The famous beef porridge restaurant

The world is experiencing days of mournful winds and heavy rain, with a chill in the air. This weather makes one yearn intensely for a steaming, fragrant, spicy bowl of beef porridge, a spoonful that warms the stomach and intestines, regardless of the gloomy autumn wind outside, regardless of who is braving the mist and wind.

Mrs. Ha's beef porridge.

COME TO DONG HA TO FIND "MU HA'S" PORRIDGE SHOP

"Hey, if you visit Dong Ha and don't try a bowl of Mrs. Ha's beef porridge, that's what my younger brother, originally from Dong Ha and now living in Da Nang, said to me while we were leisurely sipping a few pints of Hanoi draft beer."

I've eaten beef porridge in many places and developed a fondness for it. For example, the beef porridge stall on Tran Quang Khai Street (Hue), the beef offal porridge vendor on the sidewalk of Ha Ton Quyen Street ( Ho Chi Minh City), or the "hodgepodge" beef porridge in Pleiku.

Over 20 years ago, I was still haunted by the image of an old woman selling beef offal porridge on a street corner in Hanoi, where you could see whole cow's eyes staring intently at you when you stirred it. Her customers were mostly rickshaw drivers and porters, as each bowl only cost two thousand dong. But for a long time now, I haven't seen that porridge cart anymore.

"But Aunt Ha's beef porridge is the best, you can't find a bowl of beef porridge like that anywhere else," my younger brother asserted. Well, I had to try it, especially after landing in Dong Ha in the early morning, my stomach rumbling with hunger after a night of bumpy travel on the sleeper bus.

I waved down a motorbike taxi driver waiting for customers in front of the Le Duan monument and told him the address I needed to go to. Don't expect to book a ride-hailing service in Dong Ha because there are none here, so I just took a motorbike taxi, even though I was hesitant and worried about being ripped off. But then I felt ashamed of that hesitation.

"Ms. Ha's Beef Porridge Shop" (a term used in Central Vietnam to refer to elderly women) has no sign or specific address whatsoever; it's vaguely located somewhere on Ngo Quyen Street, near the intersection with Nguyen Cong Tru Street. Don't expect to find Ms. Ha's Beef Porridge Shop on any online search engines either.

The motorbike taxi driver circled around looking for a porridge shop, and finally even called a relative to ask if they knew of Mrs. Ha's porridge shop. Eventually, he took me to an unnamed beef porridge shop, where I saw people eating both inside and on the sidewalk.

The old man carefully asked, "Is this Mrs. Ha's porridge shop?" After receiving confirmation, he turned back to me and said, "We've arrived," then took the money and set off, resolutely refusing my enthusiastic and apologetic offer of porridge for his momentary hesitation.

30 YEARS OF A "FOLK TELLING" PORRIDGE STALL

But never mind, let bygones be bygones, and I was very hungry. I walked into Mrs. Ha's porridge shop and saw that all the tables were occupied, so I had to share a table with two old men who were engrossed in scooping up spoonfuls of porridge to enjoy. I immediately ordered a bowl of mixed porridge with meat, trotters, tendons, ribs, ears, and nose of a cow, and eagerly waited.

I had to wait about 5 minutes because the place was crowded, and there was only one woman making the porridge while her husband handled serving and setting up tables. The porridge shop was located in a two-story house; the ground floor had the porridge counter and a few tables for customers, while the rest were set up on the sidewalk. When I arrived at 7:30 a.m., it seemed like most of the porridge had already been sold.

Sure enough, when the bowl of porridge was brought out, amidst the fragrant aroma of the porridge, there was a slight burnt smell from the bottom of the pot. Luckily, if we had counted a little slower, there wouldn't even have been any burnt porridge left to scrape off. Taking a spoonful, the first impression was that the beef porridge had a very good flavor; the aroma of beef was strong but not pungent.

Stir gently with a spoon, the chopped cilantro and scallions disperse, revealing the fluffy rice grains floating in the light yellow liquid. The way the porridge is cooked here involves simmering whole grains of rice until soft but not mushy, so that you can still feel the chewiness and taste the aroma of the rice grains when you eat it.

The broth for the rice porridge is made from beef bones that have been thoroughly deodorized, so it no longer has the characteristic strong smell. The bones are simmered first, then the beef pieces are added, and finally the rice. This ensures that the rice grains don't become mushy, while the meat is tender, the cartilage from the ears and nose remains crunchy when chewed, and all the sweetness from the bones is extracted.

Thanks to that, the porridge has a subtly sweet, rich, and truly captivating flavor. I hardly saw anyone talking while eating; they just focused on eating continuously, only chatting animatedly with each other or with the owners when they finished. It must be incredibly delicious to make people concentrate on enjoying it like that.

However, a bowl of beef porridge is still incomplete without a little fish sauce with ginger, green peppercorns, and fresh chili. Even with Vinh Linh peppercorns sprinkled in, this spicy fish sauce cannot be ignored. You can pour the fish sauce over the porridge to add spiciness and richness, or you can scoop it into a small bowl to dip the beef and ribs in. A few tears well up, I don't know if it's from the spiciness, the heat, or the deliciousness?

After finishing my meal, seeing that the shop was almost empty and the owner was cleaning up, I casually struck up a conversation about the porridge shop. It turned out she was Mrs. Ha's youngest daughter, barely in her forties. No wonder I'd been wondering since I arrived that she looked so young, even though she was called "Mrs. Ha." However, she still kept the name "Mrs. Ha's Beef Porridge" in the customers' habit, as if acknowledging the family tradition.

Ms. Ha started cooking beef porridge and selling it from a mobile stall over 30 years ago, when Dong Ha was still a town, not a city. Although her house is in Ward 5, she doesn't sell from home; instead, she carries her stall around the town. Her porridge stall appears around early afternoon and is usually sold out by late afternoon.

Mrs. Ha's beef porridge became a "delicious, nutritious, and inexpensive" afternoon snack for many generations living in Dong Ha, deeply ingrained in the memories of hungry and food-craving students. I think that my younger brother from Dong Ha also savored the delicious taste of Mrs. Ha's beef porridge from that time of craving, and now, when he thinks of his hometown, beef porridge is the first thing that comes to mind.

My younger brother remembers Mrs. Ha's porridge stall with its steaming bowls of porridge, fragrant with the smell of charcoal. Just smelling the porridge from afar made his mouth water with hunger and craving. That's because, back then, economic conditions were difficult, so eating porridge wasn't something you could just do whenever you wanted, even at a very "poor man's" price.

Thanks to her porridge stall, Mrs. Ha was able to support her entire family. When her health deteriorated, she no longer had the strength to carry the porridge around, so she opened a porridge shop at home, setting up tables and chairs in the garden. However, customers still flocked to eat her porridge, and she also faced the problem of "arriving late means the porridge is all gone."

Now, the youngest daughter has taken over from Mrs. Ha, only changing the selling hours from afternoon to morning, and from a snack to a breakfast dish. Otherwise, the quality of the beef porridge remains the same as before, with soft, fluffy rice grains, tender stewed meat, rich and flavorful beef blood pudding, and a perfectly thick broth.

A bowl of mixed porridge costs 35,000 dong, while a regular bowl is only about 20,000 dong. That price is still affordable for working people, just like 30 years ago. Dong Ha is more prosperous now, with many upscale restaurants, but what I remember most about Dong Ha is a simple bowl of beef porridge. Especially on cold, rainy days like today.

An Le

Source: https://dulich.laodong.vn/am-thuc/quan-chao-bo-truyen-khau-1393459.html