewalk corner of Quang Trung Street (Nam Dinh City), the grilled chicken feet restaurant owned by Mr. Nguyen Thanh Binh is only open from 4pm to 10pm but is always crowded with customers.
The special thing is that the chicken feet at this restaurant are grilled completely by hand, without using a fan to fan the fire. Everything is grilled by Mr. Binh by hand. Mr. Binh's two hands work continuously, in coordination, his left hand flips the grill, his right hand fanning.
"I have to manually fan the fire to make it even, the fire must be moderate so that the chicken feet are nicely golden brown on the outside and flavorful on the inside. Before, I tried using a fan, but the outside burned easily and the inside was not cooked, so I stopped using it," said Mr. Binh.
Similar to the usual way of making grilled food, the restaurant's marinades are made from common and easy-to-find ingredients such as ginger, MSG, seasoning powder, honey, oyster sauce, etc.
To enjoy food at Mr. Binh's restaurant, on average, customers have to wait 30 minutes. On weekends or when the weather is cold, customers have to wait up to an hour. Ms. Hoang Thi Dung (Nam Dinh City) said: "Since I found out about the restaurant, whenever the weather is cold, my whole family goes to line up to eat grilled chicken feet. The chicken feet here are fresh and delicious, the spices are just right, not too strong. My family of 4 people usually order a plate of grilled chicken feet for 70,000 VND/4 pieces and order other dishes. Even though we have to wait so long, we, the people of Nam Dinh, still come here to enjoy this handmade grilled chicken feet dish."
Sharing more about the secret to keeping the restaurant in operation for nearly 30 years and becoming a familiar restaurant when mentioning Nam Dinh cuisine, Mr. Binh confided: "In addition to the marinating recipe and manual grilling method, I have to focus on choosing fresh ingredients for the day. Although my family has a connection, every 3am someone will go to the market to choose ingredients and adjust the amount of goods to sell for the day. Every night, my restaurant sells about 400 chicken feet, more on cold days."
In addition to grilled chicken feet, the restaurant also has 5 other dishes: grilled chicken feet, grilled chicken wings, grilled pork ribs, grilled stomach and grilled banh mi with honey butter.
