A new record for a specialty pancake is expected to be set at a flower festival held to embrace the coming Lunar New Year in Ho Chi Minh City next week.

A “banh xeo” will be made of a prepared flour mix by Intermix, a joint venture between local firm Dai Phong and its Japanese partners Showa Sangyo Group and Itochu Corporation, at the opening of the Binh Dien Spring Flower Festival on Thursday next week so that it will be certified as the largest of its kind in Vietnam. 

“Banh xeo” (Vietnamese pancake) is one of the hallmark delicacies of the southern region.

The spring flower festival, launched for the first time in 2013, will run at the Binh Dien wholesale market in District 8 from February 12 to 15.

The festival will feature scores of flower varieties as well as the process to make the “banh xeo.”

Participants will also have a free portion of the cake.

Intermix unveiled a “prototype” of the “banh xeo” on Tuesday, according to newswire Vietnamplus.

The huge “banh xeo,” which measures 1.9 meters in diameter and weighs 10 kilograms, was cooked on a 35-kilogram aluminum pan.  

The cake’s fillings and toppings include pork, shrimp, minced duck meat, mushrooms, vegetable seedlings, carrots, bean sprouts, mung beans, and spring onions.

Ho Chi Minh City is set to organize 128 Tet flower markets when the Lunar New Year is drawing near, including major events at Go Vap District’s Gia Dinh Park, and 23/9, Le Van Tam and Tao Dan Parks in District 1.

Most of these markets will be opened on Wednesday next week to tap into local demand for tubs of flowers to display around homes and make votive ancestral offerings during Tet, the Vietnamese term for the Lunar New Year.

Tet falls on February 19 this year, with festive preparations beginning around one week before the date and the celebratory atmosphere lingering another week after that. 

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