Despite the array of good Vietnamese restaurants in Auckland now, one dish is hard to track down: bun cha.
Bun cha is a Vietnamese dish that includes a bowl of cooked fish-sauce containing charcoal-grilled pork slices, pork patties, rice vermicelli noodles and a side of fresh herbs.
To eat this dish, diners mix the herb into the sauce and then briefly dip the noodle into the bowl for extra flavour.
The struggle to find good bun cha made two Hanoian chefs Katie Le and Rosie Nguyen decide to start their little eatery, called Eat Now in the beachside suburb of Takapuna in Auckland’s North Shore to introduce bun cha to New Zealanders.
“For many years I couldn’t find a satisfying version of bun cha in Auckland, so I thought there is a potential to introduce authentic bun cha here,” Le said.
Bun cha received global attention a few years ago when the then US President Barack Obama stopped off at Bun Cha Huong Lien between meetings. It’s been more than a decade, but the photograph of Obama and the late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain sitting at the bun cha table is still being mentioned when people talk about the dish.
At Eat Now, pho remains our most popular item on the menu, and sometimes less than 10 bowls of bun cha are sold a day at the restaurant, but Le says she is confident that she has the “best bun cha in Auckland”.
“I cook the dish like how we do it in Hanoi, I do not take any shortcuts,” Le said.
“The meat patties are grilled to get the best smokey taste that is necessary for a good ‘cha’, and they are not pan-fried like some other places.”
In Hanoi, bun cha is the top lunchtime snack - beating pho, which is the capital’s most popular breakfast item.
Ingredients that make up the bun cha dish are thin rice vermicelli (the ‘bun’ in Vietnamese), grilled pork, marinated pork belly and meatball from minced pork shoulder (the ‘cha’).
It is served with a cooked dipping sauce made up of fish sauce diluted with sugar, lime juice, vinegar and water, pickled vegetables, fresh herbs and a side of crushed garlic and sliced chilli.
Back in Hanoi, Bun Cha Huong Lien has become a tourist attraction, and people love taking photographs of where Obama sat and ate.
You’ll find the city’s streets and sidewalks teeming with bun cha vendors and bistros, each with their own variation of both meat and sauces.
Most of these bun cha vendors serve only this one dish as their speciality, operating just a few hours a day. Customers perched on low plastic stools surrounded by motorbikes can be seen eating their bun cha.
It is believed that Bun Cha Chien Loan, a stall located on Gia Ngu Street was the first vendor to serve bun cha in the early 1950s.
But if you’re not lucky enough to be able to travel to Hanoi, then the next best thing may be to head over the bridge to Takapuna and have the bun cha at Eat Now.
Other dishes worth checking out too are the Pho Salad, which comes with rice vermicelli, seasonal salad and vegetables with a special sauce and an option to add on char siu, chicken or beef, and also the caramelised pork belly on rice.
“Those wanting to try the best bun cha should definitely come to our restaurant,” said Eat Now manager Daisy Murfitt.
“It will certainly be cheaper than a flight to Hanoi!”
EAT NOW
8 Huron Street, Takapuna, Auckland
Business Hours: 7 Days 10am to 3pm
Ph: 09 488 0055
