My favorite dish-Bún bò Huế (Hue Beef Rice Noodles)

In my opinion, there are some dishes that you just can eat once or twice and wait for a certain of time to have it again. It’s not because you don’t have condition to eat, it’s because if you have a dish so often, it’s going to reduce the good taste of the dish in young feeling. However this rule of mine is never seem right to Bun bo Hue - a soup that starts with pork and beef bones, gets a kick from lemongrass, annatto and shrimp paste, and finishes the job with a tangle of herbs, a squeeze of lime and a few delicious add-ons like sliced brisket, crab balls and, in some cases, cubes of congealed pig’s blood.

My childhood closed to the aroma of lemongrass, shrimp paste, beef, pork blended in Bun bo Hue’s broth, since my mother started a small stall selling bun bo Hue when I was 12. It was near to our school, so my father usually took us there to have a “free breakfast” from my mom. We can have my mom’s bun bo Hue for about 3 4 consecutive days and never got bore, unlike other breakfast’s dishes. It was like that until we got into university and live far from home. We never got bored of my mom’s bun bo Hue; we can eat in the morning, at lunch and still can have the broth to eat with rice in dinner. I don’t know why I love bun bo Hue but I never want to try any bun bo Hue different than my mother’s. Sometime I came over to help my mom for washing bowl or serving, and she told me a lot about Bun bo Hue, so there is no other dish I know more better than this. Contrary to what the name implies — bun means noodles and bo means beef — Bun Bo Hue is most often based on a pork-intensive stock, with small amounts of braised or raw beef added as a garnish. I sometime asked my mom “why do you call Bun bo Hue but there’s also pork ribs or pork legs in there and it’s only 10% beef?” My mom cannot explain it and I think either other cooks. It is not easy to have a good broth pot of Bun bo Hue. Every step requires the care and the precision of the cook. The dish is the same as one but to different cook, it will come out differently. The same to Bun bo Hue. There might have a lot more delicious bun bo Hue than my mother’s but there is no childhood memory in any bowl of other Bun bo Hue. 

As long as my mother still cooks it I still eat Bun bo Hue. This dish is soulful and rich, delicious and complex. It’s spicier than most of Vietnamese soups. It’s just incredibly dynamic. This is not simply a dish to feed but a dish of my life. 

*Taro**