this my friends it's worth the trip alone after five long years i'm finally back in
hanoi after a successful trip eating my way around saigon i knew i had to travel north so i have
come to vietnam's capital city armed again with a thirst for knowledge and empty belly
and youtube's newest vietnam superstar so join us as we eat our way around hanoi
alright guys so first day in hanoi and we are only eating hanoi local food and it doesn't get
much more hanoi than buncha so today i want to take you for two separate bunchas the first one
is hong lion probably the most famous buncha in the whole of hanoi the presidential buncha
so we're going to be pitting this one against my personal local favorite let's go
wow
and that fried crispy seafood spring roll
oh the crunch guys the crunch so in here we've got we've got pork mince
we've got pork mince we've got some prawn we've got crab we've got spring onion carrot and some
himacha some it's almost like a tarot so yeah that's a little bit of added crunch loads and
loads of pepper wow these look good and here is the buncha so we've got you can see all the those
charred pieces are floating through that sweet fruity broth we've got those grilled perfectly
seasoned pork patties look at all that char on the outside looks like a little mini burger wow
pieces of grilled pork belly you got that sour veg in there so as i said in my last videos like
the one thing i love about vietnam is these fresh herbs so we've got the perilla leaves also known
as beef steak just some lettuce we've got another herb i'm not sure what this is it kind of tastes a
bit like lemon basil could be vietnamese mint or vietnamese basil and that's served up with a bun
the bun here is means rice noodles so we've got rice noodles fresh bouncy we've got some
raw garlic so i'm not i'm not entirely sure i'm going to be using that but i will be using these
sliced up bird's eye chillies and i will be using a lot of them on top of that we've got
some not mum the fish sauce we've got some white pepper and then we've got some pickled garlic i
cannot wait i've been waiting five years for some proper bun cha i've had one chai in saigon but i
haven't had buncha in hanoi for at least five years so we're going to take some of our wood
some of our herbs some of that lettuce jump on some of these red chilies
try that broth
so the first thing that hits you
is the sweetness from the sugar followed by the fish sauce and there's a real
intense flavor of the charred meat from the barbecue as you saw all those little pieces
all the black sharp pieces from the meat of through the sauce
the slices of pork absolutely incredible
i was thinking it'll be a little bit more tough than that they're fatty soft
heavily seasoned really really salty
that's like the ultimate barbecue
the sauce for me the sauce the soup the dressing i guess is a tad sweet
i'm gonna add a little bit of this pickled garlic i think once i get some more some more
noodles it'll mellow out that sweetness i'm going to get some of the noodles
i've got some of the grilled meat and then i've got some of that lovely pork soft patty
this my friends this is where i came to norfolk
i mean forget mcdonald's forget burger king you could stick this in a bun a lot of wood
that'd be the best burger you've ever had peppery the heavy load of lemongrass going for it
perfectly seasoned ultra soft on the inside crispy and sharp on the outside
this my friends this my friends it's worth the trip alone as i said freshness from the herbs
you've got that sweet salty broth heat from the chillies and that perfectly charred meat i'm in
heaven i mean it's a nice sweetness it's a rounded sweetness because you've got like a heavy hit fish
sauce as well but it is a little bit on the sweet side for me so having those those chilies to cut
that and cut through the fat for me is amazing now let's talk to the now hanoi expert mr paddy doily
right there let's give it a taste i've gone for some almost like bacon meat a little bit of patty
me some noodles let's chuck on one of these birds eye chillies on for good luck oh lovely chubbly
there's just so much going on in there this is the there's the heat from the fresh chili
the charriness from the meat the sweetness from the broth the crunchiness from the vegetables
and then you've got that like hit of carbs with these delicious rice noodles
i mean this is unbelievable you get that sort of tartness from those little
that sort of tart sourness from those little it helps you it makes you tricky or it tricks
your brain into thinking you're eating something healthy yeah you've got all this fatty pork meat
like barbecue to perfection oh my god i can see why barack obama
and anthony bourdain came here i mean out of all the places in hanoi
this is the one dish that i've come back to two or three times and each time i've just been like
wow i can't get enough of this this is unbelievable but i'm glad we're sharing
the spring roll because it's way too much food otherwise and then a whole can of beer on the side
when you beat that guy no cheers to um presidential puncher cheers
cheers no what i will say is this is the first one char i've had in five years as i said so
this could just be the fact i haven't had it for so long so i'm like wow this is absolutely
incredible so i will be interested to see how it fares against our local one that we go to
in the next segment but guys this place is pretty amazing today it's pretty quiet
you wouldn't think so with the amount of people that are downstairs but this place actually has
five floors so when this is busy there's hundreds of people in here i can see now like paddy said
why this place is so famous you read reviews of someone that is so famous and you think oh
it's just gonna be a tourist trap but there's a reason usually that some places are famous
there's a reason anthony bourdain and barack obama came here and to be honest there are no other
foreigners in here today it is just vietnamese locals so that tells you pretty much all you
need to know all right mate paddy i'm going to give you that yes mate what that's probably the
best place you've ever taken me for food it was good but my only beef is actually pork is that
my only pork is it's too much pork yeah that's my only pork well what i'm thinking yeah i'm thinking
i didn't get enough grilled pork right because she did it i know this lovely little bun me with
grilled pork the same pretty much grilled pork we just got in there little skewers of grilled pork
grilled over a little coal fire and stuffed into a crispy baguette well i didn't eat all the rice
noodles so i've saved some room for that so sounds good to me hello we're british we can eat more
bread right and i paid for the bun out so you're getting i'll get the fifteen thousand bucks on me
it's just situated in the corner of this little alleyway
everyone's sitting around just eating drinking so as paddy just said right
this is perfect for any of you carnivores because this is just meat and bread no veg
and we've got that we've got that
chili sauce oh my boy get them right in there bosh
and then how many spoons do you want uh i'll just pour the whole thing on the whole thing
all right guys look at that
for me that just screams hanoi because as i said last time i was here i was eating
these just walking around getting one of these while i was deciding what else to eat
so light it's just blitzed up roasted chilies i think and vinegar and salt and it just cuts that
fatty charred meat absolutely perfect you've got that soft squidgy i get there's just been
lightly toasted over the same coals but when i said chewy it's not it's not a
horrible word to say that it's got that chewy bread that i like english crusty roll that
you have at the end of the day right it's like an english crusty roll that is unreal unreal there's
actually like a tree full of the crispy bit the burnt bits that's cut off and i asked if i could
eat them and they were like definitely not you'll die but i was like that's what we need in england
all right no more grilled pork until we get to the next bunch of shops
all right so next up on our presidential versus residential buncha we are at friends buncha this
is more my kind of scene complete backstreet quiet well as quiet as it gets in vietnam there's still
quite a lot of bikes driving past and stuff but um yeah it's just in a quiet residential street the
kind of place i would search for thai food when i'm back in bangkok so this is very much more my
scene than the center of the old town but will the buncha stand up to the presidential one let's go
so if you're wondering why we've got two bowls it's because i'm sharing with paddy okay
so we've got again we've got that sliced pork belly we've got those little
pork patties these look smaller and fatter than the ones yesterday we've got the
pickled papaya
no carrots in this so we just got pickled papaya then you put in
chilies
and garlic if you want
some of the bun
and some of these vietnamese herbs so we've got again we've got the perilla or the beef steak
in english that is then we've got this stuff we've got the vietnamese bomb which is like minty
peppery lemony absolutely love this stuff so i've put some of the bun in i've put some of the
meatballs in some of that bacon we've got some of the pickled papaya and again you
can see how this is all the char from the meat has like permeated through the noodles
to be honest i prefer it like this you can just have a separate bowl and just dress it a little
bit yourself i don't it's it's a little bit too sweet for me usually once i get your bun
into your bowl
herbs on top
chilies and garlic i don't want too much of the garlic raw garlic
and then i i'm going to take some of these pickled chilies i'm going to go on with them as well
all right the broth is
still sweet but a little less sweet than yesterday
heavy heavy heavy on the fish sauce let me get a bit of the meat
i want to get one of those pork patties some of the noodles
let's get some herbs on there as well pickled chili
the meatballs what gives the meatballs sweetness that i forgot to say in the earlier
buncha that we went to today is caramel sauce make a caramel sauce and put that in
with the buncha fish sauce um pepper garlic same marinade as on the pork
that is absolutely fantastic i love the crunchy pickled
papaya i like the fact there was carrots in the one we went to earlier as well no carrots
in here today and they've run out of spring rolls which are spring rolls so the spring
rolls in here i remember being amazing so i was gonna do a little comparison that but for me
just the whole vibe where it is down the back street i think this wins for me but
we'll see what paddy says okay so this is the buncha
rustic version not non-touristy version down at the presidential place
i actually prefer the presentation here the way the way it came out
also back at the presidential place they had the raw garlic in a massive bowl right next to
you so it's pretty pongy certainly somewhere you don't want to go on a first date anyway let's try
i think dining experience more action more vibes over at the presidential it's packed
obviously it's got that history of barack obama and everything but here if you're looking for
flavor i think it wins yeah yeah i can't finish it all gary because no no no no no
that's all right what about this soup what do you think about the soup yeah actually
it's still sweet but it's a bit more sour isn't it yeah it's got more cut through it yeah
i think it just about wins this one just about ends
okay so paddy's a little bit more on the fence than i was but we both decided it is residential
over presidential sorry barack so yeah we like this one the best but i think you can't go wrong
with either one so if you're in the old quarter maybe hit that one if you're staying out by this
big massive lake where the expats are uh come down to friends bunch of i will leave both in
the description box below maps and opening times all that good stuff so for now we're
going to bid you farewell say cheers make sure you get over following paddy
as if you're not already following him already and we will see you in the next one
you