01 Phở and its hour
Phở emerged in northern Vietnam between 1900 and 1907, and its traditional cradle is given as the villages of Vân Cù and Dao Cù, in Nam Trực district, Nam Định province, south-east of Hanoi. Historians themselves concede that the origin remains disputed for lack of documentation.
The written trail is short and worth knowing: a 1907 short story includes the word, though Georges Dumoutier's extensive account of Vietnamese cuisine from that same year does not mention it; in 1913 the author Nguyễn Công Hoan recalled street vendors selling it; the first dictionary definition is from 1931; and the first English reference from 1935, in Recipes of All Nations.
What does matter for planning your day: it was originally sold as a snack at dawn and dusk, by street vendors. Today it is eaten at any hour, but breakfast is still its moment, and at seven in the morning the good places are full.
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02 North and south are not the same
This is the comparison that makes the trip. Northern phở, Hanoi's, has a savoury, clear broth with narrower noodles, garnished with chopped spring onion, coriander and pickled garlic. Poached eggs and fried dough turn up as sides.
The southern one, Saigon's, has a sweeter, cloudier broth, standard-width noodles, and arrives with bean sprouts, a handful of fresh herbs, hoisin and sriracha. Nam Định style, incidentally, is another thing again: more fish sauce and wider noodles than the Hanoi version.
In Hanoi the broth arrives finished. If you are handed half a dozen sauces to fix it, you are not eating the northern one.
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03 Bún chả belongs to midday
Bún chả is fatty pork over charcoal — chả — on a plate of white rice noodles — bún — with herbs and a dipping sauce. It is thought to have originated in Hanoi; one account attributes it to a grill master in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, though the exact origin is unknown. The city's first restaurant devoted to the dish opened on Gia Ngư street, in Hoàn Kiếm district.
It uses two cuts of pork, not one: minced shoulder patties and sliced belly, both over charcoal. The sauce is fish-sauce based with lime, vinegar and spices, and comes with pickled vegetables and fresh herbs — lettuce, basil, sprouts.
And the timing is part of the dish: it is traditionally eaten at lunchtime, and is described as a cultural feature specific to the capital. Many places now serve it at any hour, but the one that only opens from eleven to two is usually the good one.
04 How to lay out the days
The typical day: phở at seven, egg coffee mid-morning, bún chả between eleven and two, something small in the late afternoon and soup again at dusk, which was its other original hour. Five stops, all on foot, all inside the Old Quarter or on its edge.
Give one day over to comparison. Have beef phở one morning and chicken phở the next at the same hour and in a similar place: the difference in broth shows up better that way than trying both at once. And if you are heading south on the same trip, save the north–south contrast for the end.
On dates, a serious warning: come between October and December. November has a mean of 21.9 °C and fewer than seven rain days. February and March, by contrast, muster 93.6 hours of sunshine between them and humidity above 82%, and eating on the pavement under continuous drizzle stops being fun on the second day.
If you fit the profile, the argument is short: you will eat five times a day for less than one dinner costs at home, in the city where two of the best-known Vietnamese dishes in the world were invented, and a foot off the ground. It is a cheap, dense trip with no ornament at all.
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Carlos Delgado ToledoFor the traveller who stays when the last train goes back to Madrid.
Bestalex TashkentFor the traveller who gets up at six to have rice for breakfast.
Carole Raddato Ashgabat