Cô Thành translates as Ms Thanh, though most people knew Nguyễn Thị Thanh as the Lunch Lady. She cooked noodle soups in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1 until Anthony Bourdain featured her on No Reservations, and her days of feeding only the locals were over. She has since died, and this Henrietta Street restaurant takes her recipes out of District 1 and immortalises her legacy.
Vermicelli still makes up much of the menu, either sunk in broth or dressed with nước chấm, with phở and stuffed bánh mì alongside, so you could return several times without repeating yourself. I’m easily convinced by a bánh mì, but our waiter said the soups were what people order at dinner, and I don’t argue with waiters.
But before diving into broth, freshly wrapped summer rolls gave me a familiar dish to measure against other Vietnamese restaurants. Packed deeply with marinated pork sausage and herbs, they came with a nước chấm dipping sauce that lifted each fresh bite with sourness. The same sausage returned on nem nướng skewers, sticky with a sour tamarind glaze and topped with roasted peanuts and tasting like they were fresh from a street cart in Vietnam.
The bún bò Huế is what you’re here for. Three kinds of beef with optional M5 wagyu adding texture and salty fat, pork and mushroom balls and chả Huế sausage are piled over vermicelli with plenty of fried shallots and herbs. The bone broth is weighty, with roasted ginger and shallot adding a dark, savoury heat. Lemongrass sharpens it, and it took me a few mouthfuls to spot the pineapple, which stops all that fat sitting heavy.
The phở tái băm is lighter, with rare beef and a patty of brisket and chuck in a clean beef broth over flat rice noodles. Banana and coconut ice cream followed, its sweetness cut with lime zest and salty peanuts, along with a tiramisu carrying the bitter, almost burnt edge of Vietnamese dark roast.
