Vietnam720: Best Bun Mam in Saigon, as listed by Graham, a veteran Vietnam blogger from NoodlePie.

Saigon Best Bun Mam

Graham: The ‘Best Noodle Soup in Saigon’ Award goes to a 7,000VD (US$0.45) bowl of Bun Mam and the lady chef who simply goes by the name of Ba Sau (Number 36). She’s been serving this one noodle soup from her small six-seater stall in an alleyway market in District 10 for the last 25 years. Bun Mam is just one of a swarm of native vermicelli noodle soups on offer throughout Vietnam, but in my opinion, it is Vietnam’s soup star and Ba Sau serves the best I’ve found in Saigon.

Saigon Best Bun Mam

So what is it? Pictured above we have part of the assembly line; bun (vermicelli noodles), soup, aubergine and that green end of spring onion-alike on your right, which is not a spring onion at all, but something called he – a kind of garlic chive. Inside the table top glass cabinet are pre-cooked prawns and fatty, roasted pork complete with a crispy fat trim. Some Bun mam sellers also throw in squid and fish, but not here. The dish originates from Soc Trang Province in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta.

Saigon Best Bun Mam

The soup stock is the key. It’s a pork bone/fish combo number rammed full of goodies. Ba Sau throws in a no nonsense, roughly chopped up bag of fresh lemon grass and there’s a healthy splash or ten of Mam tom, that’s the purple prawn paste monster pictured above and the one providing the punch and the pong here. Bun mam does whiff.

Saigon Best Bun Mam

Next up is the shrubbery pictured above. It comes on a side plate or ready blanched in your soup – your choice, but for the record I keep my hedgerow raw, add a squeeze of lemon and go easy on the yellow chili slivers. This amazing bush is peculiar to Bun mam. The wee green chap to the top right, rau dang (a variety of cress), has the strongest flavor and is often served with Chao ca (Rice porridge with fish). According to local food lore, rau dang is very useful if you’re suffering from a stinking cold. The purple fella is bong sung (water lily root). We also have raw bean sprouts, raw rau muong (stripped morning glory) and the green leaf trio of rau thom (sorrel), rau que (basil) and one sprig of sour rau ca which is a powerful and unusual ‘fish mint’.

Saigon Best Bun Mam

Moving on to the taste. The soup is a slightly sweet, complex, muddy Mekong flood of fermented prawn paste and chili levered into a thick earthy stock. The aubergine has had time to soak the soup up and each velvet bite squeezes soup juice from the veggie core. It’s an unlikely sounding hit, but a hit it undoubtedly is.

Saigon Best Bun Mam

It tastes blinkin’ marvelous which is why I have given it, and Ba Sau, the ‘Best Noodle Soup in Saigon’ award. 
NB: I must thank Noodlepie readers, Ecr and Vickie for helping me with hedgerow herb translation work.