Food, Glorious Food!

Hello and xin chào!

With the new year underway, life has calmed down, and Hanoi weather has lurched into a seemingly endless drizzle that doesn't quite merit an umbrella or poncho but still gets my glasses totally wet. (Someday I'll live somewhere that doesn't have awful weather nearly year-round.)

At any rate, I come to you with the post about food that I've been telling myself I'd write for nearly as long as I've been here! I'll highlight three of my favorite dishes that are Hanoi specialties:

Bún chả

The bún chả I had for lunch before writing this post.

Quite possibly my favorite Vietnamese dish, bún chả is ubiquitous in (and endemic to) Hanoi, but I don't think I had ever encountered it before coming here. You get a plate of bún, or rice vermicelli, and a small bowl of broth. The bún is sticky and comes in a clump that is cut several times with scissors before serving. The broth, meanwhile, is both sweet and savory, and I like to add some chili paste/oil to add a little spiciness. Then there's the chả, little minced pork patties, and my favorite part, thick strips of pork belly. It's topped off with pickled green papaya and carrots. When eating, you take chunks of bún with your chopsticks and dunk them in the broth. The broth starts out warm and, after repeatedly dunking room temperature noodles in it, gradually cools to room temperature, which bothered me a little at first, but I'm all in now.

Sitting at my go to bún chả place. The woman who runs it is on the right.

Seriously, I cannot emphasize enough how much I love bún chả. Luckily, there's a little place that serves it for lunch on my lane* right off my little alley*. For 25,000 VND (US$1.08), I get a healthy portion from a lovely woman who doesn't speak English but has seen me come in to get bún chả about two or three times a week for the past four months. It's probably one of my favorite routines I've established here, as I get to feel a little bit like I'm part of the community in spite of the significant language barriers with everyone on my lane.

*A note on street terminology here: outside of the Old Quarter and French Quarter, a "street" (phố) is a major road of 3-4 car lanes; a "lane" (ngõ) branches off of a street and is rarely larger than 1-1.5 car lanes; and an "alley" (ngách) branches off of a lane and usually can only accommodate motorbikes. Lanes and alleys are numbered based on their streets and don't have their own names. I live on Ngách 14, Ngõ 35, Phố Cát Linh, which means I live on the alley that starts at #14 of the lane that starts at #35 of Cát Linh Street.

Street-side at the bún chả place, with chả being grilled on the left. Photo taken from my motorbike to be discreet.

I should also note that place is open to the elements year-round, and some of the cooking actually happens while crouched over on the pavement of my lane (both of which are quite common here). And not once have I had any issues with digestion.

Phở bò

A nice, warm bowl of phở.

Good ol' phở. Of course, I'd had phở many, many times before coming here, but unsurprisingly, it's on another level here. The broth is aromatic and addictively salty, the noodles soft and plentiful, and the beef juicy. You can order your phở bò (beef phở) with a variety of cuts, but I prefer tái, which is sliced, rare beef.

Sitting down for my favorite phở in the city.

One of my favorite things about eating phở here is the variety of condiments available. In addition to lime and the sriracha-like chili sauce, I always add a spoonful or two of this pickled garlic juice concoction that I've never seen back in the U.S. It's really common here, but I don't know what it's called. My favorite place to grab phở is a hectic place at the end of my lane that plays NBA games with Vietnamese subtitles.

Bánh cuốn

A fresh tray of bánh cuốn.

The first time I had bánh cuốn was during my first week in Hanoi, and I wasn't terribly enamored of it. About a month ago, however, I decided to give it another try at one of the highest regarded places in the city, and I've discovered a new favorite. Bánh cuốn is ordinarily served as a roll, but this place, Bánh Cuốn Bà Hoanh, serves a somewhat unique deconstructed version. Giò lụa, a sort of chewy pork sausage, floats in sweet and sour nước chấm, or fish sauce, one of Vietnamese cuisine's signature flavors. As with bún chả, you then dip noodle sheets made from fermented rice batter in the fish sauce.

Squatting to eat bánh cuốn.

Bánh Cuốn Bà Hoanh (Grandma Hoanh's Bánh Cuốn) is a bit of a drive from my apartment (15-20 minutes without traffic), so I usually only go on my days off. It's deep in the upscale French Quarter, which is one of my favorite parts of the city. It's filled with French colonial architecture, and tourists are few and far between. There's nothing more representative of  Hanoi than squatting on a tiny stool in a crumbling colonial building to have a delicious meal for 30,000 VND (US$1.29).

The busy kitchen of Bánh Cuốn Bà Hoanh spilling onto sidewalk. Another photo taken from my motorbike to be discreet.

The street food is easily one of the best parts of life in Southeast Asia. Knock on wood, I've never gotten sick from it, and my brush with food poisoning almost certainly came from eating Western food. I do still eat a good amount of Western food (primarily at cafés and bakeries), and I love having Indian food delivered (which is cheaper and often better than back home). Even so, I have loved, loved, loved eating delicious Vietnamese food for next to nothing.

Anyways, this Sunday I'll be flying down to the central Vietnamese city of Huế for a quick one-day, one-night trip. Expect a dispatch shortly thereafter.

Till next time,

Gray