Grill Smoke and Clear Broth: A Street Cook's Verdict on Hanoi's Old Quarter

Char reaches me on Lê Văn Hữu before I've spotted the number on the door, that burnt-fat smell of pork dripping onto coals, sweet at the edges where the sugar in the marinade has caught and gone dark. Hương Liên, at number 24, keeps its grill going right at the front, patties and belly slices lined up in rows, and the smoke does the advertising the sign doesn't have to.

The patties are minced pork bound loose enough to stay tender through the fire. The belly is cut thin, thin enough to render fast without drying to leather by the time it's pulled off. Beside the broth bowl sits a plate of herbs I could name blind: perilla, mint, a lettuce leaf wide enough to wrap around whatever won't fit on the fork.

Whoever mans the grill turns each patty once, waits for the dripping fat to hit coal and flare, then pulls it back an inch, never all the way off. That flare is the whole trick, it's what gives the pork its char without pushing it into ash. My own coals sit a hand's width further from the meat than that, banked lower on purpose, because I've burned enough batches over the years to trust the extra distance more than my nerve.

The dipping bowl comes out warm, not hot, fish sauce cut with sugar and vinegar until it lands sour before it lands sweet, a slice of pickled papaya and carrot floating on top gone glassy from the brine. Dunk the pork in for a couple of seconds and it drinks the broth without losing its char. Leave it in too long and you've made soup out of a grilled dish, which is its own kind of waste.

Regulars still call this place Obama Bún Chả, for the 2016 visit when Barack Obama sat on a plastic stool here with Anthony Bourdain and ate off the same low table everyone else does. The nickname has outlasted the visit by a decade now, and the kitchen hasn't changed its grill setup for the cameras any more than it did for the crowds that followed them in.

My own char is patchier by comparison, and I'll say so plainly. My grill runs on gas most nights, and gas won't give you that last curl of smoke a coal fire throws off for free. Their broth, though, I'd thin down before I served it at my cart. Mine holds more sour and less sugar, and more than one customer has told me theirs goes down smoother. Smoother isn't always better, it just means less bite.

For the grill alone I'd give it an eight, docked two points for a dip I'd want sharper. For the whole plate together, the char carries it past that, and I'd eat here on my own day off, which isn't something I say about most kitchens in this quarter.

Star anise finds me before the broth does at Phở 10 on Lý Quốc Sư, that dry, sweet smell that means someone toasted the spices before they ever touched water. No fish sauce funk out front, no slick of beef fat sitting on the surface either, just clean steam rising off a bowl that hasn't been left standing.

The noodles are flat, cut narrow, cooked to a give that holds its shape against the broth's heat instead of turning to mush in the first minute. I test noodles the same way every time, pulling one strand halfway out of the bowl to see whether it snaps back or just hangs there limp. This one snapped back.

Getting a broth this clear without going thin is a long game: bones and beef skimmed of scum for as long as it takes, held at a bare shiver rather than a rolling boil, because a hard boil clouds everything you've worked to clarify. It's patience more than ingredients, and it's the one part of phở I've never had the stove space to do properly at my own cart.

The brisket arrives sliced thin enough to finish cooking in the bowl's own heat, no separate simmer needed, pink at the centre when it lands and cooked through by the third spoonful. A chopstick splits it without sawing, which tells you more about the cut than any menu description would.