an, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8 May 2011
This capital city is a street food paradise. It's hard to walk more than 10 feet without spotting something delicious. At least, that's what I'd heard before making my way to this Southeast Asian country. But on my first afternoon in the Old Quarter, trolling the streets for a late lunch, I was starting to doubt the city's illustrious reputation. Souvenir shops, clothing stores, coffeehouses and hotels were everywhere. But where was all the food?
Finding Hanoi's street kitchens, especially during off-peak hours, can be like learning to look at a stereogram picture, random dots that transform into a 3-D image when you squint just the right way. Look past the motorbikes, taxis and bicycles that fill up the street and often the sidewalk, until you spot child-sized plastic tables and stools, some planted on the sidewalk, others tucked into open storefronts. Some are just cafes or bia hoi joints serving the fresh draft beer drunk throughout Vietnam, but especially popular in Hanoi. But just as often, they are streetside dining rooms where the menu consists of one or two special dishes.
Sometimes a column of steam will draw you toward a storefront, sometimes a particular smell. It was too late that afternoon to rely on more sensory clues; we owed our lunch to blind luck. Turning down another random street, I spotted a sign that read Bun -- rice vermicelli noodles -- one of the few Vietnamese words firmly in my vocabulary. Inside, a woman sat behind a square of counters, portioning noodles onto a plate, then snipping the sticky pile in quarters with large shears. We had unexpectedly discovered bun cha, one of Hanoi's most famous dishes, charcoal grilled pork served with rice noodles, lots of greens and bowls of dipping sauce.
Disoriented, uncertain and starving, we were fortunate to have stumbled upon such a welcoming spot. Waving hands ushered us in and gestured toward seats at a small plastic table. Plastic containers held wooden chopsticks, metal spoons and a stack of thin paper napkins. Minutes later, the proprietor set down a large plate of noodles, and another with an overflowing bounty of lettuces, cress, mint, cilantro and basil. She refreshed small bowls of chopped garlic and fiery red chile.
Meanwhile, on the sidewalk, a man stood before a charcoal grill, slowly waving a large woven fan. In the following days, I would learn to spot bun cha, which pops up on almost every street around lunchtime, by following this savory billow of smoke. Unaware of the dish's fame or the restaurant's quality, I was caught up only in how good it tasted. Both sliced pork and ground pork patties had been sandwiched between two metal grates and held over charcoal so hot it charred the meat's edges but left each piece cooked just through. The smoke-infused pork was portioned into small bowls along with thin coins of sweet carrot and tart green mango, then topped with large ladles of savory nuoc cham, a sauce of sugar, fish sauce and rice vinegar, a fine slick of pork fat floating to the top.
We ate as the proprietor indicated, holding chopsticks in the right hand, spoons in the left, dipping small bundles of noodles and greens into the sauce, nibbling on bits of pork, then going back for more noodles and greens, all interspersed with s
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