Description
Start with an order of banh beo chen. It comes in 10 single-serving shots, stacked like mahjong tiles on an orange cafeteria tray so flimsy it warps under the weight. To eat it, take a teaspoon, splash on a few golden drops of fish sauce, and then scoop out the silver-dollar-sized rice cakes as you would cups of dessert gelatin. Then move on to the finest bun bo hue in Little Saigon. A floating, fire-alarm-red oil slick accounts for the first few millimeters of the broth. This incendiary film clings to every strand of the spaghetti-thick rice noodles you fish out of the bowl and coats everything it touches, be it the hand-formed pork cakes, the pork blood cubes, the tendon-y sliced beef brisket or the now-throbbing insides of your mouth.
