Cá Bò Hòm Nướng Muối (Salt-Grilled Boxfish)

A whole boxfish, shell and all, gets packed with salt and chili and sent into the grill; split open once cooked, the flesh inside is firm and springy, oddly reminiscent of chicken. This is a well-known specialty of the central coast — Nha Trang, Phú Yên, Bình Định — nicknamed 'saltwater chicken,' and one of the most talked-about items on the seafood stalls around Chợ Đầm Market.

Chợ Đầm Market: a seafood hub with over a century of history

Chợ Đầm Market is one of Nha Trang's oldest marketplaces, today home to more than 3,000 stalls. State outlet Thanh Niên traced its history in a detailed 2023 feature, 'Đi Tìm Lai Lịch Chợ Đầm Nha Trang,' tracing roots back to the early 20th century and a major rebuild in the early 1970s (an honest caveat: sources disagree on the exact founding year, fire date, and rebuild year, so this piece sticks to the broader early-1970s timeframe rather than repeating an unverified precise date). Salt-grilled boxfish is a common signature dish at the seafood stalls around this market: crack open the fish's armor-like shell once it's grilled and the flesh inside is firm and chewy, best paired with a simple pepper-salt or lime-chili dip.

Important honest warning: a recurring price-gouging problem at floating seafood rafts

This is a real, well-documented consumer-safety issue worth spelling out in full rather than glossing over. Nha Trang Bay's floating seafood platforms (bè hải sản) have made headlines more than once for overcharging tourists on live seafood like cá bò hòm. In May 2025, Vietnamese outlets including Tuổi Trẻ, Thanh Niên, and the official Báo Khánh Hòa điện tử reported that a tourist was billed 3.5 million VND per kilogram — 1.75 million VND for a 0.5 kg fish — at an unlicensed floating raft off Trí Nguyên Island; Khánh Hòa's provincial chairman ordered an urgent investigation, the raft (which turned out to have no food-service license) was shut down, the owner refunded part of the bill, and the province launched a wider inspection of unlicensed floating rafts and the speedboats ferrying tourists out to them. The problem resurfaced in June 2026: at the Ngọc Tâm floating restaurant, a tourist from Hanoi was charged roughly 2.9 million VND per kilogram — 1.16 million VND for a 0.4 kg fish — far above any reasonable rate, according to reporting from Dân Trí and Thanh Niên. After an inspection, the owner was fined more than 20 million VND for three violations: switching business lines without notifying the registration authority, running a food-service operation without a valid safety certificate, and failing to post prices. In short, this isn't a single, isolated scandal — it's a pattern provincial authorities have had to step in on more than once. Strong recommendation: only order cá bò hòm and other live seafood at land-based shops or markets — around Chợ Đầm, for instance — that post clear prices and weigh the catch in front of you; don't let an unlicensed speedboat carry you out to an unmarked floating raft, and always confirm the per-kilogram price and how it's calculated before you order.

A salt-grilled boxfish is one of Nha Trang's genuinely distinctive seafood dishes — but the floating-raft overcharging scandals of 2025 and 2026 are a reminder that checking the scale matters more than anything else before you eat.