Finally, finally, finally, shoved my nose inside this joint at the corner of Nguyen Dinh Chieu and Pham Ngoc Thach in District 1, Saigon. I'm mad for a bowl of Hu Tieu - noodles, pork, beansprouts, hedgrerow and possibly the loveliest, sweet pork broth in all of southern Vietnam. However... this fair shack doles out Hu Tieu My Tho. My Tho is a hicktown an hour or two south of Saigon in Tien Giang province in the Mekong Delta. This plastic kiddie chair outfit is the only place selling My Tho-tinged Hu Tieu that I've yet to stumble into in Saigon. Just how different is it from that other corkin' Hu Tieu with a sweetnose?
Slapbang in the centre of this bowl is a stonking great knuckle of pork, paddling around in pork stock, surrounded by spring onions and sitting on a foundation of vermicelli noodles and thick cut, fat-still-on pork strips. Along for the trip are a side of bollock burning wee red chillies - easy with these meanies - and a plate of beansprouts, lettuce and chinese celery. For them's that's fancy there's also a bottle of nuoc cham to glug from in the condiments rack.
There's no sweetness. This pork stock's as straight as the Fosse Way, but it's rammed to the gills with meatpower. Throw in a few rip ups from the sideplate and you're off. Tackling the knuckle is a bit of an art, one I have yet to learn and can't be arsed with. I tend to chip of the tender morsels with the choppies and gnaw on the rest. It's not stylish, but it gets the job done. And it is tender, it's been bubbling away in a vast vat since early morning so it jolly well should be.
This is good stuff, although I have a very strong preference for the sweeter, more snazzy version which I think is known as Hu Tieu Nam Vang, but I could be wrong, it might just simply be Hu Tieu. Whatever. That's the fella I'll continue plumping for. Having said that, if I'm passing this place again I could be tempted to pop in for a quick dust with a knuckle or two. This place serves Com binh dan (literally 'food for workers') at lunchtime and, if this visit is anything to go by, it is exceedingly popular. A bowl of Hu Tieu will set you back a stiff 12,000 dong with a free Tra da thrown in. More Hu Tieu here and here's my fave and lastly, more photos from this restaurant.
Hu Tieu Mi
This is the kitchen of a no name Hu Tieu restaurant at the corner of 14 Ky Dong street in Saigon's District 3. I've passed it many a time. I took the photo you can see above months ago, but today is the first time I've bothered pulling up a streetside stool for lunch. We've covered the pork noodle Hu Tieu soup before, most enjoyably here. It's a southern soup, normally slightly sweet. This joint serves six variations on the basic theme. I'm dining here because it's always packed at lunchtime. A good sign.
I order a Hu Tieu Mi for 9,000VD. Mi is a kinda noodle. Yellow, thin, cylindrical, firm and to my mind it's the tastiest of all the noodles in Saigon. Here's a closeup. This rendition comes with a separate small bowl of blanched beansprouts. In the soup you'll find, tender, thin strips of boiled pork, spring onions, some minced pork and deep fried shallots. Here's the construction bay. Dunno 'bout you, but that looks like fine stuff above.
Dining here puts you right on the street. The walls are grimey, peeling paint, ancient advertisements are stuck at odd angles, half hanging, half advertising. It has that thoroughly half arsed, "Sod the decor, let's scoff" look about it. i.e. it's my kinda place. Having said that, check out the quai breadsticks just visible in the snap above - covered in cellophane. Now there's hygiene :) This is good Hu Tieu. The meat is excellent as are the Mi. However, the stock's not sweet enough. Hu Tieu should have a thin, but very noticeable trace of sugar coming through the stock. I'm not getting that here. Having said that, I am lovin' it. The other difference with previous Hu Tieu is the condiment bowl pictured below.
If you're an idiot, you'll fumble around in here, add willy-nilly, enjoy your lunch, have a cuppa tea, go back to your office, sit down at your computer, rub your left eye and then scream agonisingly as your eye bleeds 900 degrees of chilli heat from its swollen socket. With the benefit of hindsight, albeit blind in one eye hindsight, it's probably more sensible to wash your hands after lunch. Read the previous post for more on this distinctive southern Vietnamese noodle soup. This is a decent noodle joint. Worth trying. If you're in the vicinity I also recommend you take the two minute stroll to this very good snail restaurant. Meanwhile, can anyone tell me what Xiu Mai means? It's on the menu and I forgot to ask.
Tip off: Hu Tieu
One Hanoian, One Saigonite. No consulting. Both agree. There be some quality Hu tieu there. Paper, pen, local knowledge. Marvellous.
Chemical soup
We've had bad and very good Hu tieu before and now we have a MSG overloaded version on the streets of District 1. I find a mobile seller of this pork noodle soup outside 15B-5 Le Thanh Ton Street in District 1. She says she sells from here mid-morning every day. She's quite the friendly seller who mistakes me for another Ong tay noodle muncher. Oh well we all look the same, ehh? I pull up a pew next to the orange seller who's busy gobbling back a 5,000VD mid-morning bite and watch as my take away order is put together.
The difference from previous Hu tieu and this one is that this flogger uses a pork sliver/pig's blood carnivorous combo. No liver, no prawns and thicker noodles. Oh and there's that MSG hit. I always know I've had way too much of that when I get a machine gun buzz down my spine and feel a bit off-kilter for the rest of the day. It's quite the chemical thrill, but not for everday consumption. More snaps from her stall at this tagged photostream. Here's a recipe for Hu tiu or Hu tieu whichever spelling takes your fancy.
Hu hit
This morning I was supposed to meet ex-CNN reporter, North Korea expert and Global Voices Online blogmeister Rebecca MacKinnon. She's here, I think, to learn how the media in Vietnam is or is not developing. And to talk about blogging. She had to split town early and instead of eating with me, she had the delights of a Vietnam Airlines sandwich to contend with on her way back up to Hanoi. When figuring out where to take Rebecca, I wasn't sure just how 'street' she would be prepared to go. So, erring on the safe side I chose to go 'very very' street. Let's see what she missed.
I've almost ingested and blogged from every stall down at the local market now. However, there are two soups I've yet to 'go live' on and they both reside up this back passage which runs off one side of the main market. As is usual on local markets, there are no signs telling you what's being sold or how much it'll set you back.
I only know this is a Hu tieu stall because... well... I'm very wise. Also I had this same dish two days ago as a 'home delivery'. The last time I blogged Hu tieu it was a bit of a District 10 disaster. That joint has since closed. However, I was so impressed with my 7,000VD home delivery and surprised that I'd never stopped by before that I decide to visit the stall in person this morning.
Hu tieu is a sweet noodle soup made from pork stock with a few small prawns, liver, kidney, pork slivers, he (a chive-alike) and beansprouts. It comes with the white noodles you can see above, but there is a Mi (yellow noodle) variant called Hu tieu mi nam vang. Side note, if you want really decent Mi, head to Mi Chu Tac on Ky Dong street.
I'm going white noodle this morning. The chef revives them in the side stock pot before shunting them bowlwards. However, being Rebecca-less and with the toad in tow, I decide to grab a mang di ve (takeaway) and bank this baby for lunchtime. So, in what is quite possibly definitely a first for this blog. What you are seeing has yet to enter my digestive tract. However, like I said, I had a very successful meeting with this beast two days previously and I feel confident I'm in for a carbon copy performance.
It's blisteringly good broth, not in the sense that it'll actually give you blisters of the puss spewing swollen variety, I don't think it will, well I didn't get any, but that's not to say you couldn't get them... I digress. If Rebecca had come I'm fairly certain she would have said something like, "This soup rocks. My buds'd love this shit." which in village English roughly translates as, "Oh that IS nice. I must tell everyone at the knitting circle to pop along for a post-knit nibble next week."
I don't know much, but what I do know is I've got a blindin' soup for lunch while Rebecca could well still be recovering from airline sarnie hell. Or did she go Business class?? Hmmm? Bloggers in Business class, that could never happen. Could it?
Soup slouch
Superb noodle soups abound in Saigon, you have to try hard to find a REALLY bad one. The soup kitchen I nipped into on this occasion is Thanh Phat at 258 Cach Mang Thang Tam Street - it's on the other side of that traffic nightmare above. This canteen - not quite a restaurant but no shack either - is your common or garden Saigon eatery. Cheap grub for the masses on the move - all metal tables, food in a glass display case out front, neon heavy lighting, big sign advertising the house specialities and pyjama clad cooks. No deviation from standard Vietnamese so far.
One steaming vat of stock does all 5 soup dishes here; Hu tiu (sliced pork, prawn, liver, thin white noodles and a side of veggies. Sometimes spelt Hu Tieu) Mi Nam Vang (much the same ingredients, with a thin, yellow 'Mi' noodle), Banh Canh (same ingredients again, but a thicker fresh noodle) Hoanh Thanh (Won ton noodle soup) and Bun Moc (have had it, but can't remember what it is at the minute - think it's the same with a big pork knuckle inside). They also serve a Chao (rice porridge) in this case Chao Thap Cam which is basically an animal innard porridge - tasty.
I ordered the Hu Tiu and the Banh Canh to take away, costs 10,000VD per soup and an extra 1,000VD a dish for bagging up the bowls and veggies to take home - very handy. Even though the Banh Canh and the Hu Tiu are exactly the same, except for the type of noodle, it's the Hu Tiu that comes with the veggies (bean sprouts, lettuce, a type of celery leaf and half a lemon). Not sure why there is this veggie-discrimination, but it's never hindered the spirit of sharing and giving at pieman towers.
So, on to the tasting notes... Sorry, but can't escape the fact that, it's a bland broth, not awful, just - not exciting.
Tired, grey morsels of liver, stingy on the prawns (1 per bowl...), the pork slivers were fine, but as ever it's the soup that bonds the whole and if that's messin' with mediocrity, you're just eating without enjoyment. Hu Tiu and Banh Canh, on this take, are probably not culinary classics in the same vain as Vietnam's brothbustin hits Mi Quang and Bun Rieu - much more of which blogging up tres soon. There's just not enough goin' on in there. Or perhaps this canteen just isn't a good example. The joint was chosen at random. In Saigon such random bites often throw up edible ecstasy, but not tonight. I'll keep an eye out for more, and hopefully better, Hu Tiu and Banh Canh around town. I want to like these dishes.
