The best porridge I had ever eaten in my life was found at the same street of my hotel in Hanoi. That wasn’t an overstatement because the porridge was so good, it had me coming back not less than 5 times in one week. Normally I wouldn’t even eat the same thing more than twice when on a holiday as I prefer to explore more eating places and try new stuffs but I just couldn’t resist a bowl of hot, comforting porridge in between meals, lol.
Chao Suon Sun literally means ‘pork ribs & cartilage porridge’ so I presume they have used both to make the broth for the porridge.
The porridge stall is located at the junction of Ly Quoc Su Street and Ngo Huyen Street. It opens daily from 3.00pm to 8.00pm.
Well this was just a humble-looking roadside stall. In fact, there wasn’t any set-up at all. The lady boss sat on a stool, serving up endless bowls of porridge that was kept warm in a pot on a small mobile stove.
You can just approach any of these ladies and tell them how many bowls you want. They will respond with a gesture towards an empty stool. Just take a seat and they will serve your porridge to you.
And this was how the bowl of porridge looked like. The porridge itself was only half a bowl and on top was an incredibly generous portion of you tiao (fried dough fritters) with meat floss. All these for only 25,000 VND (SGD1.60). It looked exactly like the Cantonese-style porridge served with you tiao.
The consistency of the rice porridge was like a paste – so smooth that I couldn’t even see any rice grains. I didn’t think any MSG was used as the porridge had a natural sweetness and flavour of fresh pork broth. It wasn’t heavily seasoned too which was good because the meat floss was salty (tasted almost like salted fish). The you tiao tasted fresh and crispy and weren’t bready or oily at all.
The whole combination was nothing short of perfect. Simply delicious.
This shot was taken during one of our return visits. We ate like the locals – sitting down on stools by the roadside, enjoying our bowls of porridge. A really different dining experience and the porridge was just so good – ‘die die’ must try if you’re in Hanoi! ???