Hanoi Old Quarter Street Food — Bun Cha, Banh Mi and Bia Hoi at Dusk

The Obama-Bourdain bun cha moment made one restaurant in Hanoi famous worldwide. But there are 400 bun cha stalls in this city and 399 of them are unknown. We eat bun cha at a stall on a lane off Hang Manh Street — small plastic stools, charcoal smoke coming off the grill, pork patties in broth with rice noodles and fresh herbs — that my mother has been eating at since 1985. Then we walk through the 36 guild streets of the Old Quarter, where each alley was historically a trade: paper here, tin there, bamboo, silk, paper votive offerings. We stop for banh mi at a street cart that has operated from the same corner since before I was born. The evening ends at a bia hoi on the corner of Ta Hien — fresh draught beer brewed that day, served in small plastic glasses for about 25 cents, surrounded by the entire neighbourhood doing the same thing.