In the soft morning light, three teenagers once stood before the Temple of Literature, whispering hopes for exam success into clasped hands. A decade later, that same trio — Triết Nguyễn, Tùng Nguyễn and Dương Nguyễn — have channeled their youthful aspirations into MÀU, a gastro wine bar directly opposite their old place of pilgrimage.

MÀU, meaning “color,” is more than a name; it's a manifesto. The space glows with translucent orange panels, and the walls are adorned with vibrant art, setting the stage for a dining experience that is both familiar and refreshingly novel. Dương, the brain behind MÀU’s marketing, has applied her knowledge and skill picked up from years studying and working in Canada to the website and branding of this new project much closer to home.

MÀU is just a stone's throw from the Temple of Literature. Photos courtesy of MÀU.

Finding it, though, isn’t entirely straightforward. The address won’t help much, and a quick Google Maps search is just as likely to send you to a completely different restaurant. (The team has apparently been hacked — twice.) In a way, it’s kind of fitting. But perseverance is rewarded with a seat at a bar where the city's past and future coalesce over plates of inventive cuisine.

We are sat at the bar, and this is what we discover. Quán Bánh Cuốn Nóng Gia Truyền 50 Đội Cấn is the best place to get bánh cuốn. Phở Khôi Hói is Triết’s favorite spot for noodle soup, and Phạm is the name of his friend’s cocktail bar, which apparently is pretty much a converted front room. We don’t make it to the latter sadly as it’s closed on the day we’re in town, but the other two spots prove excellent recommendations. These new restaurateurs sure know their stuff and are very well-connected to the food that they’re taking their inspiration from. And the service, led by Tùng, shows the warm and deft touch of a seasoned professional, someone able to transform a dining room into a second home for those on their first visit or their fiftieth.

Having grown up in Hanoi, the team behind MÀU is appreciative of the capital's diverse street food wealth. Photo courtesy of MÀU.

And just to clear up any confusion: this isn’t Mau restaurant in the Old Quarter. That one serves a solid lineup of northern Vietnamese staples: bún chả, bánh xèo, gỏi cuốn. At MÀU, you’ll find echoes of that tradition, but the execution is something else entirely.

Vietnamese fare with little touches of unexpected novelty

Serving a plate of pickles at the start of a meal is all the rage in the UK right now, but this is the first time I’ve seen it in Vietnam. Vietnamese cuisine has long known how to balance crunch and tang. A quick glance inside any bánh mì is proof enough. But here, pickling gets the spotlight, and a few unexpected guests. Watermelon rind, carrot, baby cucumber, garlic stem and banana — yes, banana — just go to show that you can pickle almost anything, swoop it through a pile of lightly curried mayonnaise and it will be delicious.

Photos courtesy of MÀU.

There’s less of a Vietnamese touch in the pillowy, crisp slices of sourdough focaccia, but it’s no great loss as the bread — whether it’s Vietnamese, Italian, French or Egyptian — is excellent. The bacon butter, however, is lacking in salinity and tastes almost completely devoid of pig. But the team welcomes the feedback; it’s only the third week and the menu is still in its nascent stages.

Pickle platter. Photo by Meg Houghton-Gilmour.

Focaccia with bacon butter. Photo by Meg Houghton-Gilmour.

The gut-wrenching admission that they have run out of crab bao with sea urchin is softened only by several more sips of a very smooth glass of muscadet from one of my favourite wine regions, the Loire Valley. Further pacification comes in the form of thinly sliced scallop, lightly torched, sat atop fresh mango, pomelo and mint and carefully balanced on a rice cracker. It’s a one-bite wonder, but no less a wonder for it.

My favourite dish of the night, stir-fried corn with shrimp, embodies the meaning behind the name further. The vibrant yellow hue is a bowl of sunshine, so warm and cheerful it surely must have been the inspiration behind the Natasha Bedingfield hit, though this silky purée is probably not something you’d want in your pocket. Having just returned from the Hà Giang loop, where whole hillsides are striped with rows of cornfields, I enjoy seeing this everyday ingredient getting some love.

Stir-fried corn with shrimps. Photo by Meg Houghton-Gilmour.

Veal carpaccio. Photo by Meg Houghton-Gilmour.

Scallop on rice crackers. Photo by Meg Houghton-Gilmour.

The dry-aged duck with tamarind and the veal carpaccio are more muted in color but no less in flavor, certainly in the case of the duck. Head chef Hưng Nguyễn has clearly treated this duck with care, mastering the art of rendering the generous layer of fat under the skin while leaving the centre rosy-pink. Though I’d always opt for meat on the bone if possible, the hunks of tender breast paired with the fruity and sharp tamarind make it one of the best renditions of duck I’ve had in the whole of Vietnam.

Dry-aged duck with tamarind. Photo by Meg Houghton-Gilmour.

Sweet potato cheesecake. Photo by Meg Houghton-Gilmour.

There are few things I love more than sitting at an open kitchen. The clatter of pans, the small rituals of service, the chance to eavesdrop on your dinner being made — it’s part theatre, part therapy. Not only can you pick up some top-tier cooking tips from watching chefs go about their work, but you often can badger them into giving you restaurant recommendations too.

We finish with a sweet potato cheesecake: a big, wobbly block platforming a quenelle of molasses ice cream. They’ve cut off the best bit, the nose, to make it a rectangle, but it’s exquisite all the same. This dessert is a lesson in balance: sweet, creamy, humming with the umami of potato and the gentle tang of sticky molasses.

A newcomer with great potential

Because of an early trip to Cát Bà the next morning, we don’t make much of a dent in the wine list, but it’s worth noting: this is one of the few places in Hanoi where you’ll find orange wine. The Gerard Bertrand blend is punchy and wild on the nose, and drinks beautifully. There’s plenty more where that came from: five champagnes, plus bottles from Europe, Japan, Morocco, and Australia. I’d love to see some Southeast Asian representation on there eventually — a funky pet-nat from Đà Lạt, perhaps? — but it’s a great start, and no surprise given the third co-founder Triết’s years as a sommelier.

Photos by Meg Houghton-Gilmour.

As we step back into the quiet night, the warm glow of MÀU fades behind us, tucked away across from the Temple of Literature like a secret only the city’s most curious souls stumble upon. In a capital that can sometimes feel caught between tradition and trend, this little wine bar hums with possibility, unafraid to reinterpret, to experiment, to pickle banana and pair it with Loire Valley muscadet.

Chef Hưng Nguyễn (middle) and the team. Photo courtesy of MÀU.

It’s still early days, so the team is tweaking recipes, fighting Google glitches, and pouring drinks over open counters where conversations flow as freely as the natural wine. But if this is MÀU in its infancy, it’s a beautiful beginning. MÀU is a testament to long-standing friendships and what can be achieved when a group of people combine their skills and experience to build something great.

A toast, then, to color — and to a new chapter in Hanoi’s ever-surprising culinary map. It seems the prayers worked after all.

MÀU is open 6pm–11pm, Tue–Sun. Visit their Instagram page for more information.

There are certain activities that are best not undertaken alone: karaoke, barbeque, watching football and feasting on ốc. The consensus, however, is still out on bò nướng lá lốt mỡ chài, so I decided to take one for the team and venture into Saigon’s thriving bò lá lốt scene as a lone wolf.

Vietnam has an unwritten rule about grilled dishes: these smoky dishes are wonderful nhậu snacks and no drinking session is fun without a friend or two. The rising popularity of grill-it-yourself joints further drives home this association between grilled food and group hangouts, as few bonds are stronger than those made while putting morsels of meat on a bed of charcoal together. As deliciously charred meat sausages, bò nướng lá lốt falls under this purview. While most grilled beef places spare you the ordeal of grilling them yourself, the interactive art of making bò lá lốt rolls still serves as wonderful ice-breaker for all participants; which begs the question: eating bò lá lốt alone, genius or sad?

As a proud introvert, I’ve long made peace with my propensity for solitary enjoyment. The introversion movement has made great strides in recent years in making going to the cinema alone socially acceptable. In fact, in my personal experience, this is even preferable. The theater is not designed for casual banter or dishing out witticisms; films should be a personal journey to allow ample room for undisturbed reflection. Elsewhere in the culinary world, solo-dining ramen eateries are popping up everywhere from Tokyo to New York, featuring “dining cubicles” that curtail human interactions. Yum. Vietnam is not immune to the movement either: a simple Google search for “lẩu một người” — one-person hotpot — yields a staggering 14.8 million hits, though I resent headlines that juxtapose this revolutionary invention with the derogatory term FA, short for “forever alone,” as if there’s anything shameful about slurping on hot broth without company.

The cutlery and crockery at Bò Lá Lốt Phương have seen better times.

Empowered by the trend, I make a beeline for Bò Lá Lốt Phương Cô Giang, regarded by many as the best spot in town, to wolf down some grilled beef sausages by myself. As the name suggests, Bò Lá Lốt Phương used to stand on Cô Giang Street in District 1, but resettled in District 4 not long ago, right in a neighborhood teeming with street food places. Xóm Chiếu lives up to its name as the district’s food enclave, but calling it a street is a rather generous statement. The narrow and cluttered thoroughfare has no pavement whatsoever and can barely fit two small cars on a good day. It doesn’t help that an army of stores selling everything from grilled seafood, noodles, phá lấu to bánh tráng nướng line its sides with stalls, tables and other crazy cooking contraptions.

My nose recognizes the presence of bò lá lốt even before my eyes could locate the restaurant, which features a cart and a grill in the shopfront. The dining area is modest, fitting three rows of plastic tables and stools. It’s clear that Bò Lá Lốt Phương is a family business, with members of the household staying right above the dining space. The grill is small, manned by a young staff who falls into a nimble rhythm of brushing, flipping, fanning and collecting the skewers of beef sausages. Despite the exhaust hood directly above, the wonderful fragrance of freshly cooked bò lá lốt still fills me with a palpable sense of anticipation.

Grilling bò lá lốt is an art.

It’s 4:30pm in the afternoon and drizzling, so I am the only customer at Bò Lá Lốt Phương, though every now and then, a deliveryman shows up to ferry away orders. My bò lá lốt and bò mỡ chài arrive quickly, neatly arranged on a tray complete with all the accouterments one needs for a fulfilling solo session of feasting. The set of bò lá lốt is extremely cheap at VND25,000 and includes a handful of bò lá lốt sausages, a plate of bánh hỏi (a form of rice noodle sheet), a stack of bánh tráng, a small bowl of water for dabbing on rice paper and heaps of herbs. Rolling your own bò lá lốt is an art that few get right, but luckily, it’s a skill one can get the hang of in one sitting — the secret lies in moderation: not too much water and not too much filling.

To start, put a bánh tráng in your palm. It’s also important to choose one that’s intact so it will not tear during rolling. Add one piece of lettuce, then a piece of bánh hỏi while making sure that they lie flatly on the rice paper sheet. A single roll of bò lá lốt or bò mỡ chài rests on the bánh hỏi, surrounded by other herbs and sliced vegetables, such as bean sprouts, cucumber, green banana, starfruit, húng quế and diếp cá. Wet the tips of your fingers in the provided bowl and dab the further end of the sheet. Finally, slowly roll the bundle away from you on the palm, ending with the wet edge, which should be sticky enough by now to seal the filling into a neat roll.

A tray of bò lá lốt comes with a wide array of fresh herbs and vegetables.

You now cradle in your hand one of the most magical tools to soak up as much dipping sauce as possible. It may hold itself together with grace and uniform weight. It may be slightly clumsy, bursting at the seams from the generous sprinkling of bean sprouts inside. It might be perfect, or not. But the point is: it is your creation, and because you made the decision to plunge into this new endeavor alone, there’s no one around to critique your work. Now, proudly dip that baby into the bowl of mắm nêm, and take the first bite into a world of umami, spiciness and herbaceous freshness.

Inside the puny sausages, each no longer than a child’s thumb, is a mixture of minced beef, tendon, lemongrass and spices. Of course, there’s a reason behind the two types of wrappings: bò lá lốt is covered by lá lốt, a type of betel leaf; bò mỡ chài is instead enveloped in a decadent layer of caul fat. Both are there by design to help the meat inside retain its juiciness. I’ve always believed that this ingenuity was yet another proof of Vietnamese’s resourcefulness, but the more I delve into the history behind the dish, the more evidence emerges to suggest that bò nướng lá lốt was instead our ancestors’ way to adapt foreign techniques to local taste and ingredient availability.

Mỡ chài refers to a thin layer of caul fat lining the guts of cows, pigs and sheep. Its elasticity makes it desirable as the wrapping for sausages, roulades and other meat dishes. The technique is popular in many European dishes, such as French crépinette (pan-fried sausages) or the unfortunately named British faggot (meatballs baked in the oven). Most remarkably, sheftalia, a popular skewer dish in Greece and Cyprus, involves seasoned minced meat wrapped in caul fat and grilled on charcoal. Sound familiar? The most probable, but rather lazy, theory speculates that Vietnam’s bò nướng mỡ chài might be an adaptation of French crépinette, arising during colonial time.

A roll with bò mỡ chài inside.

If bò mỡ chài may have originated in Europe, bò lá lốt descends from a long line of Asian leaf-wrapped delicacies. According to The Oxford Companion to Food, Vietnam learned how to use leaf wrap from Indians, specifically Bengalis, who adapted the technique from Middle Eastern traders. Middle Eastern cuisines employ grape leaves in stuffed dishes called dolma — minced meat, rice, spices, potato and other veggies wrapped in a grape leaf and then steamed or boiled.

Nestled at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, Bengal is the easternmost region of India and has been an important trading link between the Middle East and Southeast Asia for centuries. It was here where the Pala Empire was founded in 750 CE and became the dominant power by the 9^th century, with a focus on trade and cultural exchange, which brought in new ideas and techniques like Islam and dolma. The latter became a unique creation of Bengali cuisine.

From Bengal, the art of making dolma traveled further eastwards with merchants to mainland Southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam. However, the tropical climate in the country proved inhospitable to grape vines, so locals improvised by replacing grape leaves with lá lốt, a leaf indigenous to Southeast Asia that shares the same heart shape — perfect for wrapping. Though lá lốt is commonly translated as "betel leaf," they are in fact two different species in the same family, which also comprises black pepper and kava. Lá lốt (Piper sarmentosum), has a much milder taste than betel leaf (Piper betle), making it more suitable for use in cooking.

The use of leaves in wrapping food is not unique to Vietnam.

Half an hour after sitting down, I finish my tray of bò lá lốt, taking my own sweet time to perfect every roll as much as I can and scraping the bowl of dipping sauce clean. The owner's family has set up their own dinner on a plastic table nearby are happily munching away on a feast of fried fish and rice. I feel dumb for expecting them to hunker over trays of bò lá lốt; they must be sick of the dish by now. All told, Bò Lá Lốt Phương Cô Giang’s food was excellent, albeit nothing unique that could justify making a trek all the way to District 4 for more. I suspect the eatery’s reputation was built entirely on its extremely affordable price rather than the morsels of perfectly charred but forgettable bò lá lốt. Still, if you happen to be in the neighborhood or live nearby, it's a perfect destination for a casual dinner with friends, or alone.

Bò Lá Lốt Phương Cô Giang is open from 3pm to 11pm.

This article was originally published in 2019.

To sum up

Taste: 3.5/5
Price: 6/5
Atmosphere: 4/5
Friendliness: 5/5
Location: 3/5

Khôi loves tamarind, is a raging millennial and will write for food.

I used to be an international student living in Minnesota, where winter comes early and overstays its welcome. In those long months of snow and silence, I relied heavily on coffee, my go-to companion during late-night study sessions and early morning lectures. This changed one day when my host mom introduced me to something unexpected: Indian chai.

The first sip of masala chai was a revelation: warm, spicy, earthy, and somehow deeply comforting. It quickly became a ritual: every time the heating failed or the snow piled too high, she would brew a fresh pot for the whole family. Chai, for me, became more than a drink. It was home away from home.

Perched atop the fourth floor of an old apartment building in District 1, Mão A Chai has great views of downtown Saigon.

Years later, back in Vietnam, I tried to find that taste again. But every cup I encountered felt off: too sweet, too trendy, too far removed from the chai that once warmed my hands in a Midwestern kitchen. I had nearly given up the search when a college friend mentioned a little tea shop hidden on the fourth floor of an old building in Saigon: Mão A Chai.

The store is filled with earthy materials and colors.

From the moment I stepped through the wooden door, something felt different. The scent of spices hit me first — cinnamon, clove, cardamom, and more — followed by the gentle hum of a quiet room filled with natural textures: bamboo lamps, wooden stools, clay cups. There were no neon signs, no crowds posing for photos. Just calmness.

Many items were brought here from the travels of the owners.

The drink I ordered that day, cinnamon chai, brought me back immediately. It tasted exactly like what I remembered: balanced, warm, and tender.

Hiếu, one of Mão A Chai's co-founders. Photo by Tô Thụy Hoàng Mai.

On a return visit, I met Hiếu, one of the co-founders of Mão A Chai. He used to study and work in IT, but left the field after realizing he wasn’t suited for the corporate lifestyle typical of the industry. “I didn’t enjoy the corporate life in IT, but I had already committed,” he told me. “So I feared where it would lead, that made me anxious.”

During university, Hiếu discovered a passion for creative work while working at a design-focused company. That passion eventually led him to meet Hà — his business partner and now life partner — and together, they created Mão A Chai not as a business, but as an extension of who they are.

Hà has lived and worked in over 50 countries, including India. But this wasn’t backpacking or tourism. She lived like a local, learning to make masala chai from friends, neighbors, and even her Indian housekeeper. That lived experience shows.

Guests will share the space with two resident felines.

“We only serve what we truly understand,” Hiếu said. That includes not only Indian chai but also Vietnamese green tea, especially Thái Nguyên green tea, a simple, unpretentious tea deeply rooted in northern Vietnamese culture.

Their approach extends beyond the menu. Every item in the shop is carefully chosen: bamboo lamps from craft villages near Hanoi, reclaimed furniture from homes in the Central Highlands, even a small ceramic bird named Thật Thà (Honesty) perched by the window.

“We didn’t just buy things from a catalog,” Hiếu explained. “We gathered them through journeys, knowing where to get what. Like how you collect herbs for a good pot of tea.”

Thật Thà the ceramic bird in its natural habitat.

It shows. The space doesn’t feel curated, it feels lived in, like a home that was slowly built over time, not styled for a photoshoot. There’s no loud branding, no Wi-Fi password on the wall, no call to action. Just quiet and warmth.

Watching the barista make chai, I realized how much care goes into each cup. First, spices are gently roasted until fragrant. Then comes black tea, brewed low and slow to soften the bitterness. Plant-based milk is added, not because of trends, but for health. A bit of sugar rounds it out. The entire process is deliberate, like a rhythm.

Making masala chai is not a quick process, it takes a certain level of attention and care.

“Chai,” Hiếu said, “is not a recipe. It’s a conversation between ingredients, between heat and time.” Toward the end of our conversation, I asked him, “What would you recommend to someone visiting Mão for the first time?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Always two drinks,” he said. “Thái Nguyên green tea is a must-try if you’re curious about traditional Vietnamese tea. It’s our cultural heritage. And Indian chai — freshly brewed, gently spiced — hits the sweet spot for young people.”

Masala chai and a cookie.

I now return to Mão whenever I need a pause, not just from work, but from the weight of noise, of deadlines, of the need to always be doing something. I sit by the window, sip my chai, and breathe.

We all need a third place: not home, not work, but somewhere in between. A place to return to without explanation. For me, Mão A Chai is that place. And perhaps, if you let it, it could be that place for you too.

Mão A Chai is open from 7:30am to 9:30pm.

As a little boy, there were nights when I would burst into tears upon waking up suddenly and not seeing mom around, because I missed her and needed her. One night, I even crawled under the bed and threw a tantrum, demanding her to be by my side immediately. My dad and brother told me that she was off selling bún riêu and would be back later. In the mind of a four-year-old, it didn’t matter what kind of noodles and where she was selling them, he only cared about when she would return. At the time, I don’t recall ever trying her bún riêu.

Among the myriads of noodle dishes that she fed me during the 17 years I spent at home, I always refused bún riêu. I thought that the anemic orange hue of the broth and the gargantuan pork knuckle smack-dab in the bowl were too much, so my appetite was often gone when face with bún riêu.

I left my hometown for Saigon to attend university. Only by exploring the tiny streets near campus did I come across a humble cart named Thắm — after the owner, no doubt — on Nguyễn Thị Thập Street, District 7. It reminds me of the Mekong Delta, of the quaint neighborhood where I was born and grew up in, of the hometown flavors that I now struggle to find again.

In the Saigon twilight every day, from 5pm to 7pm, the bún riêu cart was nestled in a nearby hẻm, wedged into one side to leave enough room for bikes to drive past. Eaters, too, enjoy their noodles alongside the length of the alley. Then, from around 7pm to 8pm, when the household appliance store next door shuttered, leaving its spacious frontyard empty, the cart took over the space, unfurling its tables and stools and forming an open-air dining area for anyone hankering for a steaming bowl of bún.

After 1–2 months since my last bún riêu, I paid the noodle cart a visit. It was 7pm so the store was still open, and thus the cart was supposedly chilling “backstage.” Yet, I discovered that Bún riêu Thắm was no longer hidden in the hẻm, but now serving meals out of their own storefront, albeit a small and humble one. During the afternoon, the cart serves out of this location, less than 100 meters from its night habitat. This was where we enjoyed our bona fide bowls of bún riêu.

I ordered a full-topping portion except for the pork knuckle, though anyone who relishes this addition can still ask for it. Guests will be able to detect the harmony and moderation in how the food presents itself right way. Strands of white noodles peak out under the layers of generous toppings that leave little space for the orangey broth.

Across the bowl, slices of pork, chả gân, crab cake, and fried tofu pile up, awash in the distinctive reddish shade of the bún riêu stock. The greenness of morning glory stands out as an accent. Last but not least, it’s impossible to miss the big hunk of crab meatloaf in a corner, the pièce de résistance for many bún riêu lovers. Diners can mix some shrimp paste, sugar or kumquat juice to make a dipping sauce for their toppings.

It seems that Mekong dwellers are often quite generous in their flavorings, as evidenced by the range and amount of seasonings used on a daily basis. It creates complex, soothing flavor combinations that are unique to local cuisines, from braised and fried dishes to soups. Thắm’s bún riêu version no doubt was influenced by the same flavoring philosophy, crafting her own flavor profile compared to northern-style bún riêu.

One can sense the umami in the broth, be it from bones or additional MSG. You’ll enjoy the suppleness of the rice noodles, the texture of the pork, the crunch of crab cakes, and the tender cubes of tofu soaking up all that flavorful broth. Above all, biting into the crab meatloaf, you’ll immediately sense the richness and meaty flavor from field crabs and eggs, blended into a soft block. In a bowl of Mekong-style bún riêu, the standout flavors are sweetness and saltiness, though one can squeeze in their own citrusy sourness should they feel enticed by the kumquats.

Thắm’s version of bún riêu resonates strongly with the Mekong region’s flavor palates, so even though I’ve never eaten bún riêu throughout my 17 years at home, I could still feel a sense of familiarity in my first bowl of bún riêu in Saigon. It feels a little bit like sitting on a coach in a whole different country, heading to a far-flung corner, yet suddenly hearing a Vietnamese voice from a fellow passenger with the same accent as your hometown’s. It’s so familiar I almost shed a tear.

District 7 is both foreign and familiar to me after five years studying and working here, but stopping by a sidewalk to have a southwestern bowl of bún riêu is not the only thing that makes me miss home. Here and there, I can sense fragments of my hometown in the accent of the servers, in the way they call out orders, in how they banter with regulars, how they joke around during downtime, the stainless steel tables, the plastic stools, and the giant plastic mugs filled with iced tea. It’s as if my tiny street at home is materializing around me. I see my mom’s figure carrying a bowl of bún from the market home to my dad in the way the server carries orders to our tables.

A bún riêu in Mekong Delta style is prepared with care and attention to details to produce a complete and flavorful eating experience. To me, it’s not merely a meal. It’s a seashell where my spirits can take solace in during particularly tough days; it’s a bridge linking me to that special place 300 kilometers from where I’m sitting, and linking me to the shards of memories that have been supporting me on my life’s journey forward.

Bún riêu canh bún Thắm is open from 5pm to 12am.

To sum up:

Taste: 4/5
Price: 4/5 — VND35,000 per bowl.
Atmosphere: 4/5
Friendliness: 5/5
Location: 5/5

“We want to be artists; we want to be free. Now we are free,” says Nguyễn Hoàng Anh, co-founder of A Thăng Eatery.

Hoàng met the restaurant’s other co-founder and head chef Bùi Gia Huy when they were both hospitality students in Saigon. The pair quickly bonded over a shared love of music. Huy is a singer while Hoàng plays guitar. Both in their early twenties, they found the drudgery of working in restaurants after graduation to be harmful to their mental health, so this past December, they decided to free themselves by opening A Thăng. The name, translating to the musical note A sharp, is a nod to their friendship and common interests. 

Hoàng (left) and Huy (right) founded A Thăng at the end of 2024.

Established in a humble building down a District 1 hẻm that was most recently a homestay, A Thăng is a testament to youthful ambition, creativity, and friendship. A DIY aesthetic and pride in one’s hometown permeates the space, with a repurposed door serving as the bar counter shelf, behind which rests a jar of Quy Nhơn chili sauce. Knick-knacks, including tiny bears added by core team member Khoa Diệp and adorable bear doodles by Nghi Diệp, further give it a charming personality and establish a warm and welcoming vibe.  

Born and raised in Quy Nhơn, Huy credits his father’s cooking with helping put him on a culinary path. He would watch his dad prepare traditional Bình Định family meals and soon did the same, adding western techniques and flavors when he came to Saigon to study. An appreciation for these hometown lessons and ingredients explains why he was quick to recommend the #Q Fish Rice made with sea bass and the aforementioned Quy Nhơn chilli sauce. A stand-out dish, the fish is supple and meaty while the perfectly cooked rice offers complex notes of cinnamon, pepper and chili. 

Another favorite item we ordered on our most recent visit was the pumpkin soup with grilled cheese. I’m a sucker for soup, particularly during Saigon’s perpetual soup season and A Thăng’s rendition is fantastically thick and rich. Dipping the crisp sandwich bread filled with gooey cheese is the perfect melody of textures with crunchy meeting melty. But even more than the mouthfeel, the quality of ingredients shines through. Every morning the team travels to nearby Tân Định market to purchase the ingredients. Such a habit might cost a bit more, but its worth it for the resultant fresh and clean dishes. This emphasis on healthy meats and produce reflects the team's own habits and the eatery’s motto: “We sell what we eat.” Thus, other than occasional pop-ups, the menu only features seafood, pork and chicken alongside vegetarian items. 

When it first opened, A Thăng Eatery consisted of just the front room and a small interior dining space with a few tables. This quickly changed thanks to a random video that went viral on TikTok. A friend of the co-founders had ordered flowers for the restaurant to celebrate its grand opening. The florist who delivered them was impressed with the spot and returned for dinner. She uploaded a video of her visit to her rather unanimous account and netizens took notice; it amassed hundreds of thousands of views. Perhaps it was the comfy interior that reminded one of the cozy home of close friends. Maybe it was the clips of young people diligently attending to their passion. Or it could be that the colorful dishes simply looked irresistible. But for whatever reason, the video resonated and guests arrived in droves. This early success allowed the restaurant to furnish a large, bright anterior space. Huy and Hoàng had been sleeping in the small room behind the kitchen but they were able to move to a nearby apartment and use the makeshift sleeping quarters as ingredient storage.

In a clear reflection of the restaurant’s grasp on food trends and the particular flavors in vogue with the city’s young diners, the drink menu has a detailed matcha section in addition to a homemade soda that reimagines Hội An viral Mót herbal tea. As Hoàng meticulously whisked the green tea and layered a “Mt. Fuji” of foam on top, he discussed the co-founder’s background. At one point, he gestured with pride to the restaurant’s license hanging on the wall. Hailing from Cần Thơ, Hoàng’s family is involved in the region’s rice trade which has given him familiarity with and appreciation for the legalities of commerce. 

While A Thăng Eatery is certainly a business and everyone involved wants to make enough money to continue, getting rich is not the priority. Rather, they want to have a space that allows them to explore their collective creativity and passion. This helps explain the recent pop-up menu with Saigoneer favorite Trần Pizza. In what came as no surprise, the street pizza’s proprietor Hiếu is a long-time friend of the A Thăng crew, and the collaboration seemed obvious when Hiếu found himself in between venues (he has since found a permanent location). But the pop-up was more than simply giving Hiếu space in the kitchen and on the menu; it was an opportunity for everyone involved to have fun while learning from one another. Huy and Hoàng learned about making pizza while Hiếu benefited from having A Thăng craft the toppings. It culminated in Kurty Wurty, a phở-inspired pizza named for an influential Singaporean chef that proved to be the week’s favorite item.

The sense of community fostered at A Thăng goes well beyond the specific Trần Pizza pop-up. The team has plans to host music performances that can give space to themselves and their circle of artist friends, in addition to future culinary collaborations. In the meantime, they have space to promote the undertakings of friends, such as The Hồ Tiêu, a company run by the friend of one of their sisters that sells a remarkably unique and flavorful craft pepper from Phú Quốc. Even during regular meal service and downtime, one understands how the restuarant serves as a source of community connection as evidenced by the Playstation 2 hooked up outside the kitchen. “Go ahead and play,” Hoàng said with a laugh.

Of course, many diners do not select a restaurant just because the team behind it is cool and its mission reflects an admirably earnest embrace of youthful passion. They understandably want great food. A Thăng certainly excels in this regard with a small but exemplary menu of Vietnamese-inspired western dishes. In addition to the #A Rice and pumpkin soup, we had the A# Salad made with kale, hydroponic lettuce and a variety of other vibrant produce;and the A# Pasta featuring pan-seared shrimp and a signature shrimp sauce. This later dish’s perfectly cooked pasta and shrimp underscore how the chefs can deftly execute basic techniques. This talent allows them to proceed according to the adage that only when you know the rules are you free to break them. A mastery of blurring the lines between western and Vietnamese cooking is on display in the Pasta Agilo Olio which features Nduja (an herbal pork sausage) with local spices and chili, as well as the A# Chicken Rice that reimagines the familiar central dish with egg and kimchi. 

Fitting to the restaurant’s ethos, Saigoneer became aware of A Thăng because of a mutual friend with the cofounders. That first trip was on a Saturday afternoon and the venue was absolutely packed with mostly young people enjoying relaxed weekend meals. When we made our most recent visit to A Thăng on a Wednesday afternoon, other than a pair of young women snapping careful photos of their food before digging in, we were the only ones there. It’s a bit surprising because the prices (VND90,000–120,000 per dish) make for great casual lunches in the middle of a workday. But regardless of when you come, you’ll be sure to have a great meal in a wonderful atmosphere. You’ll leave inspired by the passion and talent of the team and perhaps even optimism for the future of the city’s entire dining scene. 

A Thăng Eatery is opening every day except Monday and Thursday. Check out their Instagram account for opening times and dates.

To sum up:

Taste: 5/5
Price: 5/5
Atmosphere: 6/5
Friendliness: 7/5
Location: 4/5

Every time my extended family took a trip, it looked more like a mass exodus than a holiday — bags teetering, arms overstuffed, and enough supplies to survive a small apocalypse.

It always felt like the night before Tết with the kids still half-asleep, while the grown-ups bustled back and forth with brisk, practiced urgency. Not until every bag was wedged in, and every seat was claimed did the family finally let out a collective breath, the unspoken cue that, the journey had officially begun.

The first bolero song didn’t even make it to the second verse when my mom, designated commander-in-chief, would already be reaching under the seat, pulling out her trusty travel kit: plastic bags, a few headache pills, a crate of bottled water, a bottle of medicated oil. And most importantly, the bánh mì chả lụa she wrapped at the crack of dawn, each one swaddled neatly in paper. Hungry or not, everyone from front to back got their share. “Eat a bit, love, keep your strength up,” the grown-ups would say.

As a kid, I couldn’t figure out why bánh mì chả lụa showed up on every trip. Wasn’t the whole point of going somewhere new, well, to eat something new? Seafood in Vũng Tàu, mountain fare in Đà Lạt, and certainly not the same sandwich you could grab any day at the end of the street? But to the grown-ups, that was exactly the point. Before going anywhere new, you should ground yourself in a familiar taste from home. Whether the road was long or short, that first bite of bánh mì chả lụa was the mental confirmation that, “We’re really doing this.”

To be very frank, bánh mì chả lụa isn’t exactly the poster child of its family. It doesn’t have the star power of the cold cuts version that’s now world-famous, nor did it ever leave Anthony Bourdain swooning and reaching for a third the way Dì Phượng’s bánh mì gà xé did.

It took me a while to realize that it was bánh mì chả lụa’s simplicity that made it the perfect travel companion. Just a few quick slices of pork chả, evenly cut cucumber, and a dash of salt and pepper could provide enough starch, protein, and fiber to stand in for a proper home-cooked meal. Sure, butter, pâté, xíu mại, grilled pork — those are culinary treasures in their own right. But in the cramped, jostling, sun-baked space of a long-distance coach, they had all the makings of a minor tragedy. Bánh mì chả lụa, on the other hand, was practical, a built-in insurance policy against price-gouging or worse, a game of bathroom roulette at some sketchy roadside stop.

I can still remember that familiar ache — the one that crept in as I passed rows of tempting roadside stalls, only to look down at the bland, squished bánh mì chả lụa in my hand. 

“Yes, I’m eating,” I’d mumble when the adults checked in, letting out a quiet sigh before dutifully nibbling away. The bread sagged in my lap, right along with my face. I dragged it out so long, we were nearly in Đồng Nai before I took the last bite. It's strange how something so plain could end up being the hardest to come by.

The years reshaped everything. Children left home, siblings drifted, and the once-lively household grew still. As our family’s finances grew more comfortable, our vacations stretched farther — to places only reachable by air. And planes, with their sterilized, orderly routines, didn’t really leave room for anything homemade, so we settled into the new rhythm: slurping overpriced airport phở in silence. Still as bland, but somehow far more expensive.

These days, traveling on my own means grabbing a few quick, convenient rice balls to keep the hunger quiet. I’m an adult now, and no one’s left to nudge a warm bánh mì chả lụa into my hands before the coach pulls away. It takes a special kind of love to rise before dawn, to find the freshest loaf, thaw the chả, slice the cucumber just so — the way my mother once used to.

Maybe it's not so much the bánh mì I longed for, but the tenderness that helped prepare it.

I know a little place. 

Saigon’s cafe scene is so developed that finding and embracing cafes constitutes a hobby, if not a full-blown personality for certain residents. For some, the pastime is all about the drinks. Bean sourcing and roasting; preparation techniques and technologies; and pouring and presentation methods can all be meticulously assessed. Others care about the vibes and aesthetics, with particular attention paid to Instagram photo potential. Within this cafe culture world, bringing a date to the perfect coffee shop for stupendous drinks can be an unrivaled aphrodisiac.

No beverage better proves this than the cà phê truyền thống sold at the Star Cafe inside Tân Sơn Nhất’s Domestic Departure Terminal. Squeaking luggage trolly wheels; one-half of conversations shouted into cellphones; cranky kids crying to parents stressed by travel plans; and a pungent blend of body odor, perfume and distant jet fuel collects like soap scum and tangled hair around a clogged shower drain: the atmosphere in the domestic terminal is the ideal setting for a romantic date. Star Cafe even provides for the social media-minded as plenty of bystanders are present to snap the perfect photo for you to upload and inspire jealousy about your whereabouts while providing a valuable keepsake of the day you met the person you’ll one day marry.

But you cannot sit without purchasing something, of course. And we all know the adage “You get what you pay for.” The astronomical prices (US$6.50 for a large regular Vietnamese coffee) must mean that you’re getting something of exceptional quality. The fact that it's only listed in foreign currency lends a dose of international exoticism to the experience. The drink, coupled with the price of the tickets needed to get through security constitutes spending so extravagant your date will have no choice but to be impressed. And the coffee itself, tasting like the crass feedback emitted on a karaoke machine when two microphones are brought too close together, invites trauma bonding.

Photo via Tripadvisor

But if you’re not convinced, remember McBeth speaking to the night sky: “Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.” If you want to make your deep desires known, surely you must bring them to the Star Cafe. You don’t even need to board the plane you bought the ticket for.

Editor's note: Happy April Fools' Day! This article is part of Saigoneer's 2025 April Fools' Day celebration. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the writer’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.

Cháo, or congee in English, is a diverse genre of Vietnamese dishes in both executions and flavor profiles — from humble versions like pandan congee, red bean congee to more substantial and complex meals like offal congee, chicken congee and catfish congee. Each dish is a different variation, but they all share a reputation for being nourishing and a richness of regional culinary characteristics.

Once upon a bowl of cháo

During the shortages of wartime decades, our ancestors made cháo as an economical way to stretch a meal. It was often eaten with a sprinkle of salt or readily available plants in the yard, like jackfruit, rice paddy herb, morning glory, banana blossom, pea shoot, or bamboo shoot. According to historical accounts from Văn minh vật chất của người Việt (The Material Civilization of the Vietnamese People): “During famines, Vietnamese would start reducing the number of meals, first from three to two, and then to one meal a day, trying to retain lunches while switching from cooking rice to congee. It takes less rice to cook congee than rice, just about a quarter the amount, but the body can absorb nearly everything, and this also helps prevent dehydration very effectively.” After a day in the field, they often sipped on watered down congee, as it’s better for the stomach while replenishing energy.

The theory of yin-yang balance that Vietnam follows stipulates that the human body is a “mini-universe” where elements of yin and yang are equal and harmonious. If either of the two overwhelms the other, illnesses will appear. As a soft, light, and oil-less food type, cháo is considered an easily digestible meal that one can freely pair with other ingredients to rebalance the missing yin or yang in the body. Doctor Ngô Quang Hải from the Vietnam Acupuncture Association explained: “If the illness arose from too much yin, one needs to eat yang-rich food, and vice versa. For instance, if you have a cold (yin), you should eat yang food types like congee with ginger or tía tô leaves. If you have a heatstroke (yang), you should eat congee with spring onion (yin).”

Cháo is a dish that promotes the yin-yang balance.

Exploring the many cháo of Vietnam

Albeit simple, cháo can be a banner dish for any region in the country. From north to south, congee shapeshifts depending on the local produce and palates, resulting in myriads of varieties. In the north, Hải Phòng has cháo khoái; Bắc Ninh serves up cháo thái Đình Tổ, a congee novelty that’s eaten using chopsticks; the H’Mông community in Hà Giang eats cháo ấu tẩu, prepared using a potentially poisonous tuber; and of course, Hanoi’s thick cháo sườn is a treat as well.

I, unfortunately, haven’t had a chance to fly to the north to try out all these unique delicacies, but as someone whose family has roots in the northern region, I fell in love with the version of cháo sườn sold by the mobile vendors of Phạm Văn Hai Market — one of Saigon’s many enclaves of northern immigrants from 1954. Unlike standard congee, which is cooked using rice grains, cháo sườn is often made with rice flour, producing a glutinous texture, accompanied by fork-tender chunks of rib cartilage, crispy shallot, chopped coriander and spring onion, and deep-fried quẩy. Cháo sườn is a favorite snack of us kids as it’s easy to eat, so one full bowl in the afternoon might help us avoid dinner.

Cháo sườn on chilly days.

In the central region, Nghệ An has eel congee; Tam Kỳ is famous for chicken congee; Bình Định pairs pork offal congee with sheets of bánh hỏi; Quảng Nam adds black beans to beef offal congee; and congee with củ nén, a type of allium, is a staple of the “Quảng realm.” Despite the differences, they share a similarity in bánh tráng mè nướng, a sesame cracker, as an accouterment. During a visit in Quảng Nam, I was shown the correct way to eat their congee: snap off a morsel of bánh tráng nướng, drop it in the bowl, wait for it to soften, and then eat it to enjoy the slightly chewy texture.

Eel congee in Nghệ An.

In Saigon, I’ve always found street cháo stalls to be weirdly inviting. No fuss or flair, just a big umbrella and a dozen of low plastic stools — everyone is eager to sit down for a feast. A classic Saigon-style bowl of cháo often features three elements: toasted rice, fried dồi, and a handful of beansprouts at the bottom. The toasted rice helps add a nutty flavor to the congee. The raw beansprouts are immediately blanched by the hot congee while still retaining their refreshing crunch. Before diners dive in, a squeeze of lime and a tiny dollop of crushed chili pepper are must-haves in the bowl of dipping fish sauce. At this point, the bowl of cháo lòng is complete with every facet of saltiness, sweetness, sourness and spiciness. Slurp on hot congee, bite into a hunk of chewy offal and remember this feeling forever.

A bowl of cháo lòng.

Head to the Mekong Delta, one is bound to encounter cháo ám, a specialty from Trà Vinh. The origins behind the name might come from how the dish is usually a test of a new daughter-in-law’s cooking prowess. On the first day after she enters the husband’s family, she would cook a pot of catfish congee for the family and relatives. This level of pressure is why preparing a tasty cháo áo is constantly on the mind of young brides — the word “ám” is short for “ám ảnh” (haunted).

Cháo ám is made with freshly caught catfish from the field. To enrich the broth with more layers of umami, Trà Vinh adds roasted dry shallot, dry squid, and dry shrimp. Going alongside the congee is a plate of various herbs, including but not limited to banana blossom, crown daisy, and cải trời. Still, the most commonly used greens are rau đắng (knotgrass) and beansprouts. The subtle bitter notes of knotgrass are perfectly tempered by the nuttiness of the congee, the sweetness of the fish, the kick of black pepper, the aroma of alliums, and the crispy richness of fried shallot.

Cháo ám is Trà Vinh’s famous congee.

Teochew is amongst four big branches of Chợ Lớn, Saigon’s Hoa community, alongside Hakka, Guangdong, and Fujian. One of the most distinctive dishes of Teochew culture is cơm cháo, or rice-congee. The dish is served as a rather peculiar platter: a pot of white rice is placed next to a steaming hot pot of congee. The carbohydrates are eaten with bitesize chunks of braised offal and pickled cabbages, the same tart ingredient that Vietnamese usually used to braise with leftover feast meats like roast pork and duck. The sourness from the cabbage increases the shelf life of the dish while making the rich animal proteins more palatable.

Though cháo lòng might be a popular dish across Vietnam, the Teochew version of cháo lòng is perhaps a slightly different cousin in the family of congees. The congee is on the white side as the broth and rice are simmered together with pork bones, squids, and straw mushrooms. Pork offal, including heart, kidney, intestines, and liver, is boiled in a different pot. When served, they are eaten separately with a dipping sauce that comprises soy sauce and red vinegar. The congee is lightly aromatic and tastes of ginger, pepper, and green onion, accompanied by crown daisy. On top, slices of offal and century egg present an inviting pick-your-favorite-protein-feast.

Cơm cháo Triều Châu.

Eating cháo is perhaps the best way to slow down and focus on the flavors of life. Congee is always served steaming hot, so impatient slurpers are almost guaranteed to burn their mouth. It’s best enjoyed at a languid pace to savor all the delicious elements of cháo. On days when the temperature turns cold, what’s better than sipping through your most favorite cháo?

Saigoneers are spoilt for choice when it comes to Japanese eateries in the city. Dozens, if not hundreds, of sushi, ramen and izakaya spots dot its districts. And if you're in the mood for something special, more obscure delicacies like tsukemen, Tokyo abura soba and Okinawa taco rice are readily available. Over the years, the epicenter of such eateries, especially those run by Japanese owners, has been slowly shifting from the upper stretches of Lê Thánh Tôn to Bình Thạnh District’s Phạm Viết Chánh neighborhood.

This is where an even rarer branch of Japan’s culinary heritage can be enjoyed. Just off the main drag is 蔵 KURA, a dedicated sake bar — pronounced “SAH-keh” in Japanese — helmed by Sana, who originally hails from Nara Prefecture in southeastern Japan. Known colloquially as “the cradle of the Japanese civilization,” it is home to more UNESCO World Heritage sites than any other prefecture in the country. With such a pedigree, it may come as no surprise that it’s also rich in sake traditions.

KURA is hidden in a hẻm just off Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh Avenue.

KURA is a one-woman show, with Sana curating both the sake selections and appetizer-sized dishes in her narrow standing bar establishment, which attracts all types of patrons including Japanese, Vietnamese and westerners who all have their unique sake preferences.

Japanese are generally the most distinguished consumers when it comes to their national alcohol. They are often knowledgeable about sake, having opinions and tastes that were formed over their lifetimes. “Japanese sake lovers who come to my bar know their own favorite taste of sake from different areas in Japan, so they tend to order by flavor,” Sana told Saigoneer. Sometimes this is based on flavor profile, or even simply in line with their home prefecture. For Japanese guests, it’s clear that the comfort and nostalgia of home brings them to KURA.

Sana is deeply proud of her Nara heritage.

Vietnamese who visit are also often familiar with Japan and sake, with many having lived in or visited the country, according to Sana. Similar to Japanese guests, they also make their selections based on personal experience.

Westerners are comparatively visual when it comes to their sake choices. “I see westerners tend to choose by a label or look of a bottle on the first visit — like pointing to a bottle and saying “I like to try that red bottle” or “I will pick this [beautifully labeled] one.” After sampling the inventory, this group starts to get their bearings and narrow down their preferences. “I see they are humbly confident and proud of their own taste buds and senses,” shared Sana.

Have you ever seen this many types of sake in one place?

If guests need a bit of help navigating the extensive offerings, Sana assists by asking questions that help to determine what would be suitable for their palates. “I usually ask them if they prefer “karakuchi” (dry) or “amakuchi” (sweet) taste. If they don’t know what they want, I [would] recommend they try the ones that I select from my favorite sake lines and seasonal ones. When they like it, I am happy too. For beginners, I usually refrain from serving peculiar and strong-tasting sakes.”

Sake is just as diverse as wine or other spirits.

Sana also offers a limited but important food menu that she feels can elevate the overall experience when paired correctly: “At my bar, I usually serve aged foods such as fermented and smoked dishes, because sake is also aged, they create an amazing chemistry in a mouth together.”

A platter of aged snacks accompanies sake sipping.

When at KURA, it feels like Sana has been doing this forever. But like many who follow their passions to build their business, her sake journey was filled with serendipity.

In 2010, Sana was working as a stage photographer in Tokyo, mainly shooting dance, ballets and musicals. This was also the year that Nara was commemorating the 1,300^th anniversary of its ascension as the capital of Japan during the Nara Period from 710 to 740, and again from 745 to 784. At the event, sake breweries from around the region held a small tasting event, where she felt a sense of pride for her prefecture’s historic products.

Four years had passed when a business feng shui expert told Sana to go to Vietnam. “Although Vietnam was not on my list of countries I was interested in, she pinpointed it and told me to go to Hồ Chí Minh City. A week later, I met a company that was helping me start a business in Vietnam. After that, good connections continued to draw me smoothly to Hồ Chí Minh City, and before I knew it, I had opened my shop a year later, in 2015, in Lê Thánh Tôn,” she recounted. “At that time Vietnam still didn't have much understanding of sake. I remember I was disappointed that the even proper way to store and preserve sake was completely unknown. I would keep passionately spreading correct ways to have sake in the best condition and the greatness of sake; Japanese masterpieces.”

Since she arrived, much has changed in the scene. Sake is now a more common offering across the city and there's more consumer demand for it than ever. While the robust range of offerings alone makes KURA worth a visit, it’s Sana’s knowledge and passion that have solidified its status as a Hẻm Gem.

KURA is open from 6pm to 11pm.

In the memory-scape of children growing up in the countryside like me, there always exists the familiar sight of old wet markets and the mornings we spent there, toddling behind our moms on the hunt for snacks, CDs, and lollipops. In the afternoons, I often tagged along with my grandma to buy meat and veggies, sneaking a toy or two inside her basket. Sometimes, if I was particularly sweet, she would allow us to have lunch there instead of at home.

After years of studying and working in Saigon, I once thought that these nostalgic scenes only live in my mind now, but on a trip to Tôn Thất Đạm’s chợ cũ, I was shocked to find a charming kiosk with the same retro display I remember from my childhood.

Hủ Tiếu Mì Cô Chánh is located at 69 Tôn Thất Đạm, manned by the titular cô Chánh, whose real name is Huỳnh Thị Dung. She told me that the kiosk was a family heirloom from her uncle, who started selling noodles 60 years ago. When he emigrated abroad, he left the operation in her hands. At first, she kept it simple with just Guangdong-style hủ tiếu, but to cater to local demand, over time, she added more options to the menu, like hủ tiếu mì, wonton, meatballs, etc.

The flavors of cô Chánh’s noodle shop have changed across the decades too. The uncle moved away when she wasn’t a noodle master yet, so every day, she learns on the job by cooking the way she knows how while listening to customer feedback to improve her craft.

Diners have two options: large strands or small strands of noodles. Both share the same chewy texture and eye-catching golden hue. Other toppings like shrimp, fried garlic, fried pork lard, liver, heart, and pork add to the dining experience. Chunks of liver are cleaned properly so there’s no unpleasant smell with every bite. Cô Chánh has been getting her ingredients from the same trustworthy supplier over the years. The vat of bubbling broth in the corner, moderately seasoned and not too sweet, is an undeniable attraction luring curious shoppers to stop by. Each guest can modify the flavors of their bowl in whatever way they see fit with the range of Teochew vinegar and sauces on offer.

Slurping up a few spoonfuls of warm broth, I feel as if I was transported to the noodle stalls I enjoyed years ago. Cô Chánh’s noodles have that “vintage” flavor profile often seen in Hoa Vietnamese kitchens. The wontons are quite hefty with a thin wrapper and a well-season filling, keeping me hungry for more. The meat filling is a touch saltier than that of other stalls, but this balances the taste well in the context of the light broth. Apart from the taste, diners will no doubt feel delighted by the way she presents the bowls. Each slice of pork, each sprinkle of fried shallot, and each shrimp is arranged neatly on top of the noodles.

Cô Chánh shared that she wakes up every day at 4am to start prepping ingredients and usually finishes by 7pm. There used to be a time when this tiny kiosk could feed over 100 patrons in a day, mostly office workers from nearby buildings having breakfast or lunch. Post-pandemic, however, the foot traffic has dwindled. “Now, I sell about 30 bowls at most a day. Some days the revenue can’t even cover the ingredient costs,” cô Chánh sadly explained.

Whenever the kiosk is empty, cô Chánh and cô Gái, a friend who helps out with stall operation, start tidying and washing, before sitting down to chat about every topic in the universe. The chatter greatly contributes to the uniquely cordial vibes of the market, so much so that guests often feel comfortable enough to join in their conversations.

When asked about her kiosk partner, she said: “A long time ago, I was selling noodles, and she was selling sweets right next door. Business was quite bad at the market, so I asked her to hop over to sell noodles with me. Since then, we sisters have stuck together.” Perhaps it was thanks to that stroke of fate that cô Chánh’s noodle shop is always filled with laughter. They work well and play well, never one to shy away from teasing each other to ward off the exhaustion of a tough work day.

Cô Chánh is not getting any younger, so her health has declined somewhat, but she reassured me that she will continue selling noodles no matter what, as the kiosk has been a part of her life for decades — a constant source of happiness during the golden days of a Saigoneer who lives alone.

To sum up:

Taste: 4/5
Price: 4/5
Atmosphere: 4/5
Friendliness: 5/5
Location: 4.5/5

It was 13 years ago when Christine Ha auditioned for and eventually won the third season of MasterChef US. Christine was a grad student from Texas then, and her victory was a watershed moment in the history of reality TV in the US and even globally. She’s visually impaired, a daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, and has a palate that even established chefs would envy. Back then, everything about Christine’s MasterChef run left an indelible mark on me, a budding food enthusiast from Vietnam, but as I grew older and embarked on my own cooking journey, there’s something about her audition that has always tugged on my heartstrings.

She auditioned for MasterChef with cá kho tộ, a rustic, homely dish where a fatty fish is braised in a claypot with fish sauce and simple spices, often eaten with steamed white rice and blanched vegetables. I have no shame about introducing cá kho tộ to a western audience because to me cá kho tộ is one perfect example of a simple but balanced meal, in which a salty, rich, umami-laden sauce is smartly tempered by plain carb and fibrous sides. Everything about Christine’s cá kho tộ screams Vietnam, from the choice of catfish to the use of the claypot, but nothing does it better than the way she cuts the fish: crosswise.

Christine Ha's original audition in 2012.

This cut is often called cá cắt khúc in Vietnamese or fish steak in English, producing rhomboid fish slices that retain a segment of the spine and a handful of ribs. Fillets, however, are the result of lengthwise cuts that carefully separate the fish flesh from the backbone. One thing I learned about cooking from western media is how much importance is placed on deboning. On MasterChef itself, there are challenges where contestants are required to segment an entire salmon by themselves, producing Instagram-ready squares of fish fillets whose every sliver of bone is picked clean by the chef. The cá cắt khúc–fillet dichotomy might seem trivial, but to me, it speaks volumes about the way Asian cooking traditions at large and Vietnamese cuisine in particular distinguish themselves from the gastronomical conventions of the west.

Fish fillets, freed of bones and skin, are primed to be grilled, pan-seared, battered and deep-fried, or baked; therefore, it’s perfect for meatier, leaner fish types that populate the northern seas like cod, halibut, seabass or red snapper. Cá cắt khúc, meanwhile, epitomizes the economical and resourceful way Vietnam approaches cooking. Bones always mean more flavor, so leaving the bones in fish steaks is an ideal way to amplify the tastiness of the braise and keep the fish from drying out. The freshwater fish species — from cá trê, Christine’s pick for her dish, to cá dứa and cá rô đồng — that often end up in cá kho tộ have flaky flesh and rather petite bodies, so the act of filleting can risk mangling the fish and leaving behind specks of fish meat — a wasteful crime that would alarm any Asian cook, who tend to greatly value using every part of the ingredients. And the concept behind cá kho tộ in itself is a way for Vietnamese families from less privileged backgrounds to stretch a small amount of protein to an entire meal for the family. During the braising process, the fish fat seeps into the liquid, making it more hearty, while the high salt content from soy or fish sauce promotes more consumption of carbs so the family will get full faster with less protein.

I am admittedly quite terrified of cá cắt khúc, due to a childhood incident involving a stuck fish bone in my throat, but I firmly believe that one must always go with slices of perfectly chopped fish in cá kho tộ. Of course, fish steaks exist in western cuisines too, especially in the case of salmon; and supermarkets in Saigon now carry a range of filleted fish for the convenience of busy homemakers. Today, representations of Vietnamese cuisine are not that rare on international media anymore and even TikTokers are making bánh tráng nướng at home, but you will never forget your firsts. I will never forget that special feeling, seeing Christine Ha’s cá cắt khúc for the first time on television — bubbling inside a claypot, coated in a layer of saucy, salty fish sauce caramel that appears like from a dream.

“So what makes Emme House different?” the head bartender Dũng asked during our earlier conversation with Trực, the bar’s owner. “Emme House is not a bar,” he explained. I further inquired then about the layers of storytelling embedded into every detail, to which he replied with a smile, “I’ll tell you the whole story.”

I’m merely the messenger now retelling what I saw and felt, and the first thing to note is that the best part of writing about a bar is the on-the-ground research. Thus, I ventured into the unknown and traveled up the dimly lit flight of stairs underneath the discreet red and yellow street sign that reads: 70 Hàm Nghi.

Some time after 10pm:

The black-and-white palette inside Emme.

I had arranged to arrive late at night and was greeted at the door with a warm handshake within seconds by Đức, the head chef of the adjacent a.dau Kitchen. We stroll past its chipped tables and cracked plates conceptually representing the love of yesterday and are transported to the love of tomorrow with earthly green and brown hues within Emme House.

Đức recommends my first drink, a personal and fan favorite: Love Is a Game. The glowing glass featuring Tito’s vodka, mango, chili syrup, kombucha vinegar, and a heart-shaped lime leaf is placed in front of me a few moments later. The ingredients of the current concoction, as well as the rest of the menu, originate from less than 20 kilometers away at Chợ Đầu Mối Bình Điền. I take my first few sips; good thing I like spicy.

A glass of Love Is a Game to start.

Roughly 11pm:

“We only said goodbye with words. I died a hundred times,” Amy Winehouse’s words come via the musical cover duo and dance off the walls while light chatter fills the air. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a blue flame set ablaze a cloudy ball of steel wool. There, lingering at the margins to my right in front of the flame is Tín, along with another repeat customer, Thư. They’re sharing a pair of cocktails and a shrinking stack of forest-green So Much Closer drinking cards. Tín is the resident poet at Emme and the founder of the branding studio ChoChoi Creative. He writes anywhere from one to four or more poems a week, which he DM’s biweekly to his brother, Trực, the owner of Emme House, d.dau Kitchen, and the interior design firm Red 5 Studio.

Poetry is scattered in small corners of the bar.

By the time his friend found this location four years ago, Trực already had a habit of hosting friends and family in his own home, which meant he didn’t need to market Emme when it opened — he just had to tell his friends about it. That said, launching Emme and utilizing his design firm to fill the interior with original, handmade pieces were a lot of work. But, as Kahlil Gibran wrote in The Prophet, “Work is love made visible.” Point in case, the bar equipment is hidden beneath the counter so customers focus on staff who doubles as in-house raconteurs. This subconsciously highlights Emme’s story of love and its love of story. After all, how many places discuss a topic as deep as love during the interview process?

Love is a common theme in both the founding and running of Emme.

Furthermore, on any given night, roughly 10 of Tín’s poems are featured on the covers of menus throughout each table of Emme. Thư says that in two and half years of consistent attendance, she has yet to see the same poem twice. Again, just like his brother, that’s love made visible. Tín shares more about his journey as a poet and studio founder as well as Emme’s details, like the chairs’ backrests designed specifically for men and women, plus the spades, hearts, cloves, and diamonds on the window that reference card games. Meanwhile, the bartender whips around the kitchen counter presenting my second drink of the night: Something’s Burning. After he holsters his blow torch and the embers of the steel wool cool, the aroma of grilled pineapple arrives, and some additional questioning helps peel back a few more layers of the story.

Something's Burning, literally.

Half past 11pm or so:

The fundamental ethos of Emme is inspired by 50% of Trực’s life and 50% by his friend’s with whom he studied in primary school years ago. At its core is a love story about an architect and a freelancer who live together but because of their opposite schedules, they wake and work at different times, constantly missing each other. As a result, each leaves short handwritten notes at the kitchen counter for their partner to read while they are away. Hence, the poems scattered everywhere.

Emme has ample cozy corners to fit any patron's preferences.

However, the storytelling goes deeper than that. The first drink I had, Love Is a Game, comes from the “Legendary Menu.” Now featured on the menu’s right side, it contains the drinks from when they first opened. It calls to mind a mature, adult-like, action-oriented love. My second drink, however, comes from the new half of the menu which took roughly an entire year to create.

The tall, broad capital E at the top left corner of Emme’s notebook paper menu represents the onset of a high school love story starting with Something’s Burning. It symbolizes the unforgettable moment, for better or for worse, when two high school lovers locked eyes, peering through the flickering flames for the first time at an end of the year bonfire often held on the outskirts of Đà Lạt’s rolling hills. The rest of the drink trio belonging to the E stanza of the menu includes the jasmine gin-based I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You and Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now with whiskey, Malibu rum, banana, coconut, and Milo.

Preparing snacks.

It’s time for a snack so I follow Tin’s recommendation for a plate of Squid Game. Hint: it’s not squid, but you can find out for yourself what it is, and just a note: available snacks change every four months. The second letter on the menu is a large capital M, which is italicized, leaning to the right, as if one is now leaning into the relationship and the characters in the story are growing closer. Drinks include Make You Feel My Love with cognac, Thai tea, dark choco, and menthe; plus It’s Now or Never with Flor De Cana Rum, salted pineapple sparkling, and strawberry shrub — it's like strawberry lipstick, or an ode to the taste stored in one’s memory of a first kiss.

Nearing midnight in Saigon:

I’m closing in on the final stretch, the music has finished, but I’m now warm from the spiciness of Love Is a Game and the mezcal of Something’s Burning. We now move to the next part of the story represented on the menu by a flower separating the Em and the Me, or You and Me. The flower is a lưu ly flower meaning “forget me not.” This part of the story is where the two are now dating but don’t have money for expensive activities, so they express their love by buying each other what they can afford at that age: cheap drinks and snacks. For example, Up Where We Belong has some Red Bull, the go-to drink sold in front of schools. Love Me Tender features some elevated mango fermented with salt, a reference to bánh tráng trộn. And finally Isn’t She Lovely, a personal favorite of Trực’s, contains sassafras wood tinctures, which is similar to the cola-like flavor of sarsaparilla, or otherwise more commonly known as sarsi.

Small groups of friends start to fill up the bar's tables.

I motion to the bartender who flies towards me and finds my index finger pointing to my third drink: Isn’t She Lovely. Yes, plus she’s sweet, sour, fizzy, and refreshing — a winning combination. Atop the glass is a green grape coated in white chocolate. I’m instructed and happily comply as follows: eat and sip and eat and sip…

The rest of the menu contains the latter half of Emme. First, a chipped M, resembling the likes of arguments with self-explanatory drink names like Raining on a Sunday, All Out of Love, and the poignant If. Finally, a lowercase ‘e’ at the bottom personifies the “thương” type of love and the accompanying innocence the two lovers share as they disregard the all-too-real possibility of their paths no longer intertwining. They choose to bask in the naivete of the joyous here and now while they snack on rice with watermelon together. There’s only one drink title that can encapsulate the sentiment felt at such a juncture: Just The Two of Us — a medley of Vietnamese sake, some watermelon and raspberry, and a dash of mắc khén tincture.

The witching hour has commenced:

A few guests linger, the crew is beginning to clean up, and it’s time for last call. I return to where we started on the “Legendary” right side of the menu and take Dũng’s recommendation for my final final: Cheers Darlin’ — a drink, a torched cord of cinnamon, and a rich treat. Already plenty buzzed thanks to the fusion of vodka, mezcal, chardonnay, and now cinnamon tequila, I practice a small act of restraint and refuse the temptation of exploring the whole menu by abstaining from a fourth or fifth drink.

Cheers Darlin'.

I mentioned earlier Gibran’s wisdom that work is love made visible. He also wrote that your home is your larger body, an extension of self that acts not as an anchor holding you down, but as a mast guiding you forward, and that your body is the harp of your soul, an instrument of giving. Emme House embodies the late Lebanese poet down to the studs. This place is more than a bar. It’s a body. It’s an instrument. It’s an extension of its owner and staff — it’s a home.

Home is where the heart is.

Anytime you’re invited to someone’s home, the best way to be invited back is to leave with grace and not overstay your welcome. As I see the staff wiping down the back table, stacking clean glasses, and taking last last calls, it’s time I am on my way. However, knowing I would be back for another round or two and knowing there will be new poems on the tables and walls, new drinks and snacks on the menu, and plenty of new and repeat guests seated and suited, I realized: this is merely cheers for now Emme, cheers for now…

Chef Peter Cường Franklin shared a powerful narrative to introduce the dish he prepared for Saigoneer. Rice symbolizes the nation’s most important carbohydrate and its agrarian culture; cá chốt represents the ubiquity of local seafood and vital waterways; and lotus provides a metaphor for Vietnamese resilience because it grows in the mud and produces a beautiful, useful flower. 

Peter’s dish was made with these ingredients from the Mekong Delta, which allowed him to reflect on the value and condition of the region. “We have flooding and we have different kinds of weather conditions that are affecting the farming and thus the livelihoods of the people in that region … We have 100 million people, we have to feed these people. So, the Mekong Delta is very important.”

The WWF's nature-based solutions projects include providing farmers with fish fingerlings and guidance on how to grow them without industrial feed and chemicals. The fish which, include cá chốt, can be dried, seasoned, and sold to people like Peter to enjoy throughout the country. Moreover, farmers receive support to plant floating rice, an ancient variety native to the region that grows naturally during the flood season and thus requires no blocking of floodwaters. By allowing water to flow naturally from upstream, sediments can collect and improve soil fertility while combating erosion. Groundwater reserves are also able to be replenished. 

Photo courtesy WWF.

This rice provided Peter with an enjoyable challenge. He explained: “For home cooking, it is actually a very healthy grain of rice ... it still has all the flavor and texture outside. It requires more work, more effort, but I think it could be something to add to the arsenal of home cooking. People can create something that's new, that's different for the family. Because we eat rice, it's the same rice all the time. So, it's nice to have something that has a different flavor, and different texture, and requires a bit more work and effort. To some extent, it's a bit of fun, too.”

Peter seemed to have fun while frying the cooked floating rice with some vegetables and spices and added the dried cá chốt that had been lightly fried along with some boiled lotus seed for subtle sweetness. While bringing silverware for us to try he summed up the value of the meal nicely: “When we make a dish like this, we're actually showing people what and how the Vietnamese eat, and what we eat, and the resources available ingredients that are available to us to make a meal for our family.”

Meeting up for a Chinese-style breakfast often means gathering around stacked baskets of dim sum or diving into hearty bowls of wonton noodles. But if you're looking for something lighter, a serving of cheung fun might offer the perfect balance.

Cheung fun (腸粉), often likened to Vietnamese bánh cuốn, is made from thin sheets of steamed rice batter wrapped around various fillings like shrimp, minced pork, or vegetables. The name cheung fun loosely translates to “intestine noodles,” a nod to its coiled shape rather than its ingredients, which contain no actual offal.

The dish originated in Guangdong and has since spread globally through Chinese diaspora communities, adapting to local palates wherever it landed. In Vietnam, it’s commonly known as bánh cuốn Quảng Đông and is a staple of breakfast tables in Chợ Lớn, Saigon’s historic Chinatown. If you happen to wander through early in the day, you might come across Ngọc’s small cheung fun stall tucked into a hẻm in Phùng Hưng Market.

Ngọc, a Teochew descent, runs the stall with her husband, whose family hails from Guandong.

“This dish is now popular in many places like Singapore and Hong Kong. Each region has its own way of making it — some use one type of filling, others another, depending on their own take,” Ngọc explains. “My brother learned the original recipe and taught me, and I adjusted the seasoning to better suit local tastes. In China, the flavors are much milder, so I had to make some changes..”

If bánh cuốn is made on a stretched cloth and lifted with wooden sticks, cheung fun requires a multi-tiered steamer — one level for greens, one for fillings, and two for the rice sheets.

Ngọc’s batter starts with fresh rice soaked overnight and ground daily. Before pouring the batter, she brushes each tray with a thin layer of oil to prevent sticking and give the sheets a smooth, glossy finish. Each tray receives a ladle of batter, spread into a thin layer that cooks in just two minutes over rising steam. She lifts and rolls each sheet, slicing them into neat sections before plating.

Classic cheung fun comes with fillings like minced pork, shrimp, or egg, with the mildly seasoned rice sheet acting as a backdrop for the fresh ingredients to shine. At Ngọc’s stall, the dish is served with steamed bok choy and additional fillings like scallops and imitation crab. “I also make my own sauce, adding a bit of sa tế to match local tastes while keeping it true to tradition,” she explains.

The first bite is all about balance — soft rice sheets, a flavorful filling, a touch of sesame oil, and just enough heat to wake up the palate. It’s a Chinese breakfast that doesn’t demand a feast, yet leaves you perfectly content to take on the day.

I am Hanoi’s hungriest tourist; and the capital welcomes me into its flavorsome, umami-rich warmth with open arms.

There are many things that are churning in my mind before my first-ever trip to Hanoi: will the budget airline delay my flight into oblivion; will my perpetually tropical self shrivel up at the slightest drop of temperature; and are the city’s commuters the casual daredevils their reputations suggest. As it is somewhat of a last-minute trip, I land on the tarmac of Nội Bài — giddy with enthusiasm but slightly creeped out by the menacing smog — without any concrete plan in mind detailing whom to see and what to do, except for a tiny notebook chock-full of fantastic food and where to find it.

The next day is a whirlwind of speedy slurping, chomping and unbridled indulging. Cơm rang dưa bò, check. Egg coffee, check. Hearty chicken mixed phở, check. Next on the list: miến lươn giòn, a dish of glass noodles with fried eel that I’ve grown attached to even in Saigon and have made it a personal goal to sample in its natural habitat. On the morning before we set out to hunt down a bowl of eel soup, Hanoi greets me with a pleasantly surprising cold front that allows for some autumnal layering and shameless hoodie snuggling. At merely 20°C, the chilly atmosphere hugs you just right when stationary; and the gale is just sharp enough to be palpable on your cheeks as you’re perched on the back of a Grab Bike zipping through a frenzy of traffic.

A busy morning serving breakfast.

Prior to the northward pilgrimage, I’ve carefully laid out my food schedule to a few trusted friends in the hope that they would confide in me their most treasured eateries. “Now, you must be vigilant,” one says as she renders on my notebook from memory the entire map of Hai Bà Trưng District, where Miến Lươn Tân Tân resides. “It’s at the corner of Tuệ Tĩnh and Mai Hắc Đế, but there are two places selling the same thing [eel soup], manned by two different siblings. Go for the one on the left side, she’s the original one.”

As a designer by trade whose family home is still in Hai Bà Trưng, she has my utmost trust when it comes to visual aids and Hanoi's culinary excellence. Following her treasure map, we set foot in 16 Tuệ Tĩnh — the one on the left, of course — after 9am while the morning service is in full swing. A modest serving station sits in front, its surface occupied by towers of white bowls, basins of blackish fried eels and vats of steaming broth that clouds my glasses and smells like the most alluring compendium of herbs.

Golden morsels of deep-fried eel.

The actual indoor dining area is perhaps the size of two newsstands swished together, with a handful of metallic tables. The majority of Miến Lươn Tân Tân’s patrons pour onto the pavement in front of the stall and even next door, all intently relishing their soup with almost-religious solemnity. According to many online reviews of Miến Lươn Tân Tân by Hanoi residents, the restaurant is a storied local staple with more than three decades of service. Most young reviewers have fond memories of munching on miến lươn at Tân Tân with their parents as a child.

I leave the ordering to my friend and snap us a couple of seats in front of…a karaoke parlor. This early in the day, the night hangout is nothing more than a metallic shutter atop fake marble steps, which also double as my seat. Like everyone else, we each use a tall plastic stool as a table. I try my hardest to tune out the surrounding conversations in a vain attempt to respect my neighbors’ privacy, but it proves impossible considering they’re only half an arm away. In my head, I’m silently praising myself for remembering to put on deodorant that morning.

Everyone is deep in thoughts while munching on noodles.

Perhaps it's either the cold, the pure goodness of the miến lươn, the lack of privacy, or a combination of all of them, but everyone mostly keeps to themselves in cordial silence. My bowl of miến lươn giòn arrives without much fanfare, but it ignites inside me a warmth that’s hard to transcribe into words. Imagine traveling all the way to Paris’s Musée de l'Orangerie to see Monet’s ‘The Water Lilies’ for the first time after years of loving it from afar, except that in this case, the water lilies are tangible objects you can touch, admire and, most importantly, taste.

On the tiny surface of the blue plastic stool, the bowl of smoky eel noodles stares at me, its transparent broth filled with chopped herbs, spring onion, and rings of half-cooked white onion. As I have a tentative first sip, a part of me worries that I’m making too big a deal out of this, and everything will come crumbling down when the soup turns out to be shit. But, fortunately, it’s delicate with strong herbal and umami notes.

Miến, fried eel, beansprouts, onion, and chopped herbs. A bowl of miến lươn is simplicity embodied.

After adding a tablespoon of freshly squeezed calamansi juice, a dollop of chili sauce and heaps of quẩy, I slowly make my way through other components of the bowl. The vermicelli, Hanoi's special miến dong, is tender and well-soaked with broth, and the fried eel is adequately crunchy. The perfect lươn giòn, or crispy eel, in my mind must be on the hard side of the crispiness spectrum — just enough to soften up after being submerged in the soup for a while. Over the span of 20 minutes, as I savor my portion, I hear order after order of extra eel from nearby diners, a testament to Tân Tân’s superior fried morsels. A typical bowl of eel noodles costs VND30,000–50,000, but one lady buys VND100,000 worth of lươn and no one bats an eye. Respect.

Vietnamese eel comes from a much more humble origin than unagi.

Despite sharing the same conventional name in both Vietnamese and English, the fish used in miến lươn and Japan’s famed unagi are only distant relatives at best. Vietnamese eels are Asian swamp eels (Monopterus albus) that live in fresh or brackish water near rice fields while Japanese eels (Anguilla japonica) spend their younger days at sea and adulthood in freshwater. This taxonomical difference also lends itself to the two species’ position in the culinary map. Vietnam’s lươn looks black and unappetizing at a glance, even when fried, and may never reach the level of glitterati reverence enjoyed by Japanese unagi. Ironically, the latter’s popularity is also paving the way for its impending demise, as even Japan now has to outsource its eel production to China.

On the other hand, swamp eels are readily available in Vietnam, both from nature and commercial farms; and its subtly earthy taste is interwoven with northern Vietnam’s miến lươn soup, a rustic dish that’s hard to forget. What it lacks in luscious eel meat, an attribute that elevates unagi to delicacy level, it more than makes up for in complex broth, crunchy texture, and wholesome herbs and spices.

My dining neighbor is really enjoying his quẩy.

As I slurp on the last few spoonfuls of crystal-clear broth, I am overcome with an all-consuming, debilitating sadness. Because my life would never be this perfect again, when all the pieces — molded randomly and sprinkled all over one another with reckless abandon — suddenly fit together as if by divine intervention. There, huddled on a karaoke parlor’s front steps under the lush canopy of a chukrasia tree, my existence is reduced to a bundle of giddy sensory nerves: taste buds on crunchy eel morsels, arm hairs tingling from the brush of the autumn breeze, and optic lobe desperately chronicling the sight, the sky, the vivid reminders that one’s alive.

You can find Miến Lươn Tân Tân at 16 Tuệ Tĩnh. They open from 9am to 9pm every day.

This article was originally published in 2019.

To sum up:

Taste: 5/5
Price: 5/5
Atmosphere: 4/5
Friendliness: 3/5
Location: 4/5

Khôi has never met a noodle dish he didn't like and plans to visit every lake in Hanoi.

Seafood reminds chef Nghiêm Minh Đức of childhood vacations to northern beaches with his family. But since moving to Saigon, he has been exposed to southern products including cua Cà Mau’s which inspire him to experiment with new dishes.

its crabs, which populate the mangrove estuaries where the river system meets the sea. This fragile ecosystem and the people who depend on it are at risk because of rising sea levels and saltwater intrusion; the prevalence of dangerous agricultural chemicals and pesticides; disrupted water cycles; and deforestation. The WWF’s Nature-based Solutions (NbS) projects are addressing some of these issues while improving the socio-economy and resilience of local communities through sustainable livelihoods. 

In Cà Mau, farmers raise crabs and shrimp according to a nature-based solutions (NbS) model, wherein shrimp and crabs live and feed naturally in native mangrove forests without any chemicals or industrial feed. This NbS approach not only improves livelihoods for local communities but also encourages them to protect the mangrove ecosystem, keeping it green, clean, and reducing the risk of deforestation.

Photo courtesy WWF-Viet Nam.

“Every time we find new ingredients or create new dishes, we always think about the whole process and the whole cycle. Everything from the farmers, how they plant it, and then how they supply to us, and how we use that, and how we introduce the ingredients to the customer. So it's a full circle.”

Photos courtesy of WWF.

To create his dish, Đức paired noodles made with floating rice with a cold, tomato-based consommé made with crab meat, chamomile tea, and local herbs. While straightforward, the process required patience, such as processing, boiling, then icing the noodles and slowly straining the broth to let the crustacean flavors shine. The result was a bright, refreshing dish perfectly suited for endless summer days.

After tasting a bite and reflecting, Đức explained that he initially wanted to make something original that was inspired by the joy surrounding the beach vacations of his youth. But in the end, he discovered that he had made something similar to another Hanoi dish: bún ốc nguội. This led to Đức’s profound realization about chefs: “We think that we make new things, but actually, we just reimagine and recreate our memories; the old, good and happy memories … the experiences that we had wherever we were born and grew up and stay.”

To me, there's nothing that screams Tết as much as sticky rice cake. However one wants to spice up the usual celebration by replacing some dishes with something new each year, sticky rice cakes remain a must-have in Vietnamese households. Try searching for an image of the Lunar New Year and there’s a high chance that you’ll spot the cakes amongst the first ten results.

Vietnam's culinary repertoire features several types of sticky rice cakes. Bánh chưng and bánh giầy are most commonly associated with families from the northern provinces. Bánh chưng refers to a savory square cake made of sticky rice with mung bean paste and pork filling, wrapped in lá dong, an oval-shaped leaf. Bánh giầy is a white sticky bun made from glutinous rice often served with giò chả, a type of Vietnamese sausage.

Then there’s bánh tét, which is mostly eaten in central and southern Vietnam. The savory filling of bánh tét is similar to that of bánh chưng, except it's cylindrical and wrapped in banana leaves. However, there are different versions including a sweet one with banana fillings; bánh tét lá cẩm, with magenta plant-infused sticky rice; bánh tét trà cuôn, which is a spin-off from the original pork filling with salted egg and dried shrimp added for more flavors.

Bánh chưng & bánh giầy

The origins of the sticky rice cakes are equivocal. Although there are no reliable factual accounts of it, the earliest record of bánh chưng bánh giầy can be found in Book 1 of Lĩnh Nam Chích Quái (Extraordinary Stories from Lĩnh Nam), the earliest collection of legends, myths, and folklore dating back to ancient Vietnam in the 14^th century, compiled by an anonymous author during the Trần dynasty. Most of the stories in the collection are an attempt to explain many aspects of Vietnamese life, including the origins of iconic foods like paan or watermelon. The bánh chưng bành giầy story, titled “Chưng bính truyện” is the one with which most people are familiar.

“Chưng bính truyện” tells the story of the sixth Hùng King who wants to pick an heir amongst his 20 sons. To do this, the king hosts a cooking competition among the brothers, sending them on a search for delicious dishes everywhere in the world. Lang Liêu, the king’s eighteenth son, being poor and motherless, couldn’t afford to travel far. Lucky for the prince, one night when Lang Liếu is sleeping, a deity enters his dream and is kind enough to offer Lang Liêu the advice to use sticky rice as the main ingredient to make a square cake (bánh chưng), symbolizing the earth; and a round cake (bánh giầy), symbolizing heaven. According to the deity, there is no exotic delicacy that can compare with rice, as rice feeds and nurtures life. The deity also adds the leaf wrapping to represent a mother's protection. Lang Liêu follows the suggestion and becomes the heir.

Although the story is obviously not a factual account, it’s interesting how symbolic meanings of cosmology, nutritional logic, and a unified sense of national and cultural identity are packed into a single narrative that is widely used as an explanation for a very concrete and mundane item.

Sociologist and anthropologist Nir Avieli breaks down these meanings in his culinary ethnography on the Tết rice cakes in Hoi An. For example, the square and round shape as representations for earth and heaven, to be offered during Tết, a time that is considered by many a rebirth of nature, can be seen as performing a symbolic creation and recreation of the universe. 

Avieli continues to ponder the legend's emphasis on rice that reflects the rice-growing agriculture of Vietnam. It can also be understood as a way of infusing geographies and national identity into the cake's meaning. Although Vietnam is not the only country that thrives on rice cultivation, it sure is an identity-defining trait of the country. The cake, according to Avieli, also resembles a spatial organization of the countryside, where rice farms (the sticky rice layer) can be found anywhere with small patches of legumes and other farm animals nearby.

However, given the legend's heavy dose of magical elements, the story raises doubts and debates among some Vietnamese scholars. In his essay “Triết lý bánh chưng bánh giầy” (The philosophy of bánh chưng bánh giầy), historian Trần Quốc Vượng contends that the story of Lang Liêu is more of a “fakelore” rather than an authentic Vietnamese folk story as the idea of using square and round objects as symbols for earth and heaven is an imported cultural conception from China's cosmology.

Bánh tét

As for the central and southern bánh tét counterpart, we are left with fewer legends to discuss, yet its factual origins and history remain a debate among many. Some believe that the cylindrical treat is an invention originating from a military tactic of turning bánh chưng into bánh tét to more easily to carry around as a combat ration. The idea is credited to King Quang Trung (Nguyễn Huệ) in his campaign against the Manchu army in December 1789. However, there are many versions of this story. For example, another narrative suggests that it was one of Quang Trung's soldiers who brought bánh tét from his hometown to Quang Trung to be used as a dish for Tết and victory celebration. Another way to look at bánh tét is through the prevalence of rice-farming anxiety during Tết, which used to be a vulnerable time for crops. Because it can be stored for a long time the cake is, therefore, a practical means of overcoming food spoilage.

The most eye-opening theory for bánh tét origins — one that crushed my former assumption that the sticky rice cakes are exclusive to Vietnamese culture – belongs to Tran Quoc Vuong. He suggests that the dish might be the remnants of the past Champa kingdom and was only exposed to Vietnamese people during Nam tiến, a period when Vietnam expanded its territory southward and occupied Champa.

Indeed, bánh tét, or taipei nung in Chăm language, is an important traditional dish in many Chăm festivals including Kate (Cham Balamon community's new year) and Ramawan (Cham Awal community's new year). In this context, bánh tét now contains different meanings that relate to phồn thực, which is a faith followed by Chăm people that celebrates life and reproduction. Phồn thực worships linga (the phallic icon) and yoni (a symbol for the womb). A common food combination in a Kate festival is bánh tét and sakaya (a type of ginger-based cake that has a dendritic shape), representing the linga and yoni, respectively. As a common Chăm saying goes: peinung ala, sakaya ngaok (bánh tét placed below, sakaya cake placed above).

Of course, we should take all these tales with a grain of salt. Apart from giving us insights into the history of the food itself, they also reveal a history of how people attach meanings to food which attempt to negotiate and maintain a consistent cultural and national identity. They are, in a sense, the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves as an expression of identity and senses of belonging via mundane objects.

This article was originally published in 2018.

Phở, bún, hủ tiếu, cao lầu and bánh tằm are stand-outs in Vietnam’s impressively diverse portfolio of noodles made with rice. The ones Saigoneer tasked Anaïs Ca Dao van Manen to create a dish with were also made using rice powder, but have different qualities. “The noodle has such a nice bite to it … you can not taste the rice but you can actually taste the different texture of it so it reminded me of soba which made me think, okay, let's do a cold noodle dish.”

The noodles were made using floating rice, which is a centerpiece crop being grown by farmers in the Mekong Delta as part of the CRxN projects deployed by WWF. As part of the non-profit’s efforts to improve the socio-economy and resilience of local communities through sustainable livelihoods while protecting and restoring critical ecosystems, they’re helping farmers return to the rice variety that was once abundant in the area. Able to grow in flooded fields, it grows without the need for devastating chemicals or the manipulation of water cycles which helps the soil rejuvenate. 

Noting its similarity to the healthy brown rice her mother loves, Anaïs explained how the noodles made with floating rice remain chewier than typical white noodles. This would make them a great compliment to crispy fried food. She settled on Japanese-style kakiage made with “any vegetables you have in the house,” and tôm sú, or black tiger prawns.

The prawns are also part of WWF’s efforts in the Mekong Delta. Farmers are supported to raise crabs and prawns in the native mangrove forests without any chemicals or industrial feed. This nature-based solution (NbS) model not only improves the local livelihoods, it encourages protecting the health of the vital mangrove ecosystems and combats deforestation. 

“For prawns, you have to let the ingredient shine because that's what it's all about, right? It's the flavor of the prawn.” Anaïs said. “So here we're gonna make it shine through two ways, through the stock and through a nice batter.”

Photo courtesy WWF.

The resulting dish delights with its contrasting light crispy fritter and chewy noodles. The fresh herbs, vegetables and shrimp are enhanced by a light sauce boasting salty, umami-laden prawn notes. These fresh flavors and its cooling temperature make it an ideal summer meal that highlights the Mekong Delta’s bounties.

Photo courtesy WWF.

Cơm tấm is “all about utilizing, minimizing food waste and, basically, not giving anything away,” explains Chef Trụ Lang of Mùa Sake, as he stands in front of ingredients from the Mekong Delta. “That matches with the ethos of what these crops are trying to do … show a different way of thinking, a different way of agriculture, a different way of using the land, and using the relationship that we have with the land to coexist.”

Trụ is referring, specifically to the ốc bươu, or black apple snails and floating rice (gạo lúa mùa nổi), that he was challenged to cook with to help showcase products produced as part of WWF-Viet Nam’s Nature-based Solutions (NbS) projects. The undertakings aim to improve the socio-economy and resilience of local communities through sustainable livelihoods while protecting and restoring critical ecosystems.

U Minh Thượng National Park in Kiên Giang province. Photos courtesy WWF-Viet Nam.

The core zone of U Minh Thượng National Park in Kiên Giang province is strictly protected, but increasing market demand frequently drives buffer zone farmers to collect apple snails for their livelihood. These farmers now receive support from WWF to raise responsibly collected snails in waterways, using natural and readily available food sources.

Floating rice being grown in Long An. Photo courtesy WWF-Viet Nam.

Meanwhile, the floating rice was once largely abandoned by local farmers despite its natural cultivation coinciding with flood cycles, and thus, not requiring chemically intensive fertilizers and destructive interference with water flows. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) projects support residents in Kiên Giang and Long An in adopting feasible, sustainable methods for cultivating the floating rice which helps return the land and water to health and fertility.

After boiling the ốc bươu, Trụ chops the meat to make a patty with pork, egg, honey and fish sauce. The juicy meat is fried, topped by the requisite egg with a runny yolk, and presented atop a mound of floating rice. The whole grain rice is at first difficult to approach, Trụ admits, as it is tougher, more flavorful, and requires overnight soaking and a longer cooking time. However, in addition to greater nutritional value than conventional rice, its production helps maintain soil fertility without leaching harmful chemicals across the Mekong’s land and waterways. He offers the advice of mixing some of it into your daily white rice to get some of these benefits.

U Minh Thượng National Park. Photo courtesy WWF-Viet Nam.

Complimented by pickles and more fish sauce, the ốc bươu cơm tấm with floating rice is a wonderfully salty, juicy, complex meal that retains all the charm of the more familiar pork chop version. They taste all the more delicious knowing that the ingredients are the result of projects that support local livelihoods while protecting treasured wilderness areas and natural water and soil balance.

“Charles Phan had more impact on Vietnamese food than any other chef in the country.” — Michael Bauer, San Francisco Chronicle.

Editor's note (Jan 2025): We’re deeply saddened to learn of Chef Charles Phan’s recent passing. For nearly 30 years, Charles played a pivotal role in introducing and elevating Vietnamese cuisine in the US.

When preparing for my upcoming move, I debated which of my many books would come along with me. One book that immediately went into the box was Charles Phan’s The Slanted Door: Modern Vietnamese Food, a cookbook featuring about a hundred recipes from the iconic San Francisco restaurant The Slanted Door, littered with curled neon pink bookmarks that I hastily made out of post-its and placed on the page of every recipe or story about its formation that caught my imagination.

Today Charles Phan is billed as the “inventor of modern Vietnamese cuisine in America” by Food Network and a recipient of the James Beard Foundation 2004 award for Best Chef: California, often fondly referred to as the “Oscars of the food world” and considered to be the highest honor in the culinary community.

His most well-known restaurant, The Slanted Door — recipient of the James Beard Foundation award for Outstanding Restaurant in 2014 — was, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, one of the first Asian restaurants to create a serious wine list and bar program using organic ingredients. Despite being around for over two decades, and having almost 300 seats in its waterfront Ferry Building location, the restaurant is always packed for lunch and dinner service.

But it wasn’t that long ago that Charles was lucky to even get the opportunity to bus tables at fine-dining establishments.

The Slanted Door’s space. Photos via Instagram page @slanteddoor.

Before bánh mì: coffee, architecture, and menswear

Charles Phan spent his childhood in 1960s Đà Lạt where his mother grew up, and where his father immigrated to; they both are of Chinese descent. Across from the steps leading down to the hilly city’s central market, his parents owned a general store. Behind, a mì xào giòn cart would set up shop, serving crunchy fried wheat noodles with a savory seafood gravy, while another cart would serve up hot, crispy, turmeric-tinged bánh xèo, forming the basis of some of Charles’ fondest food memories.

In 1971, his father bought a coffee farm nearby, only for them to have to abandon it four years later in 1975. “We left the very day of April 30, 1975. I actually saw the very tank that crushed the gate and went through the Presidential Palace,” Charles tells me, thinking back to when he was thirteen. In order to leave Vietnam that day in a cargo ship with 400 other people, “We got there before the sun set and waited by a nearby ship, and at midnight, we slipped in there. They pulled out at two in the morning,” he recounts in a Good Food podcast episode.

The cargo ship ended up getting lost and being picked up by Malaysian patrol boats that took them to Singapore. Charles recognizes how lucky they were for this to be the case, “When you’re at sea it’s very scary — an approaching ship could be pirates or other bad people.” But not everyone felt so grateful towards the Singaporeans. Laughing, Charles recounts to me, “They literally brought us food every day. I remember the first day [when] they just showed up and they didn’t have anything — they brought us fourteen loaves of bread for 400 people. And the Vietnamese were a little pissed off. They expect Singaporeans to come with a feast or something. [So they] threw one loaf back into the ocean, and once the boat left, a guy — half-naked — jumped into the water and grabbed the bread.” I guess some things never change; the Vietnamese will go to great lengths for their bánh mì.

From Singapore’s waters, there were seaworthy ships prepared with appropriate navigation and fuel (a luxury not all boats leaving Vietnam had) that enabled refugees to either return to Vietnam, immigrate to Taiwan, or immigrate to America by way of Guam. Charles playfully reminisces, “They made sure to park the ship far away enough so you can’t swim to Singapore. But everyone wanted to go there. [When] people got sick, they got an army escort to go see a doctor in Singapore. I remember there was an eye infection that spread across the whole ship, but I didn't get it. I would try to poke my eye out with salt water to make it red, in hopes that I could go on a field trip [to Singapore]...But I guess I didn't poke it hard enough!”

Charles’ mother pushed for America, so the family of ten — two parents, Charles, his five younger siblings, and an aunt and uncle — ended up on the Micronesian island of Guam as they waited for a sponsor in America. “You had the choice to get on a plane and they’ll take you wherever they drop you, or you get to stay in Guam. At the refugee camp, there were stories of people going to Minnesota with snow and ice, and you know, we’re from the Tropics so we didn’t want to go. My mom opted to stay in Guam. She was always very forward-thinking.”

“Guam was [sic] 400,000 people and you live in big army tents. When there was a monsoon, water was running through your feet. As time goes by, it gets smaller and smaller and they move you to an army barrack,” Charles recounts. “We were the last family. There were ten of us and no one wanted to sponsor us. They’ll sponsor two or four people, but when there’s ten of you, no one wants to adopt that many people in the household.” So, after two years in Guam, his aunt and uncle split off as their own family.

Photo via Wikipedia.

So on July 7, 1977, two years and two months after leaving Vietnam, Charles and his family flew Pan-Am to San Francisco. “We had friends in San Francisco and they said they rented two beautiful apartments — turned out they got us two studios in the Tenderloin for ten people,” laughed Charles, referring to apartments that didn't even have a door separating the bedroom from the common area, in a neighborhood that had 40% of the city's drug overdoses and a quarter of its homicides in the 1970s. The notorious neighborhood became Charles’ first impression of San Francisco: “Coming from a small town [in Vietnam], and Guam was pitch dark, the Tenderloin was very colorful — lights, prostitutes. It was just mind-boggling when I first got here.”

As a sign of what was to come in his career, “My dad got a job, somehow, in Chinatown as a janitor in a restaurant, and I started working in the restaurant a year later, bussing tables when I was 16. That’s how I got into the restaurant business.” Charles worked at a range of food and beverage joints from British pubs to nightclubs. “Back then [at predominately white restaurants], it was rare that they even had me [a Vietnamese person] as a busser,” he recalls. “Everyone asked me, ‘Where are you from? Why are you here? Are you supposed to be here?’ like I came from Mars.”

At the end of high school, Charles found himself with acceptance letters from a couple of art schools (due to his skills in pottery), as well as Berkeley. Well, I’m sure you can guess which school his father pushed him to choose. After studying architecture at Berkeley for three years (he dropped out as a protest to steep tuition hikes), he went home and ran his mom’s sewing shop, creating a men’s clothing line, named Fin du Siècle, along the way.

Funny enough, it was his clothing, not his culinary experience, that brought him back to Vietnam after seventeen years away. In 1992, he returned to the motherland to help with sourcing for a local sewing shop. “I got emotional the minute I landed at Tân Sơn Nhất. Leaving the taxi to go into the city — the smell. It had just rained, and the street smell...the dirt...the smoke... It was just like I had remembered. There’s nothing romantic about it, but it got me emotional.”

Once that job ended, Charles went back to California where he worked at a software company for two years before it folded. It was at this time that he started to look at new career options.

The fish heads can’t hurt you

“I’m very entrepreneurial, just like my father and mother. And part of me was really annoyed in Berkeley that people just didn’t take Asian designers seriously. They thought that I should have been in the engineering or math department,” Charles continues. “So I had this idea in my head for 10 years. I wanted to show [that] Vietnamese restaurants could have great designs. We already have great food, so I don’t need to reinvent that.”

Slanted Door in the Mission District on Opening Day. Photo courtesy of The Slanted Door.

Originally envisioned as a bánh xèo shop, The Slanted Door opened with a six-item menu in 1995 in the Mission District. At that time, the Mission was a predominantly working-class Hispanic neighborhood, though today it is a gentrified neighborhood with artisanal ice cream shops and commissioned street art to serve as a backdrop for your Instagram photos. Charles kept the menu simple: phở, bún, and the like. “But,” Charles adds, “because I came from fine dining, I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t do phở or bún at night, I focused on other entrées. Who eats phở at night anyways?”

Like many other immigrant chefs, Charles worked to find a balance in his menu. “It’s a constant question, as a chef, where your voice is. For years I struggled... Will people buy this? Is this too white? Is this too Vietnamese?” He recalls of his early years: “It was hard [then] because you don’t know. I remember selling four whole fish, and two of them came back. People didn’t want to pay for it. They got upset; they cried; they saw the head. I think Vietnamese and Chinese kids are trained to be adventurous, but here [in America], it’s the opposite.”

But he must have eventually gotten it right because in less than a decade, he received the James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef: California in 2004 and within another decade, The Slanted Door was named the nation’s most Outstanding Restaurant by the James Beard Foundation.

“I was floored when we won. I thought, ‘This’d better not be a joke because I’ll be very upset.’ I came home, and the internet crashed. Our site got so crushed. And that’s when I found out that I have a very cheap [Internet] hosting company,” Charles reminisces. To understand the significance of the award, you have to remember that it was 2014, and Asian food didn’t enjoy the same interest and recognition it does today.

Charles and The Slanted Door’s first dishwasher, Daniel. Photo courtesy of The Slanted Door.

“That was just unheard of [then]. It’s always been very Euro-centric with these awards. And now it’s good that people aren’t treating these foods like some cheap hole-in-the-wall place — which we all love. Now people are a little bit more adventurous. Now no one returns a fish because it has a head. You don’t realize how far we’ve come in terms of food and what we expect of food.”

Where are the pickles?

Today, Charles isn’t afraid of cooking the dishes he wants and editing them to his liking. Since opening The Slanted Door, the chef and restaurateur has opened up many different concepts, including his newest venture: Chuck’s Takeaway.

This takeaway bánh mì shop features classic combinations like pâté and chả with mayonnaise, cucumbers, jalepeño, and a crush of herbs in his stuffed C.P.’s No. 3, as well as more location-inspired sandwiches like Jo Jo’s Bollito which swaps out the baguette with a toasted bun and is filled with tender braised beef belly smothered in tangy, spicy salsa verde.

The CP No. 3 from Chuck’s Takeaway.

And in a Charles twist, he serves his pickled seasonal vegetables (think more Romanesco broccoli, Fresno chiles, and radishes, and less shredded carrots and daikon) on the side, not in the sandwich — a move a pickle hater like me is very happy to hear.

“There’s a small segment of people who are mad about it. They ask, ‘Where are the pickles?’,” he tells me. “People don’t say that to chefs who are doing a new type of food, but when it’s traditional dishes, if people have certain memories with traditional dishes, they just react and don’t think straight. I’m not here to take you on a trip down memory lane.”

At US$16, the sandwich is bound to get some haters, as seen in Yelp reviews. One reviewer writes "I wouldn't call this an everyday lunch spot bc $$$," while on the other hand, another reviewer comments, "I will admit that the baguette is really nice and soft (probably the best baguette I've had), [...] I really wish it had the traditional pickled daikon and carrots." Charles reflects: “This latest round with Chuck’s has been amazing — it’s the best praise we’ve had from Vietnamese people. The tides have really turned.”

Jo Jo’s Bollito from Chuck’s Takeaway.

When you learn about the effort Charles puts into his sandwiches, the price makes sense. He spent years perfecting his bánh mì baguettes. He tracked down a guy in Vietnam and paid to learn from him. After that, he had to change the baguette recipe to meet his standard of bread conditioner and achieve the perfect, yet almost impossible to combine, texture: crunchy and light on the outside with density and a chewy pull on the inside, mimicking a good sourdough. He elaborates: “Ten to fifteen years ago, the food was expected to be a certain price. And yes my food is expensive, and I make no qualms about it. I’ve got to take care of myself, my farmers, my staff, buy sustainable ingredients and make my own pâté, chả... I actually make less money this way since it’s not super efficient since I have to make everything small-batch.”

Charles 4.0

Currently, Charles is working on renovating the San Francisco Ferry Building location of The Slanted Door and its takeaway offshoot Out the Door, as well as opening up a new concept, Moonset, a small shop which will focus on his love of noodles.

“I have to think of the next version of me: Charles 4.0. I should retire, but it’s more scary now because it’s not just my name I’m protecting, but it’s everyone’s job. I know I have to change to stay successful.”

When asked about his version of the future, Charles answered: “I hope with my cooking, if anything, that the next generation will carry the baton that I’m carrying, promoting culture and heritage, taking care of the farmers, making beautiful food. Passing down these things are [sic] important because food is not just about flavor. It’s history, a way of thinking...”

Photo via sfgate.com.

“I was just in Seattle and I saw more Vietnamese chefs starting to put Vietnamese food in a different context. Some do it with a tweezer, and more power to them. I would never cook with a tweezer, but that doesn’t mean there’s a real right or wrong [way]. The fact that you’re paying homage to a culture you love, that’s your own, and you’re exploring it. I think that’s a beautiful thing.”

To Charles, the promotion of Vietnamese food, in any way, shape, or form, is deserving of support: “You’re actually putting this culture on a pedestal, and you’re trying to broadcast this way of thinking, way of eating, the way of Vietnamese people, and I think that’s wonderful. Whatever medium you want to use is fine, you’re still preaching the Vietnamese gospel, and I’m all for that.”

Graphic by Hannah Hoàng, Phan Nhi and Hương Đỗ.