NYCReview
photo credit: Emily Schindler
Mắm
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In a city where you can get almost any kind of food at any time, there’s something thrilling about a restaurant that does something no one else is doing. Whether you’re nostalgic for street food you had in Hanoi or simply love funky, pungent foods, you’ll be happy the moment you park yourself on a plastic stool at Mắm.
photo credit: Emily Schindler
This Vietnamese spot has transitioned from pop-ups to a permanent location on Forsyth Street in Chinatown, and they specialize in bún đậu mắm tôm. A staple of Hanoi’s street food scene, it’s something you can’t really get anywhere else in New York City.
Mắm is only open from 12-4pm Friday through Sunday, and it tends to be packed the whole time. It’s a tiny slip of a restaurant, with short plastic tables and stools that spill onto the sidewalk in front and across the street. On a particularly busy day, you might end up using the outdoor window ledge as a table. That’s not only fine, it’s part of the experience.
photo credit: Emily Schindler
Start your meal with something cold and sour to drink, like the calamansi black tea or tamarind juice topped with salty peanuts. You can also BYOB, and a six-pack of something like Heineken or Tiger, if you can find it, would pair well with the food at Mắm. They also serve Vietnamese coffee, strong and sweet, should you need a mid-day kick in the brain.
Although bún đậu is without question the main attraction, you should order a few things from the khai vị section, too. The surf clam salad, served on the half-shell and bracingly tart and spicy, is one of the best things we’ve eaten at a restaurant in recent memory. The stuffed apple snails, which taste like sausage that was pulled straight out of the earth, are another must-order. The same could be said for the semi-dried jerky with chili ants, or the mussel sausage. In fact, there’s not a single starter here that we didn’t wake up thinking about the morning after.
But likely, you came here for bún đậu, a woven basket of textural delights served with mắm tôm, a dipping sauce that uses fermented shrimp paste as its base. It has an intense aroma and a divine flavor that can only be achieved via the alchemy of letting something sit around for a while and rearrange its molecular structure.
You should get the special bún đậu at least once, since it comes with a little bit of everything: blood sausage, sticky rice sausage, grilled intestine, and pork belly, plus the base of crispy tofu, cubes of jiggly noodle, and a pile of pungent herbs. When you come back—and you will come back—you can build your own perfect bún đậu, whatever that means to you.
Food Rundown
photo credit: Emily Schindler
Bún Đậu Mắm Tôm
photo credit: Mắm
Gỏi Ngheu
photo credit: Emily Schindler
Bò Một Nắng Muối Kiến
Chà Chem Chép
photo credit: Emily Schindler
Ốc Bươu Nhồi Thịt