When I visited Hanoi a decade ago, I was living in Hackney, east London, an area with a large Vietnamese community, so I felt, if not quite an expert, at least a little familiar with the cuisine. But it turned out no number of nights out on Kingsland Road could prepare me for the assault on the senses that was my first meal in the city, crouched on a plastic stool by the roadside and enjoying what Uyen Luu describes as “the irresistible sweet, treacly smell of barbecued patties and caramelised pork”, all mingled with traffic fumes.
The stall in question served one thing only: bún chả, a northern speciality of juicy chargrilled pork, cold, slippery rice noodles, sweet yet deeply savoury nước chấm dipping sauce and fistfuls of aromatic herbs. “About as typical and unique a Hanoi dish as there is,” as Anthony Bourdain explained to Barack Obama over bowls of the stuff in 2016, there’s something about the way you can pick and mix the different elements to make every bite unique that makes this pure joy to eat.
