The next stop on our Hanoi foodie tour is the one I’d been looking forward to the most – Bún Chă. Westerners are familiar with bánh mì. They know about phở. But not very many Westerners have heard of a dish that Hanoi is famous for: Bún Chă.
Wild Night in the Old Quarter
It’s Friday night in Hanoi’s Old Quarter. It’s wild. We’re on a tour oriented around food, but some enterprising fellow could leave out the food and just give Friday-Night-in-the-Old-Quarter tours. It’s that crazy and interesting.
I should add that a tour like that wouldn’t be for everyone. You’d have to have an open mind…
A bit of jostling? No problem. A motorbike runs slowly over your toe? Didn’t hurt much. Strange smells that your nose has never smelled? Hmmm.. interesting. Completely lost in a chaotic maze of alleyways? Bring it on!
The places serving food here, at least the ones we’ve been visiting, aren’t anything like restaurants or fast food places back home. They’re more like stalls, maybe with a small dining room in the back or more likely upstairs. Food is prepared on-site, in front of you while you watch. Everything is made to order. Over here, it’s all about freshness.
Little Blue Stools
If there’s room on the street or alleyway, the “dining room” will be right there. Just grab one of the miniature plastic blue stools and sit down. If you can do it, good for you. And if you can get up without help, wow. Bravo!
If anyone in your party is a tall Westerner, (as is someone in our group), be sure to have them try out one of these little blue stools. Definitely a photo opportunity there!
These places usually specialize in one item. There might be two or three things on the menu, but they probably go along with the main dish. If you want phở, you go to your favorite phở place. If you want sweet donuts, go to your favorite sweet donut place. How about some worm pancakes? Well, you get the idea.
Bún Chă
I knew we were close to the Bún Chă place when I smelled pork sizzling on the grill. The cook grills bite-size pork meatballs and sets them aside. They’re served with rice noodles and a pile of fresh green herbs.
Meatballs used for Bún Chă aren’t your mamma’s Sunday meatballs. I’m sure each Bún Chă place has it’s own formula, but they’re typically made by mixing ground pork with minced shallots and garlic, fish sauce, sugar, spices, and caramel sauce.
Yes – caramel sauce. They mix everything together and put the meat mixture into the fridge to sit for a while so all those ingredients can get better acquainted.
OK. Get your chopsticks warmed up. The idea is to grab a meatball, a bit of noodles, and some herbs all at once, and enjoy. It’s easier than it sounds.
I don’t know how to adequately describe the taste. There’s a lot going on in that bite, and it explodes in your mouth all at once. Your taste buds have to work overtime to keep up. I can’t think of anything else to compare it to. In the world of taste bud titillation, Bún Chă stands alone.
To be continued…
Nice photo of Bún Chă at the top of this post, credit: istockphoto/ALLEKO.
