Bún Chả Hương Liên ( Bún Chả Obama) Hanoi.

For well over a decade, the first thing I do when booking a holiday is to google the destination, along with Anthony Bourdains’ name, in order to see if he had visited my chosen destination for Parts Unknown or No Reservations, and if so, where he recommended to eat.

You would have to have been living under a rock to have missed his famous visit to Bún Chả Hương Liên with President Barack Obama back in 2016, where they sipped on bottles of Bia Hà Nôi whilst enjoying bowls of Bún Chả & Nem Hải Sản (insanely delicious crab, prawn, pork and vegetable spring rolls) squatting on low plastic stools, looking like there was nowhere else in the world they would rather be.

It was clear therefore that Bún Chả Hương Liên (now just as commonly known as Bún Chả Obama) was going to have to be my first port of call on my recent visit to Hanoi, just weeks before Anthony Bourdains’ devastatingly untimely death.

My Grab Taxi driver chuckled knowingly when he saw my destination (I’m pretty sure he couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about, and in hindsight, probably could have recommended any number of better Bún Chả restaurants for me to enjoy) and I was thankful it was only a short ride from my hotel as the rain was lashing down outside, it really was a truly miserable monsoon night.

I took a seat on the ground floor (Bourdain and Obama ate upstairs for security reasons) on a shared table with a family of Vietnamese tourists and was able to catch the waiters eye and procure myself a cold beer almost immediately.

The menu, which was attached to the wall just listed 5 items, Bún Chả (rice noodles with grilled pork in a sweet broth seasoned with fish sauce) Nem Hải Sản (crab, prawn, pork and vegetable spring rolls) Nem Cua Bể (crab spring rolls) Thịt Xiên (a grilled pork skewer) and additional vermicelli noodles, as well as the Obama Combo offering a bowl of Bún Chả, Nem Hải Sản and a Bia Hà Nôi.

Sadly they had sold out of both the Nem Hải Sản & the Nem Cua Bể so I was left with no choice but to order just the Bún Chả to go with my beer and in a matter of minutes a bowl of broth (not far off room temperature) accompanied by sides of rice noodles, and fresh herbs and salad leaves, was whisked over to me.

For the uninitiated, Bún Chả is eaten by dipping the noodles and fresh herbs into the broth, which is made from a combination of vinegar, sugar and fish sauce. I was a little surprised at how sweet the broth was, although admittedly I have never eaten truly traditional Bún Chả before, and so I added quite a bit more fish sauce and chilli than I suspect is strictly correct in order to balance it out for me. That said, I thought that both the grilled pork patties and strips of grilled pork were absolutely delicious and I surprised myself by finishing them all!

My Bún Chả, 3 bottles of Bia Hà Nôi and a wet towel came in at just under $5, insanely good value for a great introduction into the cuisine of Hanoi and I felt, once again as if I had shared a meal with a meal with my old friend & travel companion (admittedly only in my mind) Anthony Bourdain, something that makes writing this up all the more poignant in the wake of his death. He inspired me, and I’m sure millions of others, to be more adventurous in our food choices when travelling and to search out, & immerse ourselves in local food culture.

Cheers for all the good food and happy memories Anthony, I hope you are at peace now.

24 Lê Văn Hưu, Phan Chu Trinh, Hai Bà Trưng, Hà Nội, Vietnam

Open Daily 8am -⋅ 8:30PM (Bún Chả is traditionally a breakfast or lunch dish so prepare for it to be busier then)

+84 24 3943 4106