The result is sweet, sour, savoury and smoky, the perfect introduction to Vietnamese cuisine, and also the sort of dainty portion that leaves room for something else. A second dinner. Something like, banh mi?
Banh mi: a Vietnamese classic.Credit: iStock
Fortunately, Banh Mi Huynh Hoa is just down the road. Here I order the classic pork roll, a baguette filled with pate, mayonnaise, various slices of cured pork, pickled daikon and carrot, and the shop’s signature pork floss, an absolute umami bomb that works nicely as my quasi-dessert.
Ca phe sua da. The second-best way to start a day.Credit: iStock
The next morning I’m straight back at it with a 6am stroll to Trung Nguyen Legend, a nearby cafe, for ca phe sua da, or Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk and ice. The second-best way to start a day.
Back at the hotel, the restaurant buffet features beef pho made fresh and tasty, a perfect-sized bowl filled with everything you could hope for at a street-level restaurant, only this one served 24 storeys up.
Of course, Vietnamese noodle soup doesn’t begin and end with pho. Cut to a few hours later and I’m in an industrial, exhaust-smudged section of District One, where Nguyen Canh Chan does a bustling trade in bun rieu.
This isn’t soup for the faint of heart: its base is made with tomatoes and small freshwater crabs, with thin rice noodles, crab cakes, hunks of pork meat and pork rind, shredded banana flower, fresh herbs and a cake of congealed pig’s blood perched atop. I’m definitely awake now.
Taditional bun rieu noodle soup isn’t for the faint of heart.Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto
Dinner later is yet more noodle soup, this time banh canh cua, a thick crab-based soup with chewy tapioca noodles, at Banh Canh Cua 87 in District One.
And then finally the next day, the greatest pho of my life. I’ll go on to have one more meal, a dish of banh cuon, or steamed rice sheets with shrimp and pork, before I dash out of the city, but it’s the pho that will stay with me forever, the one I will always be chasing. Breakfast will never be the same.
The details
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Fly
Vietnam Airlines flies direct from both Melbourne and Sydney to Ho Chi Minh City. See vietnamairlines.com
Stay
Fusion Original Saigon Centre is a smart, modern new hotel in the heart of the city, with spacious rooms from $257 a night. See saigoncentre.fusionoriginals.com
Dine
The restaurants visited don’t have English websites and don’t take bookings. Simply walk up and take a seat. Phu Vuong Pho, Quan An Co Lieng, Banh Mi Huynh Hoa, and Bun Rieu Nguyen Canh Chan are open daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner; Banh Canh Cua 87 is open daily for lunch and dinner.
The writer travelled courtesy of Aqua Expeditions.
