Buncha Hanoi is an ambassador for a once obscure regional dish – Chicago Reader

advance is not a true line. .. I think things are gon na work out. ” That ’ s how Barack Obama reassured Anthony Bourdain over beers and bun cha at a bantam, crowded Hanoi restaurant in the form of 2016, shortly before everything got fucked. The conversation, finally broadcast on an episode of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown in the relatively felicitous days before America ’ s electoral suicide and Bourdain ’ s actual one, at least worked out well for Bun Cha Huong Lien. The restaurant, located just south of the city ’ s french Quarter, is now celebrated the earth over and perennially mobbed, and the bantam metallic mesa and blue formative stools the big couple squatted on are encased in glass for Instagram posterity. Bun cha is a kind of grill pork and noodle salad, a specialization of Hanoi and Bun Cha Huong Lien in particular, clear-cut from the more compose bun thit nuong, common all over Vietnam. It ’ second meatballs, cold rice vermicelli ( bun ), and caramel-marinated and charcoal-grilled pork barrel belly swimming in a bowl of nuoc cham, the omnipresent vinegar-fish-chile-sauce dipping medium, all supplemented with assorted herbs, aromatics, and more chiles. It ’ s normally served with a pyramid of nem cua be, crackly, greasy-good, crab- and shrimp-stuffed french-fry spring rolls. The sum of all these parts equals the kind of harmonic convergence of preference, texture, temperature, and aroma that can, however concisely, drown out the thudding boom of experiential apprehension. It ’ randomness easy to see why the president was enraptured by bun cha. still, BO ( before Obama ), bun cha was something of a regional mysterious, unless possibly you ’ d read the long-dormant street food web log Stickyrice and tracked it down yourself in its hometown. But AO, there are ambassadors of bun cha all over the U.S. in cities with significant numbers of vietnamese emigres, such as Houston, D.C., and Minneapolis. soon after the presidential sit-down aired, Jonathan Gold, 2018 ’ s early atrocious food-media fatal accident, published a lead to LA ’ south best bun cha.

Tina Nguyen is the North Shore ’ s bun cha ambassador. To be indisputable, you could already find versions of the smasher at, say, Uptown ’ s Pho 777 ( where flyers posted to the mirrored wall advertise “ Bun Cha Obama ” ) or the late Pho Lily, where Nguyen found make after emigrating from Vietnam in 2011. But so far, no one in the city has devoted a restaurant to it to the degree that she has—Huong Lien style—in the same Glenview strip plaza as Tous Les Jours Korean bakery, So Gong Dong Tofu House, and Mozu Sushi & Izakaya. Nguyen international relations and security network ’ thyroxine from Hanoi. She ’ s from Dak Lak state in the vietnamese central highlands ( home of 2017 Miss Universe Vietnam H ’ Hen Nie ). It ’ s more of a bun thit nuong kind of invest. But something told Nguyen that bun cha ’ randomness time on the world stage had arrived. “ We love Anthony Bourdain so much, ” she says, and above her read reads a blackboard obituary : “ Low plastic stools, cheap but delicious noodles, cold Hanoi beer, that ’ s how I ’ ll commend Tony. —Barack Obama. ” Nguyen ’ s finish, she says, is to make bun cha american samoa popular as pho, with an assist from CNN. Buncha Hanoi has no liquor license even, so you ’ ll have to bring your own beer. They ’ ll pour it over frost for you. And there are early departures from form : Nguyen doesn ’ triiodothyronine burn charcoal, and the pork barrel belly arrives at the table not steeped in the sweet fetid dipping sauce but rather threaded on skewers.

The Parts Unknown episode in which Bourdain schools the president of the united states on proper bun cha procedure screens on YouTube in the dine room, and it ’ s a useful fuse for putting together the disparate elements of the typeset before you. If the pork barrel belly is a bit dry, that ’ s what the dip sauce, swimming with quick- pickled radish and shredded carrot, is for. A single spring roll, tightly rolled and packed with ocean creatures, appears on the plate alongside a pair of bouncing pork patties. Dispatch these to your bowl immediately, along with your prefer conceptualization of coriander, mint, basil, garlic, chiles, and calcium oxide. If your entangle of bun, with its topknot of crisp fried shallots, is somehow not sufficient to absorb your detail brew, a server will bring more away, free of tear. While the degree of specialization at Buncha Hanoi is to be celebrated, there are other options on the menu, which is minor and focus compared to the typically expansive offerings at a vietnamese restaurant. There are banh secret intelligence service and pho, its beefy short-rib broth simmered for six hours, according to Nguyen. There ’ second a generous, peanut-scattered roll of bun bo nam bo, gripe and vermicelli salad that requires no strategy to consume. And there are phenomenal chicken wings, gluey with bitter yellowish brown and mined with blazing chile. Glenview, to some city dwellers, might american samoa well be North Vietnam. But Buncha Hanoi, located on a strip of Milwaukee Avenue dotted with more concern corrode options than any six blocks in Logan Square, is worth a trip. “ We wanted to bring it here in a traditional room, ” says Nguyen, who seems to speak directly to a particular kind of american eater. “ It ’ s not Americanized. ” Thanks, Obama. v

Buncha Hanoi

1705 Milwaukee Ave., Glenview
847-813-9150
bunchahanoiusa.com

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Category : VIETNAM FOOD