I’m back for lunch walk number two, starting where I always do – Saigon Podcast Studio on Pasteur Street. I’m Neil Mackay, host of Discover Vietnam, and more recently, Vietnam Explained on VTV (more on that later). Every one of these episodes is the same idea: I walk through the neighborhood to one of my go-to lunch spots and bring you along, minimal editing and all.
Today I’m heading to Bếp Võ, a restaurant that started life in Tao Đàn and has since opened a second location just a couple of minutes from the studio. I go for the food, obviously, but I also wanted to show you the street it’s on, Tôn Thất Đạm, just off Hàm Nghi, home to Saigon’s old market strip.
The Dish: Bún Khô Gà
Today’s order is bún khô gà, dry rice vermicelli with chicken, and it’s a dish that’s a bit less internationally famous than phở, but just as embedded in everyday Vietnamese lunch culture.
“Khô”, the dry style of noodle dishes
In Vietnamese, khô simply means “dry,” and it describes a whole family of noodle dishes served as the opposite of a soup. Instead of noodles swimming in broth, the noodles are boiled, drained, then tossed with a savory-sweet sauce and toppings, with the broth (if there is any) served on the side in a small bowl for sipping or dipping rather than poured over the top. You’ll see the same “khô” treatment applied to other noodle bases too, mì khô (egg noodles), hủ tiếu khô (a southern rice noodle), and phở khô, a specialty of the Central Highlands city of Gia Lai. Bún khô gà is the vermicelli-and-chicken version of that same idea.
The noodles
Bún itself is round rice vermicelli, made from rice flour and water and extruded into thin strands, different in shape from the flat ribbon noodles used in phở (bánh phở). Bún shows up all over Vietnamese cuisine, from bún chả in Hanoi to bún bò Huế in the center, and its thin strands are ideal for a dry preparation like this because they soak up sauce quickly without turning mushy, and they hold up well once they’ve cooled slightly on the plate.
The chicken and the sauce
The chicken here is shredded or sliced breast meat, I always ask for it, and it works out to roughly 100 grams a plate. What makes the dish, though, is the sauce poured over everything at the end: a savory, slightly sweet mixture (often built from fish sauce, sugar, garlic, and lime, sometimes with a hoisin or soy base depending on the kitchen) that gets tossed through the noodles and chicken tableside or just before serving.
There are usually crispy fried shallots or garlic bits mixed in too, adding texture against the soft noodles and tender chicken, that little bit of crunch is easy to miss until you’re a few bites in and start noticing it.
Why it’s a different kind of comfort food than phở
Where phở is about a long-simmered broth carrying the flavor, bún khô gà puts the work into the sauce and the balance of textures, soft noodles, tender meat, crunchy shallots, a bright, tangy dressing. It’s lighter to eat, quicker to finish, and it’s the kind of dish that works well for a fast, satisfying weekday lunch rather than a slow bowl you linger over. At Bếp Võ it comes out fast too, practically no wait between ordering and the plate landing in front of me.
A welcome touch: the drink on the side
On this visit I was also given a small welcome drink alongside the meal, something that, camera or no camera, is a nice reminder of the hospitality culture around food service in Vietnam, where a restaurant will often send out a little extra as a gesture, especially to a regular.
Price point
A plate of bún khô gà here runs about 100,000 VND (roughly $4 USD) — solidly mid-range for the neighborhood, and worth it for indoor air conditioning alone on a hot, rainy-season day.
Listen to the Full Episode
There’s more to this walk than just the noodles, a nearly 70-year-old coffee shop on the corner, hand-ground coffee beans I picked up on the way back, and a street packed with more history than its size lets on. For the full walk-and-talk, listen to Lunch Walk #2 on the Discover Vietnam podcast, and let me know in the comments if you’ve got a lunch spot around Hàm Nghi I should check out next.