Published:  12:00 Friday - December 28, 2012

Hanoi Chicken Vermicelli Soup (Bún Thang) originally comes from North, but already found a new home in many places in South, esp. in Ho Chi Minh City where has been considered as the largest food hub.

Hanoi Chicken Vermicelli Soup (Bún Thang) originally comes from North, but already found a new home in many places in South, esp. in Ho Chi Minh City where has been considered as the largest food hub. People now consider it as the Traditional Vietnamese Food . Easy to find this dish around the city.

Hanoi capital in the old days, this dish traditionally prepared on the fourth day of our Lunar New Year (Tết), when we have a meal to see off our ancestor. All the left-overs in the kitchen from ham, chicken, shrimp, and pork to some veggie have been used for this dish. That is why everything has been cut into shreds.
 
Today, Hanoi Chicken Vermicelli Soup seems simplified a lot, from the ingredients to the cooking process, esp. in South where is far away from the origin place. This requires long preparation. How to keep the soups clear, how to make thin omelet, to cut it and Vietnamese pork ham into super thin shreds as you see from the photo. And also how to tear the cooked chicken meat into small strips, but we missed shrimp floss this time for Vietnam tourism.

Otherwise our color picture would look nicer with red shrimp floss, yellow egg shreds, pink pork ham strips, green Vietnamese mint and ivory chicken floss. Soup for this dish is chicken soup base; to keep it clear during cooking process would take time and patience to do so. Among different kinds of soup for rice vermicelli I probably prefer the taste of chicken soup than the others, pork or beef.