Hoi An Chicken Rice: Origins, How It Is Made, Ba Buoi

What is Hoi An chicken rice

Com ga Hoi An is the plate you meet once you tire of cao lau and Mi Quang: rice, chicken and herbs, with nothing else to hide behind. By the sources’ account it is plain rice, boiled chicken and fresh herbs. The rice takes its colour and flavour from the pot. It is cooked in chicken broth tinted with turmeric, which leaves it golden and loose.

Tuoi Tre calls its character savoury and lightly spicy, unlike chicken rice anywhere else. The same paper says it has become a distinctive part of the food culture of Hoi An, alongside cao lau. For that other dish of the town, see Cao Lau.

Where it comes from

No one has pinned down a date. The dish took shape and spread from around the 1950s, and the Ba Buoi name has been in Hoi An since that decade. A travel blog, MIA.vn, gives 1955 for the first stall; treat that as a single-source detail.

The chicken has a story of its own. Tam Ky is known for good chicken, and Hoi An cooks used it with their own technique to make a plate with the flavour of the old town. In the early days the rice was sold by vendors in the lanes, and dedicated shops came later.

Ba Buoi herself began as a vendor in the market. The family moved to 22 Phan Chu Trinh to make life easier. After she died, her daughter Hanh took over and kept the family recipe.

How the rice and chicken are made

Start with the bird. The chicken is a free-range hen that has laid one clutch, so the meat stays firm and chewy. Tuoi Tre adds that wood-fired cooking is common and leaves a crisp, fragrant scorched layer at the bottom of the pot.

The chicken is poached just long enough to avoid going soft or tough, then lifted out, cooled and boned. The bones go back into the stock to deepen it. VietnamPlus, summarising a South China Morning Post piece, adds ginger and shallot to the poaching liquid and says the chicken is cooled and shredded.

The rice is soaked in turmeric, washed, and cooked in that stock with chicken fat. A few pandan leaves in the pot add fragrance.

How it is eaten

A shop will usually lay shredded chicken straight onto the rice, with Tra Que herbs on the side and little dishes of chilli sauce, fish sauce and soy sauce. The herbs come from the nearby Tra Que vegetable village. At the table, add chilli sauce and mix so everything blends.

Hoi An’s chilli sauce is thick, close to jam, which SCMP’s writer contrasts with the runnier fresh chilli sauce used with Singapore or Malaysian chicken rice. For more on that sauce, see Hoi An chilli sauce. The same writer calls the dish similar to Hainanese chicken rice but fresher and richer in flavour.

If you are hungry, you can add a chopped drumstick or a plate of shredded chicken (ga xe phay).

Hoi An and Tam Ky versions

Quang Nam has two towns people connect with chicken rice. The accounts below describe each on its own and do not compare them.

Tam Ky: the cook picks free-range local chickens raised in Tam Ky, since only that bird gives soft, fragrant, fatty meat. Boiled, Tam Ky chicken turns yellow. The rice can be plain or fried, and the chicken is usually presented as a drumstick or wing.

Hoi An: golden turmeric rice under shredded chicken, with Tra Que herbs and thick chilli sauce.

Both rely on free-range chicken, and both are Quang Nam dishes. How they differ on the tongue is for you to taste.

Shops with a source behind them

Ba Buoi is the best documented. The shop is at 22 Phan Chu Trinh, Hoi An. In 2014 VnExpress said it opened from 10:30 a.m. to about 8 p.m., so check current hours before you go.

A second shop, Com ga Ba Minh Hoi An, is at 20-22 Dao Duy Tu and 158 Ly Thuong Kiet. In Tam Ky, Com ga Tan Duyen is at 256 Trung Nu Vuong Street. Price and hours for these two are not confirmed, so ask before you go.

The rest of Hoi An, and its old town, are in Hoi An Ancient Town.

Price

Prices at Ba Buoi, each as of its source date:

• As of December 2014: a portion cost VND 35,000.
• As of the end of 2025: shredded or sliced chicken rice was listed at VND 55,000 a plate.

The 2025 list is marked as a guide that may change. Plan on the higher figure, and ask before ordering extra chicken.

Where it sits among Hoi An’s dishes

Cao lau and Mi Quang are noodle dishes, and chicken rice is the rice dish of the same streets. For the noodles, see Cao Lau and Mi Quang.

Photos (2)

• Taikhuong04, CC BY-SA 4.0 (opens in a new tab)
• Đông Sơn, CC BY-SA 3.0 (opens in a new tab)