When it comes to Vietnamese noodles, I think most people picture phở. Phở really is good, but this country's noodle culture is far too big to fit inside that one dish. Walk around town and you'll come across signs for noodles you have never seen before, one after another.
In this article,Noodles you can eat in Ho Chi Minh City, I am picking three bowls I have actually eaten and thought were genuinely good. This is not a complete survey of every noodle in Vietnam; it is a personal noodle showdown among the ones I know, or have eaten recently.
| Noodles | What kind of bowl is it | Who this is for |
|---|---|---|
| hủ tiếu khô | A dry, mixed-noodle style. Junky and addictive | to round off a night of drinking |
| bún riêu | Crab and tomato soup, deepened with fermented shrimp paste | For people who like bold, fermented flavors |
| bún bò Huế | A meat soup that comes from Huế in central Vietnam. Chili tightens up the flavor | for anyone who likes spicy food |
Bowl 1: hủ tiếu khô——the dry version is the good one
First up is hủ tiếu. Trace its roots and you land on Teochew Chinese cooking; from the 1950s onward it developed enormously in Sài Gòn (Ho Chi Minh City). It is the noodle that represents the south.
What stands out most about these noodles is the texture. They have a firm, almost rubbery chew — more than you'd expect from a noodle. It's a bite you rarely find in Japanese noodles, and it caught me off guard the first time I ate it.
The standard hủ tiếu is served in a broth with vegetables and shrimp. It's light, and it tastes exactly as healthy as it looks. That's good in its own right, butWhat I really want to introduce is not the soup version。
I want you to order it “khô,” meaning without broth
With Vietnamese noodle dishes, when the menu says “khô" on the menu, it means the dish comes without broth. So if you order "hủ tiếu khô," what arrives is hủ tiếu with no soup.
This dry version has a pleasantly junky flavor that turns out to be habit-forming. The closest thing I can think of is Japanese mazesoba. Honestly there aren't many toppings — sometimes only shrimp and a little meat. You pour on the sauce yourself and dial in the flavor as you go.
The good thing about Vietnam's dry noodles is thatthe broth comes on the side in a separate bowl. You spoon a little of that broth over the noodles as you eat, or squeeze in plenty of lime. The flavor itself is never heavy, yet somehow it satisfies, and it becomes the bowl you want to close out a night of drinking with.
I get the feeling guidebooks barely mention it, so I would really like you to try it once.
Bowl two: bún riêu——the saltiest noodles in Vietnam
The second bowl is bún riêu. Originally it'sOriginated in the Red River Delta in the northis where the dish comes from. I had long assumed it was “a Hà Nội noodle,” but these days it is eaten all over Vietnam, and there are of course plenty of places serving it in Ho Chi Minh City.
This is a noodle soup built on crab and tomato, with fried tofu and a sausage-like paste (chả) among the toppings. The base is the meat and tomalley of rice-paddy crab (cua đồng). Combined with the tartness of the tomato, it tastes lighter than it looks.
The star of this bowl is something that usually arrives as a side:mắm tôm. It's a fermented shrimp paste, and adding it changes the flavor completely. To my palate,bún riêu with mắm tôm in it is the saltiest noodle dish in Vietnam.
The reason is that I find Vietnamese food in general fairly mild. That is exactly why the saltiness and fermented aroma of mắm tôm land so hard and stay with you. Put the other way round, it also means you can dial it to your own taste by how much you add.
The bún riêu I eat in Ho Chi Minh City comes out a little sweeter than the Hà Nội version, at least to my palate. You add mắm tôm to that and hunt for the depth that suits you. It is a noodle dish where that tuning is part of the fun.
The noodle is bún——somewhere between sōmen and udon
The noodles used here are called "bún”. It is a white, round rice noodle, and in thickness it sits right between Japanese sōmen and udon. This bún is used constantly in Vietnam and turns up in all sorts of other dishes.
The smell of fermented shrimp paste may put some travellers off a little. But I love it.
Bowl 3: bún bò Huế——chili transforms it
Last is bún bò Huế. As the name says, it is a dish from Huế in central Vietnam. Its origins are said to go back to Huế in the late 16th to early 17th century, andIn July 2025 it was also inscribed as a national intangible cultural heritage of Vietnam. A street noodle becoming national heritage is a very Vietnamese story.
The noodle is the same bún, but the one in the bún bò Huế you get in Ho Chi Minh City is, compared with the bún riêu version,slightly thicker búnis used most of the time. Even when the noodle goes by the same name, the thickness changes with the dish, which is the interesting part.
In Vietnamese, “bò” means beef. True to the name, the broth is built on beef bones, and some shops simmer pork trotters in it as well. What decides the flavor is lemongrass, mắm ruốc (salted fermented krill), and chili oil. Along with the meat, you get coriander and onion.
The one thing I always do with this bowl issa tế. It is a condiment that tastes like chili steeped in oil, and adding it makes the flavor much sharper, with a little kick. That is what gets addictive.
bún bò Huế is another one guidebooks never seem to give much space to. AndThe taste is completely different from shop to shop. That is exactly why I want you to walk in whenever you spot one. Even under the same name, the noodle wears a different face at every shop, almost like a different dish.
Lining these three bowls up side by side, what struck me is that every one of them is a dish where you finish the seasoning yourself. hủ tiếu khô with the side bowl of broth and a squeeze of lime, bún riêu with mắm tôm, bún bò Huế with sa tế. Honestly, none of them taste like quite enough the moment they arrive. But once you start adding things yourself, the bowl becomes exactly right for you. The underlying design philosophy is simply different from Japanese ramen, where a finished bowl is set in front of you. Maybe that's why Vietnamese noodles never get old, no matter how many times you go back to the same shop.
There's a much wider world beyond phở
Vietnam has a huge range of noodles beyond phở. And even noodles with the same name taste slightly different from region to region. The north is lighter, the south a little sweeter, the center spicier —— keeping that tendency in mind makes eating your way around far more interesting.
When you get to Ho Chi Minh City, start with a bowl of phở. After that, please dive into whatever noodle name you do not recognise on a shop sign. If the three bowls here give you the nudge to do that, they have done their job.
A few small tips for ordering and eating
Here are a few things worth knowing before you walk into a local noodle shop.
As a rough guide, a bowl at a local shop runs about 30,000–50,000 VND (roughly 180–290 yen). Now and then you'll find astonishingly cheap places charging in the 10,000 VND range, but those are rare enough that local papers write them up as news.
- “khô” means no broth: if the noodle name on the menu is followed by “khô,” it comes without soup. The soup version is usually written “nước.”
- use the table condiments freely: Vietnamese noodles are not finished when they arrive. The assumption is that you finish them to your own taste with lime, chili, and sauces
- Eat what comes on the side plate too: if bean sprouts and herbs come on a separate plate, sink as much as you like into the soup
- Take the fermented ones a little at a time: fermented condiments like mắm tôm have a strong aroma, so the safe move is to add a small amount first and taste it
Frequently asked questions
- Besides phở, which noodles do you recommend in Ho Chi Minh City?
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I recommend the three covered in this article: hủ tiếu khô (dry hủ tiếu), bún riêu (crab and tomato soup), and bún bò Huế (a meat soup that comes from Huế in central Vietnam). All three are easy to eat at local shops.
- What does “khô” mean?
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It means "dry" in Vietnamese, and with noodle dishes it refers to a bowl served without broth. If the menu says "hủ tiếu khô," that's hủ tiếu with no soup. Even when you order it dry, the broth usually still comes on the side in a separate bowl.
- What is mắm tôm?
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A paste made from fermented shrimp, with a strong saltiness and a fermented aroma. It comes as an accompaniment to dishes such as bún riêu. Opinions on the taste are divided, so I recommend adding it little by little and adjusting.
- How are bún and phở noodles different?
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Where phở is a flat rice noodle, bún is white with a round cross-section. In thickness it sits somewhere between Japanese sōmen and udon. It is used in many dishes, including bún riêu and bún bò Huế.
