Dishes Hanoi borrowed: bún bò Huế and bánh xèo in the north
Two dishes from central and southern Vietnam that Hanoi has adopted and quietly rewritten. What changes on the journey north, and whether the Hanoi versions are worth ordering.
Vietnam’s regional cuisines are more distinct than most visitors expect. Hue food is spicy and imperial; Saigon food is sweet and generous; Hanoi food is restrained, sour and salt-forward.
When a dish travels between them it gets rewritten, usually toward the local palate. Two of those rewrites are common enough in Hanoi to be worth understanding before you order — partly so you know what you are getting, and partly so you know when to wait and eat the original elsewhere.
Bún bò Huế
From Huế, in central Vietnam. A beef and pork noodle soup built on lemongrass and chilli, with thick round rice noodles rather than the flat ones used in phở.
What it should be
- Broth — beef and pork bones, heavily infused with lemongrass, coloured and heated with sa tế (a chilli-annatto oil), and seasoned with mắm ruốc, a fermented shrimp paste that gives it a savoury base note.
- Noodles —
bún bò, thick and round, closer to udon in gauge. - In the bowl — beef shank, a slice of chả (pork loaf), often huyết (pork blood cube) and a piece of giò heo (pork knuckle).
- On the side — a large plate of raw vegetables: shredded banana flower, water spinach stems, bean sprouts, herbs, lime, sliced chilli.
It should be hot — both temperature and chilli — sour, and aggressively aromatic with lemongrass.
What changes in Hanoi
It gets toned down. Hanoi palates are not chilli palates, and most northern versions dial back the sa tế substantially. The mắm ruốc is often reduced too.
The vegetable plate shrinks. In Huế, the raw plate is enormous and half the dish. In Hanoi it is often a small handful of herbs, if it appears at all.
The knuckle frequently disappears, along with the blood cube, because those are harder sells locally.
The result is a good lemongrass beef soup that is not really bún bò Huế.
How to fix it
Ask for thêm sa tế — more chilli oil. Every shop has a jar on the table or behind the counter.
Then ask for thêm rau — more vegetables — and push them into the bowl in quantity.
Those two moves get you most of the way back.
Where to look
Shops run by central Vietnamese families, which cluster in the southern and western districts rather than the Old Quarter. The sign usually says BÚN BÒ HUẾ alone, sometimes with ĐẶC SẢN HUẾ (Huế speciality).
The test: is there a large plate of raw vegetables on the table, and is the broth orange-red rather than brown? Both yes means a shop cooking the original.
When: breakfast and lunch, 6am to 1pm. Price: 45,000–70,000 VND.
Bánh xèo
From the south and centre. A rice-flour crepe, turned bright yellow with turmeric, fried in a shallow pan until the edges go lacy and crisp, folded over pork, prawn and bean sprouts.
The name means “sizzling cake”, after the sound the batter makes hitting the pan.
The regional split
Mekong / Saigon style — large, sometimes thirty centimetres across, soft in the middle, rich with coconut milk in the batter. One crepe is a meal.
Central / Huế style (bánh khoái) — small, thick, very crisp, with a peanut-and-liver dipping sauce rather than fish sauce.
What Hanoi mostly serves — the central-influenced version, or a smaller southern one. Crisper and less coconut-heavy than the Mekong original.
Both are good. They are simply different dishes, and if you have eaten the big soft Mekong version before, the Hanoi one will surprise you by being crunchy.
How to eat it
This is the part people get wrong, and it matters more here than with most dishes.
Do not eat it with a fork off the plate.
- Take a mustard leaf (
cải xanh) or a large lettuce leaf. - Break off a piece of the crepe with chopsticks — edges included, that is the best bit.
- Lay it on the leaf with a couple of herbs — perilla, mint, fish-mint if you like it.
- Roll it up.
- Dip in the nước chấm and eat in one or two bites.
The bitter mustard leaf against the fried batter is the entire architecture of the dish. Eating the crepe on its own is eating a third of it.
Where to look
Southern- and central-run shops in Hai Bà Trưng and the western districts. The Old Quarter has some aimed at visitors, which are fine and more expensive.
The test: is there a plate of large raw leaves — mustard greens, lettuce — on the table, and is the crepe being cooked to order? A tray of pre-cooked bánh xèo is a soggy bánh xèo.
When: lunch and evening. Price: 40,000–80,000 VND.
Should you order these in Hanoi at all?
An honest answer, in two parts.
If you are going to Huế or Saigon later in your trip — wait. Eat the originals where they are made. The Hanoi versions will teach you less.
If Hanoi is your whole trip — order both, with the adjustments above. A good central-Vietnamese-run shop in the southern districts is serving something close to the real thing, and the contrast with northern cooking is genuinely instructive. You will taste immediately why Vietnamese people talk about regional food as three different cuisines.
What Hanoi does that they do not
Worth saying, for balance: this street runs both ways. Northern dishes get rewritten going south too — southern phở arrives with bean sprouts, basil, hoisin and sugar, which Hanoians consider approximately a crime.
Neither version is wrong. But the northern original is what you are in the right city for, and that is an argument for spending your meals on bún thang, bún ốc and chả cá rather than on imports.
If you only do one thing
Find a BÚN BÒ HUẾ sign in a southern district, check that there is a plate of raw vegetables on the table, and order a bowl with extra sa tế and extra rau.
Then decide for yourself whether you need to go to Huế. (You do.)
Next: what Hanoi drinks — trà chanh, nâu đá and the plastic stool.