Kuy Teav - International Variants

International Variants

As both Thailand and Vietnam have large ethnic Khmer populations (over a million people each), in addition to the common thread of centuries of Chinese migration, this dish is also popular in neighbouring countries, as well as countries that have a large expatriate Khmer population. At Cambodian restaurants in France, the U.S. and Australia, kuy teav is considered a staple. The Phnom Penh version of kuy teav (called kuy teav Phnom Penh in Khmer and hủ tiếu Nam Vang in Vietnamese) is hugely popular in southern Vietnam, having been introduced to Vietnam some time during the 1960s (while the original basic version of kuy teav was probably introduced much earlier). For a long time, the most common form of kuy teav/hủ tiếu contained only slices of roast pork for protein and no seafoods—only a few restaurants specialized in hủ tiếu Nam Vang in its original form, which also included liver, intestine, tongue and ground pork. However, over time, Vietnamese restaurateurs started adding shrimp and crab to the basic pork hủ tiếu, thus blurring the line with hủ tiếu Nam Vang. Hủ tiếu Mỹ Tho, another version of the basic pork hủ tiếu, is popular in Mỹ Tho. This version contains one or more slices of boiled pork hind leg, including the skin, and the noodle is always the chewy glass noodle as opposed to the rice noodle.