When my friend Tina told me they were journeying to the West to try @hanoi_cuisine_singapore’s Vietnamese food at a kopitiam, and offered to takeaway for me should they consider it legit, I was more than happy to accept. Well, the food turned out to be as authentic and good as they hoped, and the “Bun Doi Truong Long Heu” ($7) I received, was really very tasty.
Served with rice noodles, raw vegetables, fresh herbs, and a fermented shrimp sauce, this is something I have not come across at other Vietnamese eateries. Forget about straightforward cuts of meat because the more exotic stuff are what shows up here, namely pig’s heart and stomach plus the pièce de résistance - handmade pig’s liver sausage. The sausage, which is grilled over charcoal, is fragrant as the coarsely-minced stuffing has herbs mixed in too.
I LOVE THE SAUCE but be warned, it may not be everyone’s cup of tea because it is unabashedly funky! We’re talking bowl-you-over-at-10-paces kind of pungency (my helper had to exit the kitchen after she opened the container 😅) but to me, it isn’t as potent as “chou dou fu” (the popular stinky tofu Taiwan is known for). Think of this sauce as raw belachan but amplified a few times. My advice is to give your nose a few seconds to get use to it because it actually tastes very shiok - sweeter than expected with an underlying #cinchalok-like savouriness and heat from cut chilli padi.