Introduction | The Lunch Lady Diary | Conclusion | Map
Published June 2014 | Words and photos by Vietnam Coracle
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THE LUNCH LADY DIARY
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday
Monday
Dish: Bún Thái | Price: 40,000VNĐ ($2) | Rating (out of 5 stars): ★★★★
Description: It’s a beautiful, hot and sunny day in Saigon today. I arrive at The Lunch Lady’s shady corner in a good mood after a refreshing swim at Hai Quan Pool, but my spirits are dampened somewhat when a bird craps on my bike as soon as I arrive – a bad omen? Today’s dish is bún Thái which, as the name suggests, is a Vietnamese take on a classic Thai soup. Ms Nguyen Thi Thanh and her staff remember me and greet me with a polite, “Why haven’t you eaten here in such a long time?” I make my excuses and tell her that this week, to make up for my absence, I’ll be eating here every day.
Her broths have been accused of being too sweet and loaded with MSG, but I think today’s is well-balanced: light and tangy, yes, but certainly not too sweet. The atmosphere here, on the quiet corner under the umbrella tree, is very pleasant indeed. Other food vendors sell drinks and snacks to the steady flow of customers, most of whom are Vietnamese on their lunch break from offices nearby. Ms Nguyen Thi Thanh is friendly, smiley and chatty, even when I ask – as politely as I can – if she charges both Vietnamese and foreign customers the same price (there have been rumours of foreigners being ripped off here in the past year). She explains there are two prices: 30,000VNĐ ($1.50) for a small bowl (actually the same size but with less ‘goodies’ in it) and 40,000VNĐ ($2) for a big bowl. Although this is more expensive than your average street food, it’s similarly priced to other ‘famous’ bowls of noodles in town, like Phở Phượng next door (45,000VNĐ), which I consider to be the best phở in Saigon.
This is a cracking start to a week of lunches at The Lunch Lady, and the only reason I haven’t rated this soup with five stars is because I’m not as familiar with bún Thái as I am with others dishes, so I’m less able to compare this particular version with others that I consider top quality.
Photo: Monday is bún Thái: a fabulous bowl of luminous colours & ‘dancing’ flavours:
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Dish: Bún Mọc | Price: 40,000VNĐ| Rating (out of 5 stars): ★★★★
Description: It’s hot and humid today, but there’s a little respite in the dappled sunlight at The Lunch Lady’s corner. Today’s soup is bún mọc (also spelled mộc), a dish originating from northern Vietnam. Again, it’s a very ‘good-looking’ bowl of noodles. In contrast to yesterday’s vibrant and contrasting colours, this soup has a harmonious, pale palette. A series of whites and grays, punctuated by the bronze of roasted shallots, gives it the appearance of a faded black and white photograph. Bún mọc is a pork and mushroom based broth. This particular bowl has a meaty flavour with earthy tones from the mushrooms. It’s a surprisingly deep and dark taste for such a light and clear broth. There’s a very strong presence of garlic and shallots, and tiny shrimp add a pungent punch. As usual it’s jammed with ‘goodies’: thin slices of boiled pork, chunks of cinnamon flavoured chả (a kind of meat loaf), pork and mushroom meat balls, pork ribs, and pig’s trotters. The latter are a bit too chewy, which is unusual as they normally melt in your mouth, having spent hours in the boiling broth. However, the meat and mushroom balls, and the cinnamon chả are exceptionally good.
Again, I’m struck by the calm and pleasant ambience of this ‘foodie corner’. Vietnamese office workers (no foreigners at all today) tuck into their noodles, leaves on the umbrella trees rustling in the wind above their heads, while well-fed, healthy-looking dogs gnaw on discarded pork bones at their feet. At one point, a yellow-specked butterfly flits between my chopsticks and spoon. Atmosphere and environment are a big part of good Vietnamese street food. I’m not talking about cleanliness and table cloths – far from it – what I mean is a congenial, open-air, informal setting where food and surroundings combine to create the Vietnamese street food experience. The Lunch Lady has got this in spades: even if you don’t like the food here (which, on the evidence so far, would seem unlikely) it’d be hard to dislike the setting. Today’s soup is very satisfying: I have a big smile on my face and a light-hearted glow in my chest as I leave. The Lunch Lady’s bún mọc is not extraordinary, but it’s very, very good, and the overall experience is fulfilling.
Photo: Tuesday’s soup is bún mọc, a meaty, earthy broth with a pale palette:
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Dish: Cà ri gà| Price: 40,000VNĐ | Rating (out of 5 stars): ★★
Description: I arrive at The Lunch Lady today after two hours of tennis in the kind of oppressive heat you get during the rainy season before an afternoon storm. Today’s dish is cà ri gà, which is Vietnamese chicken curry. I admit that I’m not too excited about the prospect of eating a curry after such a ‘hot’ morning, but the smell of spices in the heat and the look of the yellow broth being poured over potatoes and chicken begin to change my mind. This dish is quite ‘un-Vietnamese’: like so many of the best dishes (not just in Vietnam but all over the world) cà ri gà is full of foreign influences. The use of coconut milk, coriander, and cardamon points more to the Malay Peninsular and the Indian Subcontinent than to Vietnam. As The Lunch Lady explains to me – while pouring out the golden broth – cà ri came from abroad but once it arrived in Vietnam it was ‘Vietnamized’ into the dish that now lays before me.
It looks – as I’ve come to expect from The Lunch Lady – great. The yellow ochre of the broth is the result of lemongrass staining the coconut milk, and large chunks of potato and sweet potato have also picked up some of this colour. Several whole chicken legs, with their brown-glazed skin, protrude above the surface. This is a dense, compact, and chunky soup. But it lacks vibrancy. I’ve had bowls of Vietnamese curry that I could stare at for hours, with colours as bright and alive as a David Hockney canvas. By contrast, this curry has a gray, ‘unhealthy’ pallor. And the taste too is lacking some vital quality: there’s no depth, or vigour to the flavour. It’s a pleasant taste, but mild and inoffensive. I’m not a big fan of overly spicy food, but this curry is too timid, even for me. A curry should be hearty, warming and exciting; not mild and restrained. The chicken is soft and tender, but the vegetables are hard and chewy – not what you’d expect after hours boiling in a cauldron of broth.
A group of my friends are here to join me today, and most of them seem to enjoy their bowls of cà ri gà. However, I can’t help but notice that many of their bowls are still half full when we all get up to leave; mine too, I’m afraid.
Photo: Wednesday’s chicken curry is tasty but ‘timid’ and too mild:
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Dish: Bún mắm | Price: 40,000VNĐ | Rating (out of 5 stars): ★★★★
Description: A bird defecates on my bike – as has become routine these last few days – as I pull in to The Lunch Lady’s quiet corner, just as a light rain starts to fall from the ashen sky. It’s noticeably busier today, which makes me think that Thursday’s soup must be a famous one. In fact, the dish of the day is bún mắm, which is beloved by most Vietnamese but which most foreigners tend to leave alone. The reason for this is that bún mắm‘s base is a pungent fish sauce that produces a ‘distinctive’ aroma many foreigners find hard to appreciate. However, there are lots of non-Vietnamese here today to enjoy this fabulous soup, and plenty of rather glamorous looking young Vietnamese women in smart dresses and high heels too. The bowl arrives on my table. “Come on!”, I think to myself. “This is ridiculous.” The soup is so striking, so colourful, so gorgeous that it fills me with a kind of glee. Bún mắm is always a sight to behold, no matter where you eat it, but this one knocks me over with its bold shapes and bright colours. I wish Cézanne or Van Gogh could have visited The Lunch Lady and painted a still life of this bowl of soup, then I could hang it on my wall to look at every day.
The soup is rammed with chunky ‘goodies’: roast pork, shrimp, squid, fish cake, okra, aubergine, even the bún (noodles) seem to be thicker than usual. The broth is deep, dark and brooding; this is more of a potion than a broth. I add bean sprouts, morning glory, banana blossom and a squeeze of lime just to introduce even more texture and flavour to this already overloaded bowl. It’s fantastic. The base of the broth is fish sauce, lemongrass, and aubergine, all of which makes for a very rich brew of fishy, salty, tangy and earthy flavours. Like yesterday’s curry, it is perhaps a bit too mild and too sweet. But, this is southern Vietnamese cuisine, famous for it’s sweetness: whether it comes from sugar cane, coconut juice, or MSG southern dishes, like this one, will always be sweet. Bún mắm is a soup I have loved ever since I lived a few metres from my favourite place to eat it in Saigon, so I feel I have enough ‘experience’ of this dish to say that The Lunch Lady’s version of this rich and complex soup is excellent. Bún mắm is a soup that pulls no punches: it’s bold and confrontational with big chunks and big flavours. It’s delicious and, judging by the increase in diners here today, plenty of other people would agree.
Something I’ve noticed over that last 4 days at The Lunch Lady is that, although Ms Nguyen Thi Thanh herself is very friendly, relaxed and smiley, the rest of the staff can be quite grim, gruff and impatient. Also, while it’s true that there are two prices (40,000VNĐ a big bowl and 30,000VNĐ a small bowl [see Monday]) neither Vietnamese nor foreign customers are given the choice between the two. Rather, Vietnamese customers are always served the smaller and cheaper bowl, and foreign customers are always served the bigger and more expensive bowl.
Photo: Thursday’s soup is bún mắm: bold & confrontational, this is a rich, dark ‘potion’ of a soup:
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Dish: Bún bò Huế | Price: 40,000VNĐ | Rating (out of 5 stars): ★★
Description: Today’s soup is bún bò Huế, a dish that was born in the former imperial capital of Huế, in Central Vietnam. This soup is popular all over the country, and it was also the dish that Anthony Bourdain enjoyed so much when he visited The Lunch Lady a few years ago. Bún bò Huế is a spicy, feisty broth with a strong aroma of lemongrass and beef. It’s the kind of soup that you can smell on the streets of Saigon whenever you’re near a stall serving it. So I’m surprised that I have to ask The Lunch Lady what the dish of the day is – I’d have thought that if it were bún bò Huế I’d have known immediately from the aroma filling this shady corner, but no. Even when the bowl arrives on my plastic table I still find it hard to believe that this is the soup she says it is. The broth is dark and a little viscous which is unusual for this dish: normally the broth is cloudy (but not dense) with a light brown colour. In appearance it’s not quite as arresting as I’ve come to expect from the Lunch Lady over the last few days. The colours are muted, and there’s not much ‘form’ to it.
The taste is equally flat and ordinary. There isn’t the spice, kick, and fire that bún bò Huế commonly has. In the city of Huế, especially, there’s a real heat to this soup, and powerful citrusy notes from the lemongrass, all brought down to earth by the deep, meaty flavour of the beef. Unfortunately, today’s version has none of the above qualities. It’s a fine and pleasant bowl of soup, but there’s certainly no magic to it. I’m joined by a friend of mine today, and she also says that, while the soup is filling and good, it’s not spectacular. What it does have going for it is meat, lots of it. There’s beef brisket, pig’s trotters, a Vietnamese pork sausage, and some tender slithers of raw beef that cook gently in the hot broth. But, once again, the larger chunks of meat are chewier than I’d expect. Today’s dish is fine but not a great introduction to such a famous and beloved dish as bún bò Huế. Anthony Bourdain said that each mouthful of this soup was like “discovering new neighbourhoods”, but I’d say it’s more like being stuck in the same neighbourhood you’ve promised yourself you’d move out of for years, but, like Groundhog Day, find yourself still living in day after day, year after year: this is a very ordinary bowl of soup that you could find on most street corners in this city of food stalls.
Photo: Friday’s bún bò Huế is not a great introduction to such a famous and ‘feisty’ soup:
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Dish: Bánh canh cua | Price: 40,000VNĐ | Rating (out of 5 stars): ★★★★
Description: I arrive a bit later than usual today, having come straight from work. It’s busier than on previous days, filled with ‘leisure eaters’ rather than local office workers. I feel overdressed in my white shirt and tie and, for this reason, The Lunch Lady greets me with, “Oh, very handsome today!”. I take my seat under the tree and am joined in the shade by two of my friends. There’s a deep, fishy aroma wafting over this quiet corner today, which can only mean one thing: bánh canh cua is dish of the day. This is a rich, fishy soup with thick noodles, and generous amounts of crab meat. Of course, the first thing we all notice is how beautiful it looks: the culinary version of a firework display. There are so many colours, shapes, and textures in this bowl that it’s a world in itself. Like Tolkien’s Middle-earth there are green, tranquil areas, dark, threatening, ‘mountainous’ regions, and mysterious ‘parts unknown’. The colours are bold, bright and exotic, like Gauguin’s Tahitian paintings.
The fish based broth is golden brown; a warm amber colour like toast. And, like toast, this soup is warming, comforting, homey and somehow reassuring. It’s thick, rich, velvety; a luxurious broth. Even by the standards of The Lunch Lady this soup is crammed with ‘goodies’. There’s shrimp, fish cake, crab meat, quail eggs, beef, pork blood cake, and dozens of little button mushrooms. Strangely, the taste is mild compared to the aroma, but it still has all the fishy, salty flavour you’d expect from a seafood broth, tempered, as always, by lots of lemongrass, garlic, shallots, and onions. The famously slippery noodles – which constantly frustrate the hungry diner by falling off their chopsticks – are easier to manage than usual. Bánh canh noodles are very different from most other Vietnamese noodles. Some people liken them to Japanese udon noodles because of their thickness. But they also have a gooey texture, which is very strange indeed. They’re commonly made from either rice or tapioca flour, but I notice that The Lunch Lady’s noodles have a red tinge, indicating, I think, that they’re made from brown rice flour. Today’s soup is bold, rich, and has so much body that it appears to occupy the whole of The Lunch Lady’s corner on this cloudy afternoon in Saigon.
Photo: Saturday’s soup is bánh canh cua, a fishy soup with lots of ‘body’:
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Dish: Bún riêu | Price: 40,000VNĐ | Rating (out of 5 stars): ★★★
Description: Sunday is The Lunch Lady’s day off, but the ‘rotating menu’ continues to turn as the rest of the staff pull together to produce their own dish of the day. Noon on a Sunday is probably the quietest time of the week in Saigon, and so it is at The Lunch Lady’s stall when I arrive at 12:30, with just a trickle of (mostly foreign) customers gathering to eat under the shade of the umbrella tree.
The broth is surprisingly sharp and sour thanks to the long-stewed tomatoes. I find this a refreshing quality, especially after the general sweetness of the other broths this week. The bún noodles are thinner and lighter than on previous days, which again is a nice change. The addition of sweet basil, banana blossom, bean sprouts, and lime provide a much needed balance to the heavy chunks of ‘stuff’ in this soup, which include: pork slices, fish balls, tofu, crab meat, snails, Vietnamese pork sausage, halved tomatoes, and slices of cinnamon flavoured chả (a kind of meat loaf). The interplay of textures is great fun for teeth and tongue – it’s like a theme park offering different ‘rides’: soft, chewy, crunchy, crispy, tough, velvety, mushy, stringy. Overall, this is a good, solid bowl of a classic soup. It’s very filling and fun to eat, but there’s nothing extraordinary that makes this version any more remarkable than other bowls of bún riêu available up and down this ‘soupy’ nation.
Photo: Sunday’s bún riêu is a good, solid version of a classic soup, but not extraordinary:
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CONCLUSION
A meal at The Lunch Lady is certainly good value. There’s a lot of soup for your money in every bowl. As for the reports of foreigners being overcharged, I think it’s more subtle and calculated than that. As I’ve mentioned before, there are two prices: 40,000VNĐ ($2) for a big bowl and 30,000VNĐ ($1.50) for a small bowl. By default all foreign customers are given the big bowl, and all Vietnamese customers are given the small bowl. There’s a little more soup and ‘goodies’ in the big bowl, so as rip-offs go this one isn’t too bad. However, foreign customers are always presented with extra side dishes, such as spring rolls and bread, that you could easily mistake for being complimentary, but when you get the bill you’re charged for them – this tactic isn’t used on Vietnamese customers.
RELATED CONTENT: Best Pho in Saigon | TOP 5 Markets in Saigon | Street Food Week
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MAP
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Read a great article after a long time. I have read your blog for the first time and I must say its awesome. Loved the way you write. And thanks for sharing this information. I am a travel blogger, any writing tips for me?
Hi Birendra,
Thanks.
My only advice for writing is: to write – it seems obvious, but the more you do it, the better you’ll get 🙂
Tom
Dear Tom
I would be checking her out when I visit Saigon but I am there only on a late night – Tripadvisor states that she opens from 11 am – 2 am — so I might be able to visit around midnight – just double checking with you if that’s correct.
Hi Thanis,
I think it is very unlikely that the Lunch Lady will be open at midnight. I think it must be a misprint on TripAdvisor: it probably should say 11am-2pm.
However, you will find other soup vendors still selling their noodles in Saigon at midnight. So hopefully you will still be able to find some good food on your brief late night visit to Saigon.
Tom
Hi Tom,
I love your blog so much! I am from Saigon and I have to write to you my opinion after reading The Lunch Lady: A Diary. When I ate Pho in Ha Noi, it just had noodles, beef or chicken, onion and Pho’s soup. But in Saigon, we put more like steak, flank, tendon, tripe, and fatty flank, plus black bean sauce and chilli sauce, and a dish of soya and vegetables. It is supposed to be big in Saigon I think! And the same when i ate Bun Bo Hue in Hue, or Bun Rieu in Ha Noi, it was simpler and more original that i can taste the real taste of the soup. Love it!! What i want to say we put too much ‘goodies’ in a bowl of the soup in Saigon, so it looks richer, but makes the taste mixing somehow in my opinion 🙁
And have you tried Hu tiu Nam Vang in Saigon? I think if they make the best Pho in Ha Noi, the best Bun Bo in Hue and we make the best Hu tiu in Saigon. My favorites are Hien Lua on An Duong Vuong Str. ( most expensive, but so tasty) and Dat Thanh on Tran Hung Dao Str. Cheers 🙂
Tram
Hi Tram,
Thanks for sharing your considered opinion. It’s always interesting to hear more about the differences between northern and southern palates 🙂 I like the idea that all the ‘chunky bits’ and ‘goodies’ could just be a kind of ‘make-up’ that gets in the way of the ‘real’ flavour of the dish, and perhaps even to distract from the fact that the broth itself is not as tasty as it should be in some cases. It’s still very exciting to sit down and see a big bowl that is jammed full of ‘things’ 🙂
Yes, people often say that Hu Tieu Nam Vang is ‘the’ southern dish. I like it, and will try to go to the places you mention. I think other dishes like bún mắm also have a claim as ‘the’ southern dish.
Tom
Hey nice review! But what caught my attention was the very first photo which is of Mi Quang, yet there is no Mi Quang day? That is my favorite soup & would easily get me to the Lunch Lady. Thanks!
Hi Agatha,
Yes, that’s right, there’s no mì quảng day 🙁 The first image is a photo from Mì Quảng 85 in District 3, I’ve used it here purely as an illustration of Vietnamese noodles in the introduction. Find out more about Mì Quảng 85 in Day 4 of my Street Food Week here.
Tom
What a great entry! I felt like I was there enjoying the soup right along with you. I’m planning a trip to Vietnam next month and this post makes me even more excited. Thank you! 🙂
Thanks, Katrina,
I hope you get a chance to visit The Lunch Lady when you’re in Vietnam and discover more great street food around the country 🙂
Tom
Great write up, Tom.
Not been to the LL for a little while but I’ve felt it gets a little overpraised too often – so good to see such a considered review. I’ve never felt the other staff are unfriendly. Always get smiles and nods of recognition with my smattering of VNese.
On the subject of ‘tourist friendly’ streetfood, I’m going to have a look around your site (I’ve only just discovered it today!) to see if you’ve written about the Banh Xeo place off Hai Ba Trung (opp the Pink Church). Now, that place is a rip-off and vastly overrated. Decent, but nothing special, banh xeo for 70,000 – against street prices of 25-30,000. I think it’s (fairly) recently had a refurb, so they’ve got to get their money back but even so… disappointing.
Hi Philip,
Yes, I’ve been to that banh xeo place, but not for a long time. I liked it when I first got to Vietnam in 2005/6 – I remember the banh xeo were very large with a lot of filling. It’s another place made famous by Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations show. Since then I’ve eaten banh xeo in many different places all over the country so perhaps my opinion of it would be different now. I’ll go back and try it again some day.
Tom
Great write up, Tom! Yes, Bourdain’s Lunch Lady is a perfect example of local, traditional Vietnamese street food. I’ve always enjoyed her soups and find it to be wonderful value. It’s nice to see a run-down of her weekly menu as I’ve never known the variety she offers. Keep up the good work!
Thanks, Devon.
Hope to see you at The Lunch Lady again sometime.
Tom
Hi Tom
I enjoy reading your blog but can you please get rid of the floating “share” panel, which even now is blocking what I’m writing and certainly blocks the text of your blog posts far too much.
Keep up the good work – cheers
Hi Roy,
Glad you enjoy reading my blog, and yes, I’m aware of the problem with the share button on smaller screens: I’m in the process of redesigning my site and that’s one of the issues that will be addressed.
Thanks for your comment,
Tom
I see the share panel is now hidden on the left, great improvement Tom.
Cheers – roy
Hi Tom,
I have been to the Lunch Lady yesterday as well (too bad, I didn’t see you) but my experience will be useful:
I don’t like seafood so I asked for the soup without shrimps.
Good soup, not extraordinary but good and decent.
I have notions of Vietnamese so they saw that I was not a tourist. Still they didn’t propose any small or big size and they charged me 45.000vnd… So I guess I got ripped off. Good experience to share 🙂
Have a good day 🙂
Marion xx
Hi Marion,
Thanks for the message – That’s strange about the price: two other friends of mine went yesterday too but were charged 40,000 a bowl. I checked today and Vietnamese customers were definitely paying the same as foreign ones. Perhaps you got a special price for having less (shrimp) in your bowl:-)
Keep me posted with your experiences.
Tom
No no no….. I’m sorry for what I will tell you. First of all, I am Vietnamese, and I’m glad to hear that you love Vietnamese food. Secondly, about the price. They are not the same for foreigners and the locals. For example, today I ate Banh Canh Cua at Lunch Lady. I called 2 bowls, and then they charged me for 60.000 VND. So it means that only 30.000 VND for one bowl. But if you are foreigners, you will pay 40.000. I know that 10.000 dont make any sense. But I dont like the way they charged you. I have saw many foreigners paid like that. Even last year or now, the price for the locals is still 30.000 VND for one bowl.
Finally, I hope that my example dont make you guys hate Viet Nam and dont come back.
Thanks for reading my reply. If there is any mistakes, please forgive me.
Ps: I hope that I could make a list about street food in Saigon and share it to you.
Hi Christine,
Thanks for sharing your experience. As I mention in this article, when I was eating at the Lunch Lady, she had two prices: 30,000 for a ‘normal’ bowl; 40,000 for a ‘big’ bowl: the (subtle) way she overcharged foreigners was by serving them the ‘big’ bowl by default, whereas Vietnamese customers get the ‘normal’ bowl.
And, yes, I also hope that this minor cheating of foreign customers doesn’t put people off coming back again 🙂
Tom