Bun Bo Ba Ba | Bun Bo | Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
This bowl was delicious and absolutely refreshing, however a striking difference from a traditional serving of bun bo — no pork ingredients! Less complex is an understatement, a bowl of bun bo made only with a beef broth and beef pieces of meat! No hemhock, no rich and fatty pork broth, no cubes of pork blood! And no need to garnish this bowl with any chiles for heat, the cleaner and less-fatty broth of this bowl stands strong alone and better devoured as served.
The love behind this dish is reminiscent of a bowl of pho ga to me — some days, you just really feel like departing from your norm bowl of beef based pho (me personally, I love rare beef pho) and need to fulfill a craving of chicken pho. Its unfair to say one version is better than the other, because its two completely different preparations. But I’m sure many prefer this version of bun bo hue, because this joint is crazy popular. Bun Bo Ba Ba only serves this one dish (a common trait of joints in Vietnam is to specialize in one dish), opens at the odd mid-day hour of 330pm for only a few hours, and is always packed to the capacity. Seating and parking is limited, only enough of both to serve those currently dining — you can often find eager diners waiting in line on their motorbikes for one of the few parking spots on the sidewalk to free up signaling an open seat in the joint. Tip: Go between 330-500pm before the big dinner rush to avoid the wait!
-Noreylee
