Beyond pho: The other Vietnamese soup you need to try

The dish: Bun bo Hue, Vietnam

Plate up

Hearty and hot… bun bo Hue.Credit: Getty Images

You could eat pho, the restorative Vietnamese noodle soup, every day for the rest of your life and be completely happy. Or at least, you could eat it every day of your next Vietnamese holiday. But you would be missing out because Vietnamese noodle soup doesn’t begin and end with pho. Check out banh canh cua, a crab-based soup with tapioca noodles; or bun rieu, a heart-starter made with ground up freshwater crabs and congealed pigs’ blood.

Or how about bun bo Hue? Think of this as pho’s bolder cousin, with a heady mix of salty, spicy, sour, sweet and umami flavours. The dish begins with a broth made with beef shin bones, beef shank and lemongrass, boiled for hours and seasoned with fermented shrimp paste, fish sauce and sugar. That broth is served with round rice noodles, more beef shank, hunks of pork knuckle, slabs of pigs’ blood, chilli paste, sliced banana flower, and fresh herbs. This is breakfast in its home town of Hue, and it’s a powerful start to the day.

First serve

Much like the city, bun bo Hue has serious history: it was developed in the 16th century, when Hue was ruled by the Nguyen dynasty. Though the dish more than likely evolved naturally with local ingredients and preferences, there’s an origin story that’s fanciful enough for a Marvel comic: in a village called Co Thap, a woman was such a renowned noodle maker that she became known as “Co Bun”, or Mrs Noodles. However, there was a problem: after three years of failed rice harvests, locals blamed Mrs Noodles for grinding rice and angering the gods, so she was ordered to either cease noodle-making, or leave the village. She chose to move to Hue, and the rest was history.

Order there

In Hue, you have two choices of uber-popular peddlers of bun bo: Maison Trang (no website), and Madam Thu (madamthu.com).

Order here

In Sydney, it’s hard to go past An Viet in Eastwood (no website). Melburnians, check out Bun Bo Hue Chu Le in Springvale (no website). And in Brisbane, try Pho Ba Nga in Inala (no website).

One more thing

Don’t go ordering bun bo Hue when you’re in the city of Hue – it’s redundant. There, the dish is known simply as “bun bo”.