Some readers and an Indian chef have told Tuoi Tre that the variety of rice a reader suspected contained rubber because it seemed strangely elastic is actually basmati, a very popular variety in India and Pakistan.

Srama, an Indian chef at the Halal @Saigon restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1, checked the grain and confirmed the fact for Tuoi Tre.

The even size of the rice and the toughness which cause the suspicion it contains plastic actually stem from a careful selection and drying process, he said.

It must be cooked differently from Vietnamese rice, he explained.

Basmati, prized for its fragrance and delicate flavor, means "the fragrant one" in Sanskrit.

Its grains are longer than most other types, and when cooked are free flowing rather than sticky.

The reader who handed Tuoi Tre a sample of the rice said she bought a kilogram for VND10,500 from a hawker. In India, the many varieties start at around a dollar, or VND21,000.

“The rice is slim and ivory colored. There were no broken grains,” she said.

“The cooked rice grains could not be crushed … and after I pressed them with my fingers, they rebounded elastically as if made of rubber.”

The rice baffled Dao Quang Hung, an official in the Department of Horticulture, who said: “This rice looks very strange. I have never seen it before. However, we need to perform some physical and chemical analyses on the rice before concluding if it is adulterated."

Source: Tuoi Tre