It’s been more than a year since the the onset of the COVID pandemic, business travel remains blocked. Followed by periods of neglect. Dormancy. Slackness. Call it what you will. But the capital of Vietnam still has some life. There’re still stories to tell, observations to make and, clearly, plenty of street food to devour in Hanoi.
And, it’s not that Hanoians don’t eat on the street all these months we don’t write. They have.We just haven’t had the chance to sit down with our thoughts. The covid-19 changes pretty much many of our plans, making us incredibly lazier than we thought.
So we’re are planning to write more regularly, trying to expose the beauty of Hanoi streets foods, local food establishments and the daily life of the people here to the world. With the hope that as soon as the condition allows us to travel safely, you can come and sit at a charming city’s corner that has been tempting on the web.
Today, we went about recalibrating our palate to write. With the good intention in mind, it was nice to be sitting down again to a small portion that, by and large, exemplify street food in Hanoi.
Remember a photograph of Barack Obama and Anthony Bourdain sitting at a bún chả table, which got relayed all around the world some years ago? Though there has been quite a lot of discourse about it, it’s fine if you haven’t read any of it in detail, neither do we.
The bún chả eatery is still doing a roaring trade today, many locals wanting to sit at the same table, set their dishes in the presidential way and take photos of course. The table where they sat down to bún chả and beer is now encased in glass by the restaurant, making sure the historic moment lives forever?!
We didn’t eat today at that place. Instead, we went back to other vendor that we took our travelers on Hanoi street food tour to. Though they went through tough times due to the Covid, this bún chả vendor and many of her ilk, are still here. Doing their one specialty, for a few hours a day.
Bún chả is a barbeque dish unsurpassed on the street food terroir of Hanoi, available up and down its wide boulevards and in its maze of alleys. Whereever has smoke from the street, there is bún chả. When we breathe in its blue meaty smoke, we start to salivate.
Orange hot coals spitting with pork fat, griller ladies covered for battle in heavy duty blue-collar wear and face masks, and that wafting drift cloud of protein. These are the signs to seek out from late morning till about one o’clock. Lunch time in Hanoi is bún chả o’clock, as it isn’t not served for dinner. Two pre-requisites for eating this street food are come early and come hungry.
Let me state surreptitiously that, while many are enamoured of phở and the bánh mì as Hanoi’s major culinary contributions to Vietnam cuisine, I vote for bún chả. And it is largely because I am in a deep love affair with grilled pork belly and bún chả’s componants.
A portion includes an abundance of fresh herbal green, including lettuce, sawtooth coriander, coriander, Thai basil, lemon balm and perilla leaf, a mound of fresh vermicelli rice noodles, a plate of smacked up garlic and sliced chili, crisp spring rolls scissored into bite size chunks and the bowl of salty, sweet, sour, spicy nước chấm containing pickled carrot and kohlrabi, and the crispy black-edged pork belly and minced pork patties on the surface of the ‘soup’.
Each bite of it exposes the softness of the fresh vermicelli rice noodle, the fine texture of well-marinated grilled fatty pork, the light sour and sweet taste of the ‘broth’, and the characteristic pungent and spicy flavor of the fresh garlic, all booming in our mouth at the same time with a combination of fresh herbaceous herbs.
That is happiness. This is a strong recommendation. Come, put your head down, and just eat.
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