Wednesday, 12 March 2014
The next day we would discover a food that we would hail as some of the greatest in Vietnam. It has since been a large part of our diet for lunch/breakfast. We were again given tip off about this remarkable food and walked off in search of it. Finally, we found a quaint side-of-the-road restaurant, and took our seats. Again we were confronted by toddler sized chairs, pygmy tables and bad hygiene. As we sat down a woman jumped up and slammed two plates of noodles on our table, it took us by surprise and we were too slow to ask questions. She then bounded over to the make-shift kitchen and dropped a broth in to two bowls in one swift motion. While we were watching this another lady appeared out of nowhere and thumped a bowl of salad onto our table along with a bowl of garlic and chili. She then sped off to a fire grill and hauled some meat back to the kitchen. The meat was hurled into the broth before crashing down onto our table. They said one word in unison: “Bun Cha,” which was evidently the name of the dish. The women were beaming, they were confident in their dish. Still in shock we began to transfer our noodles into the broth, our heart rates had only began to calm down when they sprung up again and banged a large pile of Vietnamese spring rolls (Nem) onto the table. There was no surface area left on the pygmy sized desk. The dish consisted of a sweet vinegar tasting broth with unripe mango, grilled pork mince balls, noodles, herbs and Nem thrown in. The taste was beyond description. We ate like South East Asian kings.
