Bún Bò Huế KIM CHÂU (TY) — Restaurant in Hue City

I found her! Anthony Bourdain’s elusive Greatest soup in the world Bun Bo Hue lady, KIM CHÂU!!!! This was my experience. She looked at me and knew instantly he’s one of those Bourdain peeps here for my soup Bourdain made famous. So I sit down and she doesn’t even ask me what I want, I mean she’s got a menu with like 13 things on it and a bowl of Bun Bo Hue appears before me like she’s saying I know what you want kid. You can’t just start eating the noodles or the meat you gotta get a spoonful of that broth first to see if we are on the right planet and yeah we landed on planet deliciousness! That broth is extraordinary! I’m over here like Sinéad O'Connor about to start shrieking “Nothing compares to you” - because, this really is that good!

Then she asks you want a beer with that and something tells me she knows beer is somehow going to make this amazing meal even better and she was right. I decide to keep going and trying her recommendations and OMG every plate was amazing. She’s watching me lose my mind over the soup and then the plate of combo meat on skewers show up- also amazing. Then a fried egg shrimp salad and finally a plate of Classic Vietnamese Summer Rolls - the best I’ve ever had. I’m overwhelmed with how good everything is in this 4 dish journey of excellence and the bill is $6 (including the beer) for maybe the best meal I’m ever going to have in my life.

The thing is, you would think her food stall would be absolutely full and a line waiting to get to it. Nope. She’s sitting in the middle of this ocean of a thousand food stalls and its hard to find so people just have no idea where to go.

There are copy cats that are impersonating her and the food is not great there and I think that is where the bad reviews are coming from. Find the right lady.

I took this picture of her in her food stall because people should know her by name, KIM CHÂU, and face and not just the Bourdain bun bo hue lady. Use this picture to find her (she's on google maps) and you will be so...

Unfortunately, this was a let down. My wife and I are both fans of Anthony Bourdain and so when we were in Hue, we knew we had to stop here for the Famous Bun Bo Hue. Unfortunately, the 15 minutes of fame has gotten to the owner’s head.

We were given food we didn’t order (then charged for it), it took a minute to order because we kept getting ignored, then had to confirm the order 3 times.

The food itself was meh at best. The Bun Bo was the same thing I can get in the states, not authentic compared to other restaurants in Hue. The meat skewers were nothing special (both the one we did order and the one we did not). Finally, the banh khoai was chewy and tough. It tasted like it had been sitting there for several hours.

When we went to pay, as mentioned we were charged for food we didn’t order but we paid because we did eat it (unfortunately). That’s when the owner mentioned they only take cash. Luckily we had some on us but that should be mentioned when sitting down, especially in a culture that is increasingly using bank transfers and QR codes.

Overall, would not recommend. I can’t speak for the other stalls in the market but they probably can’t be worse...

I love this dish and decided to come to hue to see what the original local dish is like.

Yes bourdaine did help inspire this visit and I was not disappointed. I have tried several bun bo hue restaurants around hue and this one was the most rich.

The broth is the key. The blood cake was a bit hard but I'm used to super soft blood cake. The meat wasn't the most tender but it wasn't tough either. Overall delicious.

This lady was so kind and always had a smile. I really don't know how peeps can say they've had a bad experience.

As far as finding this stall, just Google map and expand. She is there, just not highlighted as she is within the mall. I have no idea how peeps have trouble finding her?!?! I found her immediately.

Does she use bare hands, yes. I used to work in restaurants so that doesn't bother me. Many of you don't know what goes on behind scenes of restaurants from your...