Hang Bun Street

A pavement stall on Hàng Bún Street sells freshly steamed rice noodles. Vietnamese call these noodles bún. Baskets of them, fine and white and still damp with steam, are stacked on a wooden board. A shopper coming home from the early market carries off a bag, ready for a morning bowl of bún riêu or bún ốc. Behind that stall lies the story of a trade that is older than the street's name.

A tourism website for the Ba Đình area says Hàng Bún lies in an extended quarter of Hanoi that Hanoians call the 36 streets of Ba Đình. The street lies close to Trúc Bạch Lake, toward the north. The lake is small and quiet, unlike the crowds of the Old Quarter. That setting gives Hàng Bún an air of its own. It is a street where people live, not a crowded shopping street.

The Hanoi Moi newspaper reports that the Hàng streets of the extended Ba Đình quarter were all named for the goods sold on them. This reflects a way of organizing trade by craft guild that goes back to the Lê dynasty. Hàng Bún was where rice noodles were sold. The strands are made from ordinary rice soaked overnight, ground fine and strained into flour. The flour is then spread, steamed and cut into strands. This was not a finished dish. It was the raw ingredient that every household kitchen needed for its bún dishes each morning.

Hanoi's bún cooking is not one dish but a whole family of them. The Hanoi Department of Tourism and the Nhân Dân newspaper both record bún as an inseparable part of the capital's food culture. Bún riêu is made with pounded field crab, tomato and fried tofu, and its sourness is clean and deep. Bún ốc has a sour broth made with dấm bỗng, a vinegar, and boiled snails. It is a signature morning dish of Hanoians. Bún chả is cold noodles eaten with meat patties and grilled meat, dipped in a seasoned fish sauce. Bún thang has a clear broth made from chicken bones, dried shrimp and shrimp paste, with many layers of toppings. Every bowl starts from the same place, a strand of white rice noodle, the very thing that was once sold right on this street.

Hàng Bún still keeps the rhythm of the morning. The street is not long, and it is not as busy as Đồng Xuân. But early in the day it has noodle sellers and fresh food for the morning market of the people of Ba Đình. This is a street of real daily life. Most buyers live nearby. They come to the market, buy noodles to cook at home, and then go to work.

Hàng Bún is one of the rare streets where the old name still matches the life of the street at dawn. Hanoi has changed, and many of the Hàng streets lost their trades long ago. Yet every morning here, baskets of fine white noodles are still set out before the sky has fully brightened. Those strands are a thin thread joining an old street name to the breakfast of millions of Hanoians, across many generations.