noodlepie

Is this the best bun cha shed in Hanoi?

Glad to see ex-Saigon resident and fellow bone chewer Mr. NoStarWhere landing at what is probably my favourite bun cha stall - purely on a taste basis - in all of Vietnam at 20 Ta Hien street in Hanoi's old quarter. In days of yore, before this blog, I catalogued my eating experiences in Hanoi. I tried a lot of street stall bun cha in Hanoi. There are some fantastic stalls on Phung Hung street, Ly Thai Tho and elsewhere. When I next head north (in June I think) I'll blog my top faves in disgustingly lurid detail. Do you have a favourite bun cha in Hanoi? Please let me know, before June... :)

Technorati Tags: bun cha, Hanoi, scofftastic

More north than south

I don't normally blog at the weekend, but noodlegirl is away on business, the toad is snoring, I have no life Good night and Good luck lined up on dodgy DVD and I'm just rebrowsing Friday's lunch and wondering whether going to London next week is such a good idea. Regular stalkers of this gaff will know I rate this dish - bun cha - very highly. In fact it is my numero uno Vietnamisimo. This version is from 42 Tran Quoc Thao street in District 3. This totally packed shack is named after the famous - but utter bollocks - bun cha restaurant up north on Hang Manh street in Hanoi's old quarter. The Saigon shed is imaginatively called Bun Cha Hang Manh Hanoi. Incredible. Who thinks these things up?



I arrive at mid-day. Both downstairs and upstairs are jammed. I'm the only big nose and probably one of the only people in here with a southern Vietnamese accent - hehe - The bun cha is a triumph. Plastic blue chairs and tables have never shone so brightly. At two memorable points during my lunch my thoughts turned to death. Am I dead? Is this my last supper? Did I leave the kettle on? What happens to a blog when a blogger snuffs it? Is there a charitable institution that keeps paying the subs? UDPDATE: Here's one answer to that question.

I tend to get esoteric when looking at bun cha. How about you? The cha gio at this place are total shit - like chewing mulch - but the bun cha. Well you be the judge. I've said enough. I'll be back. More pics. More banter on bun cha - much more than man or beast can chew - here. Right, filmtime.

Non-working lunch

Bun Cha, district 1, Quan Ho Tay, 20B Tran Cao Van street, Saigon, Vietnam. An oldie, but a very goodie. A Hanoi staple in the south. Packed to the fluroscent tubes and beyond this lunchtime.

Technorati Tags: Saigon, Vietnam, Bun cha, bloody good noodles

Meat fire eat good

Lunch 140 Vo Thi Sau Street, District 3, Saigon Watch

Airport grill

If you're headed to the Tan Son Nhat airport to hop on a domestic flight and you're feeling an incey wincey bit peckish there're three options ahead of you.

• Hold out and suffer Vietnam Airlines domestic schedule spam sandwich in a box.
• Or you could stump up between 3 and 4 times the town price for sub-standard crap in the Airport SkyNet cafe. A 333 beer will set you back around 23,000VD. It costs 6,000VD at my corner shop.
• Or stop off somewhere en route and outside airport grounds

Bun Cha Van Anh is one of many restaurant options lining the main road to the airport, Truong Son Street. You'll find it at the corner with Song Day Street. If you're travelling light, like me, you could even walk to the airport from here. Regular noodlepie readers will know that Bun Cha is a northern dish. There seems to be a proliferation of northern restaurants the closer you get to the airport. I have a feeling it's something of a Hanoian's comfort zone away from home.

Within walking distance you'll find Hanoi style Pho shacks, there's an interesting looking Chao luon  specialist tucked just around the corner and I also spied a Banh cuon hole. But I've been meaning to try Van Anh's Bun Cha for donkeys and I only recently made time to stop off. The sixteen tables and plastic chairs were almost full when I arrived

Van Anh serves Bun cha Hanoi and Bun nem cua (Cha gio). Bun cha is everything you see above sans spring rolls (couple chopped up on your left). Bun nem cua is everything minus the bowl of minced pork and fish sauce directly above. If you're interested in knowing more - Google noodlepie - we've covered this dish three times previously.

The shot above and the one below (in my opinion) are the best photos to grace this blog ever. In the UK there's a newspaper called The Sun, every day it publishes a saucy pic of a tasty topless dish on Page 3. Noodlepie doesn't have a Page 3, but if it did, you wouldn't find anything better looking spread across this blog's table than that fine looking pair. The Bun cha above is filled with quality meat, not fatty at all, dunked in a corkin' nuoc mam (fish sauce) and charred faultlessly.

The crab filled Cha gio are better than any I ever had in Hanoi. I felt a bit of hog ordering two, but to be honest I could've stuffed a couple more in. Balls out rockin' topscoff.

The killer condiment is that vat of vinegar and garlic above. A spoon or two of that nectar will have your Bun cha singing soprano with a full backing band as opposed to warbling aimlessly at the rear of the Sunday school choir. There's also a jar of chilli sauce, nuoc mam and a tub of minced red chilli.

At the rear of this fabulous den are a bunch of chefs pounding meat, rolling rolls and washing herbs. That's one of the biggest plates of Cha gio you're ever likely to see and I'll admit for a few seconds I did consider swiping the lot and making a dash for the airport.

However, I fully intend to make a repeat visit here and thieves probably aren't tolerated upon a second visit. The barbie is hidden away in a hole in the wall in the middle of the restaurant. It might not look hot in the shot below, but believe me - there's some fierce heat emanating from that hole.

This is probably the best Bun cha I've found in Saigon so far and it's well worth the trip out for a fix even if you're not airport bound. They have better quality meat, better cha gio and a better sauce than the others. Although the shrubbery is lacking. It's hyper-popular. That little lot, with an iced tea, came to 20,000VD. If you can't be arsed heading in an airporterly direction, I suggest you scoff at 20B Tran Cao Van Street instead.

Back on the Bun Cha

Apologies to regulars, but there's another Bun cha posting coming your way. Noodlepie has a loose eye on finding the best pho in town, but if I was based up in Hanoi I would transfer that focus to the lunchtime dish - Bun cha. "We've heard all this before Pieman, give us something new for chrissakes," I hear my lone reader cry. Tough. It's my favourite Vietnamese dish and it's rare enough in Saigon for me to realistically try the majority of places serving pukka pork balls during my stint here. We've covered the Ly Tu Trong and Tran Cao Van burnt offerings before. Today finds us up the end of one of Saigon's many attractive back passages at 26 Le Thanh Ton Street in District 1. You'll find griller-girl, pictured above, shop front and in charge of charring carcass. The rest of the nosh is rustled up at the back of this narrow diner and the hungry are squashed inbetween on lo-rise tables in tatty discomfort.

Judging by the accents of the staff and the name of the restaurant - Bun Cha Hanoi - this place is like previous Bun cha joints, a dishevelled shack run by Hanoians. Much the same as the Tran Cao Van scoffshed it's popular, very popular. I sat down at 10:45am. By 11:05am every table was full and hungry customers were standing giving the evil eye to those already ensconced. Clearly an early arrival here is advised. The spread above came within 2 or 3 minutes

Here's the main deal closeup. I won't go into the details of it all again, check out this previous posting for that. Maybe I haven't sampled the Hanoi original for too long, but I think this is an authentic southern rendering of the northern classic. The nuoc mam (fish sauce) is slightly sweeter than other Saigonese Bun cha, but you can easily tart it down with the garlic vinegar which you'll find on all fourteen tables at Bun Cha Hanoi. The Su Su, called Chayote in English - as I recently discovered via reader phaocao - cheers;), is thickly cut and constitutes the only chopped vegetable inside the main event. You'll also get a plastic basket brimfull with lettuce, basil, rau muong (stripped morning glory) and beansprouts. Meanwhile, the chefs over on Tran Cao Van Street dish up a better selection with seven different herbs on their tables.

These cha giao (spring rolls) harbour a decent crunch filled with minced pork, mushrooms, but no crabmeat. At least not to my taste buds. Dipped into your nuoc mam they're a gnasher-pleasingly crisp entree. This restaurant, like the other Saigon Bun cha, gives you an extra bowl to eat out of, if you really need it. In Hanoi, there's no extra bowl, you just mash everything into the main event and get stuck in.

If you poke your nose up this back passage you'll also find what looks like a respectable Com binh dan, a couple of drink stalls and a Com trua. Bun Cha Hanoi is located at the very end of this alleyway. The lot above, with an iced tea, will set you back 13,000VD or less than a buck. Bonkers-good bargain I'd say.

Street barbie

Top of Hanoi's gutter grub hit parade and an unfamiliar face on the lunchtime pavements of Saigon is Bun cha. So far I've spotted a paltry eight places serving this northern specialty in Saigon. A large proportion of them are near the airport. Whereas, the bun cha babes of Hanoi are grillin' in the gutters on every available street corner in town. In the soft south I've found only one al fresco barbie and that's at 8 Ly Tu Trong Street in District 1. They've lifted their bun cha out of the gutter with their waist high 'deluxe' barbie unit. You won't find this up north. You won't find a guy grilling up north either, but it's the man's job down south.

I blogged up another Saigon bowl of bun cha some time ago, but a serious bun cha habit isn't easy to break and it's never long before the carnivore in me starts stalking the streets for more charred carcass. This joint on Ly Tu Trong Street has five or six plastic tables on the pavement next a bamboo tree. There's plenty more seating inside. Like the bun cha I blogged up previously, it's massively popular. Packed around 11am (Bun Cha is a lunchtime only dish) mostly with Hanoians looking for northern scoff cooked by northern cooks. There are a few differences between this one and the last one I tried; there's far less variety in the hedgerow department here (lettuce, beansprouts, rau muong (stripped morning glory) and Rau Dap ca (fish mint) - that's yer lot), smaller cha gio (Vietnamese spring rolls) and a much lighter fish sauce.

I've eaten here many times before without complaint, but I found the meatballs were a little 'off' today and needed a higher char factor. I added a spoonful of the garlic vinegar and a couple of the garlic cloves from the pot on the table. The lightness of this bun cha sauce begs for the bollocks the garlic vinegar gives it. The cha gio were slightly disappointing. Large lumps of pork meat are not a fave find inside my spring rolls. It's a crime committed in various other parts of Saigon and I wish it would stop. You'll find better here and here. Bun cha, cha gio, iced tea and a wet napkin set me back just over a buck at 18,000VD.

Bun Cha

Bun cha is a lunchtime only dish, ubiquitous in the north, far rarer in the south. It doesn't sound much -  BBQ minced pork balls in fish sauce with vegetation and cold noodles. Simple - yes. But, miss this dish and you miss out - big time.

I spent years experimenting with different bun cha restaurants in Hanoi until I finally settled on a reliable favourite. In Saigon the last thing I wanted was some poncey southern interpretation of this classic northern dish. Fortunately, I mentioned my dilemma to a Hanoian I bumped into in Saigon. She pointed me in the direction of a busy restaurant called Quan Ho Tay at 20B Tran Cao Van. As with nearly all the best restaurants I have tried in Vietnam, aesthetics are an afterthought. Metal tables, cheap plastic jars filled with condiments and the ice in my drink comes from a huge rectangular block, bought in bulk and hacked at occasionally to procure ice cubes.

There are a couple of 'secrets' to a good Bun cha, most important is the fish sauce. Learning how to gauge the right amount of sugar, vinegar and nuoc mam (fish sauce) is the tricky bit. The line between fish sauce heaven and a big bowl of crap is a fine one. I like mine a little stronger than Quan Ho Tay offered up, but then that's why there's a pot of vinegar with garlic on the table. The other secret is how the meat is grilled. It needs an extremely hot flame and should be charred on both sides. When it is placed in the bowl small flakes of black char fall off and dot the fish sauce. Standard Bun cha comes with small bites of grilled sliced pork. I never order these as they are normally far too gristly for my delicate waistline.

In with the fish sauce are a few finely sliced carrots and sliced susu (Sorry, don't know the English for this veggie). The cold noodles should be added a bit at a time to the fish sauce. Oh...and come to think of it... that's one concession Quan Ho Tay has made to soft southern diners. They give you an extra, empty bowl for mixing and eating from... Pathetic... Just stick with the one bowl, save on table clutter and keep the dishwasher happy;)

The last part of a bun cha lunch is that impressive herb hedge pictured above. There are seven different clippings in among that lot and I don't know the English names of all of them. The stringy one on top is stripped fresh morning glory (rau muong). It gives a great moorish-veggie crunch when eaten in with the meat and the noodles. That is definitely my fave among this pile. There's lettuce (xa lach), basil, (hung cay), a fab purple leaf (tiet to),a green one that's much the same (kinh gioi), a deep green fella often used with fish dishes (giap ca) and a small, strong tasting beast (hung lang). All a bit technical I know - but the waiter very kindly wrote them all down for me - if you know the english names, please post a comment. The sauce is what brings everything together. Personally, I like chopstick or spoonfulls of meat, noodle and herb all in one go. The fish sauce electrifies everything around it.

Bun cha munchers normally order a sidedish of spring rolls (Cha gio in the south, Nem in the north. Same thing, bit bigger in the north, different name. Confusing). These are filled with a dash of crabmeat, minced pork, garlic, herbs, mushrooms, translucent noodles and seasoning. You dip them in the same fish sauce with the pork balls in. Quan Ho Tay's are pretty good, a sound crunch, but not packed with the sea crab chunks of freshness I look for in a spring roll. But, hey I'm not complaining, I'm just happy to know where I can get a Bun cha fix in this city.

Lunch for two, including four spring rolls with a couple of iced Vietnamese teas, 30,000VD. Now that's a bargain. View the business card and the menu. Check out the Quan Ho Tay photostream and  Download bun_cha_movie.mov .