Tip off: Bun oc

Some nine months ago noodlepie reader Cainieu popped a comment through my door suggesting I swing by 14 or 16 Ky Dong Street in District 3. He (or she) said, "there you find the popular spot for Bun oc. I think it’s tastier than most Bun oc stalls around here in Saigon and it actually attracts loads of southerners apart from their regular northern customers. There are other dishes here like boiling snail and stir-fried snail with green bananas but I suggest you try the Bun rieu oc (that means snail soup with crab-paste)." I never forget a good tip and in a new series - called imaginatively enough Tip off - I'm here for lunch today. The alleyway above is at no. 14 and leads off Ky Dong street.

On the right of the alleyway entrance is a very popular noodle shop I spotted a few weeks back - must check that one out - but today I'm after Cainieu's snails and I walk down the alleyway, past a fine array of shabby lean to joints selling beef, pork and chicken noodle dishes, until I reach a righthand junction at a motorbike mechanic's shop. If you look at the top of the picture above you can just make out the Bun oc sign. We've had it once before elsewhere.

Down this small alleyway is a communal style courtyard with trees, concrete and quiet. Yes I know - quiet in Saigon. How odd. Good odd. I'd forgotten what it's like to sit in a bare bones resto and not suffer motorbike fumes, parping car horns, shouting, grime and crap. Within the courtyard there are no signs out front indicating Thanh Hai restaurant. From my limited experience, this is a very, very good sign. It means everyone i.e. local folk know where it is and what it serves. No need to show off with a big snazzy sign. A quick scan around tells me that it's probably the joint on the right hand side. I ask if this is the snail shack. It is. And we're in.

Mrs. Thanh Hai, who has been selling snails from here since moving to Saigon over twenty years ago, very kindly gives me a tour of her kitchen which is located at the rear of the small, eight tabled restaurant. She repeatedly apologises for the mess, the number of snails lying around in buckets, steamers and basins, the heaps of cleaned greens and the baskets of fresh noodles. Dunno what the hell she's on about - I think this is heaven, although the 40 odd snaps don't really convey that - sorry :)

First up is Oc xao chuoi xanh (Fried snails with green banana) It comes with a wooden stick and chilli/nuoc mam (fish sauce) dip. Scofftastically the freshwater snails - Oc gao - are not at all chewy and the green banana - chuoi xanh - is almost potato like in flavour and texture. The deal is sealed with a handful of a fried purple leaf called tiep to. It's simple. it's no bollocks fayre, unspiced and unrefined and it's bloody great. The texture combination of green nana and snail is unusual and supremely satisfying.

Next up is Bun oc rieu cua  (Freshwater snail/crab noodle soup). We've had several Bun rieu before, but never one quite like this. Take a look at the hedgerow for starters. It looks stunning with those green banana shavings... errr... shaved like that. Blimey. In among that lot are also beansprouts, more tiep to, hung cay (basil) and crunch--a-plenty rau muong (stripped morning glory). The broth comes from one of two large vats in the kitchen and is made predominantly, Mrs. Thanh Hai tells me, from freshwater crabs. She's long since ditched the ancient and secret family recipe handed down and carefully guarded through generations since the Tran dynasty in favour of the more well known Knorr family recipe. Tomatoes are added along with chopped spring onions, fresh vermicelli noodles, crabmeat and the snails.

Now sit back a minute and take a look at that soup.... It's fine, it's very fine stuff. And it's big, it's in a big bowl. It's a big soup. I know I'm going to like this, the place, the host, the soup, the look. After a while eating out in Saigon, you just know when something's right. Mrs. Thanh Hai, not surprsingly, tells me (I think) that she serves the best Bun oc in Saigon. As if to emphasise the point she says she's had customers from Germany and Sweden "and now you"... from Britain. We get bloody everywhere us heathens. I've only tried three or four Bun oc in Saigon and this is up there, it's very up there... No strong flavour, no southern sweetness either, just hearty, yet light, fresh scoff. It's formidable.

She also serves steamed snails among other snail-based dishes. I will be back and I will try everything on the menu and I will blog about it. Here is that menu and the business card. Without a blog and without readers like Cainieu it really doesn't matter if I lived in Saigon for donkeys and searched and searched I doubt I'd ever have found this joint single handed. So big up to Cainieu. Nice one. Keep 'em coming. Each dish costs 7,000VD making lunch, with a hand towel and a cuppa tea, an astonishing £0.54 in old money. More snaps.

Comments

[Sticky]

An any less than two-chew snail is a winner, I reckon. Haven't come across many, I must admit.
I do quite fancy those potatoey 'nanas, too. Do you reckon they are what I've been told are plaintans, which I'd never even heard of before?
There's a bun cha matron in Dong Xuan alley who puts those in a bowl with noodles, tofu, snails and the tom. stock. Fine stuff!

[frequent lurker]

YARRRR MATEY TASTE DA SEA yarrr.. alright earthy, garden greenies, and snail what nature intended for broth

[Mealcentric]

Check out the bun rieu oc seller that hangs out on the alley behind the Rex hotel in district one. Basically on the street that runs between the Rex and the Ben Thahn market, right next to the Rex's spa door entrance. Sorry, dont recall the name but not many sellers on that street except a lady that sells bannana leaf wrapped rice in the mornings.

[Reid]

Hi Noodlepie,

That looks so good. I'm going to have this sometime soon if I can find it on the menu somewhere. I've had the snails by themselves, but never had the snails and crabmeat. That snail with green banana dish looks so good right now....much better than the Vietnamese food I had for dinner tonight. *sigh*

[daniel]

Dude great article. Make me feel like i'm back in this so rural noisy but heavenly country. that just look so delicious! (But snails?!!) How can something that look and hopefully taste so good be so disgusting same time? But I’ll try it next time I’m in Vietnam. Snails. Fox, Snake! Just come out! I’m ready! (OMG I feel sick already).

[Robyn]

Hi pieman. The hedgerow with your bun oc rieu cua is topped with banana stem (the shite stuff) --- stem of the banana tree. It's quite common in the north but seen less often in the south,in my experience. (It's also very commonly eaten in Malaysia and Indonesia and India.) A friend who journeyed down from Hanoi to Saigon to show me how to make bun rieu cua at home actually carried some banana stem with her on the plane -- she said "true" bun rieu simply must have banana stem.

[Robyn]

Um... that's the *white* stuff. Not *shite stuff*. Taste is good.

[saffron]

hi pieman - sounds amazingly fresh and delicious. wish we could get some of this stuff over here in australia.

[pieman]

Hav eyou blogged that Sticky? Don't remember seeing it. Thx Mealcentric - will keep an eye out. Reid, Vietnamese food anywhere outside Vietnam is a pale shadow, in my (admittedly) limited experience. Dont' stress. Thx Robyn. I didn't know it was banana stem. Mrs and you're right, it's very uncommon in the south. I can't remember having ever seen this before anywhere else.

[Ha]

beware of the big ass snails, though. Taste good, yes, but they will make weak stomaches squirm. I almost failed my entrance exam to highschool cause I'd had 5 of them (with ginger fish sauce) the night before.

There's a Viet expression, "as bland as snail broth" (nhat. nhu nuoc oc) that I have to disagree. The broth tastes really good with a bit of ginger and fish sauce.

Once again, have your Pepto Bismol within reach, folks

[DucTran]

Snail soup with vermicelli

(Bun oc)

For: 3-4 persons

Ingredients:

- Vermicelli: 1,500g

- Large snail: 1,000g

- Tomato: 100g

- Vegetable oil: 50g

- Vinegar grounds: 200g

- Vinegar: 0.1 litre

- Tamarind fruit: 3-4 pieces

- Pork bone: 300g

- Fish sauce, salt, spices, dried and greenonion, turmeric, garlic, chilly powder or greenchilly, and spicy legumes.

To prepare:

- Leave the snails in the water used to wash rice overnight to purge.

- Chop off the pointed ends of their shells and put the snails in lime water for about 15 minutes; take them out and remove from their shells. Wash and clean them with salt, then season them with fish sauce, crushed turmeric, fat and some vinegar grounds.

- Heat the fat in a saucepan, fry the well-sliced garlic and dried onion, then add the snails and stir.

- Fry the dried onion in boiling fat, add slices of tomato, some vinegar grounds and boiling water and fried snail sauce to make the snail soup, just enough for 3-4 bowls, then add the tamarind fruit (its hard cover already peeled off) and the spices, and boil for 5-10 minutes. Remove from heat and add well-chopped green onion to the soup.

- Heat the fat, then add dried chilly or chilly powder. Stir regularly and then transfer to a little bowl.

- Now, put some vermicelli, part-boiled in hot water into your bowl, put some snails on it, then pour the snail soup over, complete with fried chilly and spicy legumes. It should be served hot.

[Chau Truong]

Wow, delicious. I wish we have bun rieu in Austin, Tx. Are there any bun rieu restaurants in Austin? Do you know where can I get in Austin, please show me. Thanks.

[huynhminhtri]

very nice of you to post Viet foods .
That make me more hungery !
Bun-Oc , Cha Ca, Pho, ....are my favorite.
Next time , you may check it out in SaiGon .
Those special foods came from HaNoi -the original place .
Check with Quan An Ngon in SaiGon , they may have those foods as above .
Good luck.