Hanoi-Born Hawker With MBA Now Sells Charcoal-Grilled Bun Cha At Kopitiam
He serves up delish traditional Vietnamese fare at affordable prices.
Hanoi-born Nguyen The Tuan works 12-hour days at his hawker stall. The 46-year-old had set up his own stall a year ago at a kopitiam below Jurong East MRT station. Called Hanoi Cuisine, it offers his traditional hometown food at affordable prices, like an excellent charcoal-grilled pork Bun Cha for $6.50.
A Hanoi specialty, bun cha consists of grilled pork served with rice noodles, herbs and a tangy lime and sugar-infused fish sauce called nuoc cham. The underrated dish became famous internationally when former US president Barack Obama visited Hanoi in 2016, and ate bun cha with the late Anthony Bourdain for an episode of the latter's food travelogue Parts Unknown.
The gentleman hawker
Tuan’s gentle, refined mannerisms also stand out against the gritty chaos of his stall. He tells 8days.sg that he moved to Singapore 13 years ago to pursue a MBA at James Cook University. “Before that, I was a HR manager at a big company in Hanoi,” he shares.
He had decided to seek higher education to broaden his worldview. He notes, “Studying helps us see a bigger picture. In Vietnam, I was doing okay as a HR manager. But coming here, I had to adapt.”
When he first moved here, his command of the English language was “almost zero”. He has since become fluent. “I went through many jobs in Singapore. I was also a property agent for a while,” the Singapore PR recalls.
His wife and kids later joined him in Singapore, and the couple opened a laundromat in Toa Payoh and an education centre, where Tuan’s wife now works as a math teacher.
On going into F&B
Last year, Tuan decided to give F&B a shot. As his mother had worked as a food seller in Hanoi, he grew up watching her cook. He says, “F&B is in my blood. When I opened my stall, I told my friends that I’m not selling the food; I’m selling the culture. I wanted to bring something from my hometown here.”
Initially, he and his wife had wanted to open a restaurant in Bugis. “But after I did my analysis, I didn’t want to take a high risk to join F&B. I’ve not done it before and I lack experience in this line,” he says.
He settled on opening a heartland hawker stall, and now personally cooks there. He explains, “My concept is very simple. I sell cheap food, good quality. And I earn [a profit] by selling it in volume.”
Ingredients imported from Vietnam
Tuan is happy to share more about his food with his customers, should they ask. “Before I opened this stall I was very shy. Now I can talk,” he laughs.
A lot of the veggies he uses are imported from Vietnam. “I don’t know some of their English names, to be honest,” he says, though his dishes are heavy on fresh herbs like basil, coriander and laksa leaves.
He also took the trouble to bring in 100 sets of traditional claypots for his Com Nieu ($6), Vietnamese-style claypot rice that’s usually served with a range of side dishes.
Tuan has temporarily removed it from his menu, though, as Covid-19 had affected his ingredient supply. But he does offer the crowd-pleasing Banh Mi ($5), which comes with house-made pork patê, and Cha Long ($5), pork offal porridge.
Vietnamese sausage with shrimp paste
He is very proud of a dish he says he had created himself, called Bun Doi Truong Long Heo (Vietnamese pork sausage with shrimp paste, $7). The handmade dish resembles Hmong-style sausages, cased in long, thick ropes. It’s served with fresh herbs and vermicelli. “The sausage is made with pork, pork fat, shrimp paste, cinnamon and one more thing I cannot tell you,” quips Tuan, though he puritanically adds that “this is not originally from Hanoi”.
Bun Cha, $6.50 (8 Days Pick!)
The must-try at Tuan’s stall is definitely his bun cha. His authentic version comes with pork slices and house-made pork meatballs grilled over charcoal in his stall’s kitchen, perilla leaves, mint, shredded lettuce and vermicelli. The pork nestles in a bowl of light dipping sauce (made with fish sauce, vinegar and sugar), and is topped with pickled papaya and carrots.
The ingredients, including vermicelli, are meant to be dipped into the sauce and slurped up together. We thoroughly enjoy the fabulously smoky, caramelised slices of pork and roughly-shaped ground pork meatballs, along with the sauce-soaked vermicelli that’s cut with the herbs’ sharp, minty flavour. It’s worth a repeat order.
Pho Bo, $6
On another visit, we try the pho bo (beef noodle soup). Per Hanoi tradition, Tuan makes his pho without bean sprouts. “Customers can choose if they want taugeh, otherwise I just give them the normal one, no taugeh,” he says.
Each bowl comes with a generous portion of sliced, still-pink beef and rich beef bone broth, which Tuan boils for three hours with fish sauce, white onions and a little cinnamon. “You must taste the flavour of the beef bones,” he insists earnestly. He also hands us a bowl with cut bird's eye chillies and limes to squeeze into broth for extra oomph.
The accompanying kway teow is not as unforgettably silky as the one we’ve tried in Hanoi, but it’s still a robust, soul-lifting bowl of pho. In the near future, Tuan has plans to open a second outlet in the central area. He says, “Maybe Ang Mo Kio or Bishan, but not Orchard. The rent is too high!"
Level 1 Jurong East MRT Kopitiam. Open daily 9am-9pm.
PHOTOS: YIP JIEYING
