Anthony Bourdain Called This Soup The Best In The World

Anthony Bourdain, who felt that "Ratatouille" was the greatest food movie ever made, was full of culinary opinions, many of which he shared with an eager worldwide audience on his globetrotting TV shows, which included "No Reservations" and "Parts Unknown." On the latter series, in 2017, Bourdain expressed his love for bún bò Huế, a Vietnamese soup that he favored eating at an outdoor stall in its namesake city of Hue, Vietnam. "To my way of thinking, in the hierarchy of delicious slurpy stuff in a bowl, bún bò Huế is at the very top," Bourdain stated in a clip that can be viewed on TikTok.

Bourdain was no stranger to underrated cuts of meat, and there are a few of them in bún bò Huế, including pigs' feet, beef shins, and oxtail. We've always endorsed adding flavor to soup with unexpected ingredients, and bún bò Huế is full of them. Lemongrass stems, Vietnamese mint (which is closest to spearmint, with a faint lime note), and shrimp paste all contribute to the intensely-flavorful broth and are added in stages. The mix is simmered for hours to reduce and condense the flavor. The soup is thick with rice vermicelli noodles, and the end result is a spicy, steaming umami hug in a bowl. If you are a fan of Vietnamese cuisine, you have undoubtedly noticed that bún bò Huế has several distinct similarities to pho, another broth-based soup that's popular in America.

If you've enjoyed pho at your favorite Vietnamese restaurant, you would likely enjoy bún bò Huế, as the broths contain many of the same flavors. The noodles are a bit different — pho uses flatter specimens, while bún bò Huế's noodles are more tubular — but are both made of rice flour. The toppings, which many folks find to be the most fun part, are a big divider, however. While pho is garnished generously with Thai basil, mint, scallion, hoisin, lime, and Sriracha before serving, congealed pig's blood, red cabbage, and banana blossoms are just some of the typical accompaniments for bún bò Huế.

Looking at that list of ingredients, you may have gleaned one reason why American home chefs may struggle with duplicating homestyle Vietnamese soups like Bourdain's favorite bún bò Huế  — the ingredients may be tough to source. But that's not the full story. Crafting the broth is less about following a recipe and more like duplicating a work of art, with hours of stirring and attention required to attain the right melding of flavors. Also, a Vietnamese bà nội (grandma) likely doesn't measure anything, and has honed her soup-making expertise from decades of visually assessing a pinch of this ingredient and a very specific spoonful of that. There's a reason Bourdain sought out a certain stall for bún bò Huế ... it's not easy to duplicate perfection.