Finding comfort in Saigon's street food

I’m a rice and chicken kind of girl, mainly toppings carinderia-style, as we like to have them in the Philippines. I have to have rice for lunch and dinner, plus a good serving of chicken (breast please, no drumstick) and a side dish such as atchara garnish or leafy greens or an egg (sunny side up). But here in Saigon you have to learn, like the natives do, to eat lots of noodles! Filipino expats and Thai friends of mine keep saying they love eating Vietnamese food, which means vegetable-based dishes that have one thing in common – rice or egg noodles (white or yellow, they all look the same to me). When you're forced to eat only noodles for more than one week because majority of your favorite dining outlets are closed during TET (Vietnamese New Year, usually late January or early February), you do learn to appreciate street food and the myriad flavors of noodle-based dishes. Here’s a rundown. • Pho Ga and Pho Bo “Pho" (pronounced "fhe") is the basic Vietnamese noodle soup akin to our mami, but with rice-based noodles as its main ingredient. Pho ga has chicken while pho bo has beef as the protein component.

Thin and sometimes almost transparent, the noodles are steeped in a broth mixed with herbs such as lemongrass, sweet and spring onions, lime, mint, cilantro, and bean sprouts. The soup is seasoned with fish sauce and sliced chili peppers; depending on your choice of meat, slices of chicken with the yellowish fat still clinging to it or slices of beef flanks are added. You also have a choice of undeveloped chicken egg (small and roundish) as well as bits of chicken liver, intestines, and pigs' stomach lining. The broth is simmered in a big steel vat over a slow fire for hours, so that the soup is always served piping hot, often with a garnish of basil. One of the best places to savor pho ga in Saigon, although a bit touristy, is Pho Hoa on 260C Pasteur St. The portions are huge, and the platter of garnish such as lemongrass, striped morning glory, and bean sprouts is enormous. If you don't mind the constant flow of people, then this is the place to get acquainted with pho ga. • Bun Bo and Bun Oc Of all the noodle dishes I've savored in Vietnam, the one I like best is Bun Bo and its variant Bun Oc. Bun Bo Hue is a beef rice noodle soup dish (bun is Vietnamese for vermicelli) originally from the imperial city of Hue, the ancient capital in the central part of Vietnam. Beef flanks or chunks are simmered over slow fire for one and a half hours while lemongrass, ginger, shallots, congealed pig’s blood (locally known as huyet), and spices are added to the broth. Once cooked, the concoction is ladled into large bowls and garnished with Vietnamese perilla leaves (green on one side, deep red purple on the other side), spiky cilantro (rom gai in Vietnamese), sweet white onions, and shrimp paste. What I like about bun bo is its sour taste, probably from the lemongrass. I like my soup dishes to be really sour, so I like having sliced lime wedges on the side. Bun Oc is similar to Bun bo in preparation; the main difference is the use of small- or medium-sized boiled snails to the soup. This dish retains the influence of the French, who love escargot (snails) and once colonized Vietnam in the late 19th century, with a decidedly oriental twist: the addition of crab meat. Square chunks of crab meat are mixed to the reddish colored broth along with whole tomatoes, fried tofu, Chinese cabbage or pechay and some smelly shrimp paste similar to our bagoong. The result is a sour soup base similar to Thailand's tom yum goong (sour soup with shrimp). While both dishes are part of Saigon's street food fare, Bun Oc rieu is more popular in Hanoi and the northern provinces, particularly during winter. I still remember sitting down on those low, brightly-colored plastic stools along the sidewalk and digging into the piping-hot bowls of bun oc rieu in the cold dawn after walking around Hanoi's lakes as part of my morning exercise. • Bun Cha The first time I got acquainted with Bun cha was at a shophouse chain in Hanoi. To locals, this stall was good enough only for tourists but it didn't matter to me, as I liked this taste more than the local style. Bun cha is basically pork meat grilled over a traditional coal-fired grill. There are two types: one is formed into pork patties, while the other one is wrapped in wild betel leaf locally called la lot. The chunks of meat are immersed in a dipping sauce -- actually more like a soup -- made of fish sauce, water, sugar, rice vinegar and lime. Slices of cucumber are added, as well as Vietnamese perilla leaves and a local variety of mint. The secret to good bun cha is the quality and taste of the meat, and the marinade. The pork, which sometimes look as crusty and crackly as lechon, must be crunchy. Bun cha is eaten with the bun (vermicelli) as carbo side dish. It is usually accompanied by fried spring rolls with tiny vermicelli, crab meat, bean sprouts and sometimes, meat. Wallah! I can eat bun cha forever -- but not everyday; that would be gluttony. Eat it with a lot of veggies on the side, and you can eat like a king for a day. The recommended bun cha stalls in Saigon are 20B Tran Cao Van St. in District 1 and 42 Tran Cao Thao St. in District 3; in Hanoi, hie off to 20 Ta Hien St. • Banh Xeo Ever since I arrived in Saigon about two years ago as a full-time resident, I had often heard of the Vietnamese pancake called Banh Xeo. I have often wondered if it had batter, if it’s sweet with bananas or chocolate chips, and if you had to pour syrup over the whole thing. Little did I know that Banh Xeo is still a fried rice flour-based pancake -- but with shrimps, bean sprouts and sometimes, pork bits. And to my delight, the prime spot to eat Banh Xeo in Saigon was only one and a half blocks away from my office and my home. Located at a little alley branching off the major thoroughfare of Hai Ba Trung St., on 46A Dinh Cong Trang St. in District 1, our banh xeo place is always teeming with diners. The first time I dropped by with my colleague, there was a couple of Japanese ladies tucking away at this enormous pancake, which in most parts of the world would be called a gigantic crepe. There are two choices of Banh Xeo here: the regular consists of only bean sprouts and shrimp, while the special has pork bits in it. Either way, after munching through them, you won't have to eat another meal. And who said this was just a snack? What gives a lot of flavor to banh xeo are the gigantic mustard leaves – I didn’t know what they were until I bit into them, and tasted that tangy flavor which I usually apply on my burgers. Well, this is even better! Traditionally, you break off a flaky piece of the banh xeo, wrap it with the mustard leaf, dip it in the fish sauce or nuoc man (Vietnamese bagoong) conveniently provided in a small bowl, and then eat the entire thing. But the whole thing is oily so I eat it my style -- pick the fried batter with a pair of chopsticks and then take a bit off the mustard leaf. There are mint leaves served as a side dish to freshen your breath after the repast. • Kem The word means ice cream in Vietnamese and the locals seem to have a penchant for the real milk-based stuff, such that sidewalk ice cream houses are so popular in Saigon. My favorite is a hole-in-the-wall beside the roundabout (locally known as Turtle Lake because there's a pond in the middle which, according to old-timers, used to have turtles) on Pham Ngoc Thach St. in District 1, just beside the modern-looking N&M apparel store. If there is one ice cream stall that I just have to patronize, it's this stall. And I would only order one kind of ice cream -- the coconut ice cream served inside a coconut shell! What makes this ice cream special? Well, it's got lots of texture compared to other ice creams served in other parlors. They have toasted coconut bits, slices of candied cherry, and pineapple bits sprinkled on top. And I get to scrape the young coconut meat inside the husk after I finish the ice cream. This place is hot among the young and not-so-young in Saigon. Once, I even noticed a popular movie star alighting from one of those expensive cars trolling Saigon's streets just to eat at this stall where the seats are mainly plastic stools set on the sidewalk. You can have your ice cream with café sua da (iced coffee with milk) or café sua nom (hot coffee). And wonder of wonders, they serve balut here too, which they call hot vit lon -- with a tiny spoon so you can scoop out the contents. Ew! - YA, GMA News