10 Dishes to Eat in Hue, and When to Eat Each One
Hue has the most intricate cooking in Vietnam, and its own rhythm: some dishes are morning, some afternoon, some only sold at night.
This page is translated from Vietnamese. Prices and opening hours are checked against Vietnamese sources — see the Vietnamese version for the most recent update.
People in Hue eat by the clock. Bún bò is a morning dish, bánh bèo is an afternoon one, chè belongs to the evening. Order at the wrong hour and either it is not available, or what you get was made for visitors.
Here are ten dishes with the hours to eat them.
Breakfast
1. Bún bò Huế. Broth simmered from beef bones and pork trotter, seasoned with shrimp paste and a great deal of lemongrass, with a slick of red chilli oil. Good places open at five or six and sell out before noon.
2. Cơm hến. Cold rice tossed with stir-fried clams, pork crackling, peanuts, herbs and shrimp paste, with a bowl of hot clam broth alongside. Hot and salty — a labourer’s dish, eaten to fill you up.
3. Bánh canh cá lóc. Rice-flour noodles cooked with field snakehead, eaten hot. Few visitors know this dish exists in Hue.
Afternoon
4. Bánh bèo, nậm, lọc and ram ít. The set of small cakes most characteristic of Hue, served as a tray with a few of each. Bánh bèo in little dishes topped with dried shrimp floss; bánh nậm flat in a leaf; bánh bột lọc clear around prawn and pork.
This is afternoon eating, not a meal.
5. Bánh khoái. Like bánh xèo but thicker and smaller, fried crisp, filled with prawn, pork and bean sprouts. What makes it is the nước lèo it comes with — cooked from pork liver and peanuts, thick and rich, nothing like a sweet-and-sour fish sauce.
6. Nem lụi. Pounded pork moulded around a lemongrass skewer and grilled over charcoal, rolled in rice paper with herbs, dipped in the same liver sauce as bánh khoái.
Evening
7. Bún thịt nướng and bánh ướt thịt nướng. Common evening dishes, built on charcoal-grilled pork.
8. Chè Huế. Dozens of kinds. The most talked about is chè bột lọc heo quay — tapioca dumplings wrapped around roast pork in sugar syrup, a mix of sweet and savoury that divides opinion but stays with you.
The chè area clusters around Hùng Vương street and near Truong Tien Bridge.
To take home
9. Tôm chua. Prawns cured with galangal, garlic, chilli and roasted rice, fermented to a gentle sourness. Eaten with boiled pork and fig. This is the Hue speciality most often carried home.
10. Mè xửng. Chewy sesame candy, cut into squares and wrapped in cellophane. Light, keeps well, and suits buying in quantity as gifts.
Both are easiest to find at Đông Ba market.
A few notes
Hue eats hot. Hotter than Da Nang and considerably hotter than Hanoi. Say something in advance if you cannot take chilli.
Small portions. Hue dishes are served small and neat. One dish is usually not a meal — that is deliberate, so you can eat several.
Places down alleys. Many of the best places are in alleys (called kiệt in Hue) with no large sign. Ask a local rather than looking for a street frontage.
The rainy season. From September to December Hue rains steadily. Street stalls become awkward, but it is also exactly when a hot bowl of bún bò or bánh canh is at its best.
Cooking them at home
The two easiest to reproduce are bún bò Huế — which needs the shrimp paste properly strained — and boiled pork with tôm chua. Both depend on the quality of the jar rather than on cooking technique.
Best of
- Where to Eat Bun Bo Hue: 11 Places in Hue and Da NangBun bo Hue is a breakfast dish. Most of the good places open at six and stop when the pot is empty — many are cleaned out before eight.
- Bun Bo Hue: Six Signs of a Bowl Made ProperlySigns for bun bo Hue hang everywhere, but most places only borrow the name. These six tell you from the first bowl.
- Eating Late in Da Nang: 6 Areas and What to Order in EachDa Nang has no single late-night district. It splits by area, each with its own character. Know which area sells what and you stop guessing.