Cơm Hến, clam or mussel rice is a Hue speciality that you must try when you visit Vietnam's culinary capital.
I had my first taste of Cơm Hến was at this, sort of, restaurant during our food tour of Hue by cyclo (trishaw).
I said "sort of" because it was a side walk stall with small tables and stools, but it was inside a zinc roofed building which was like a garage.
Small tables and kindergarten stools. They are comfortable enough but just be careful as the flimsy plastic stools are not very stable.
The signboard says Cơm (rice), Bún (rice vermicelli) or Mỹ (noodle) Hến (calm or mussel).
As this was just the 2nd of our 5 stop food tour, we were just fed Cơm Hến instead of rice vermicelli and noodles as well 😄
What's in the bowl?
Simple boiled white rice at the bottom. The boiled rice in Cơm Hến has to be left overnight and served at room temperature i.e. cold. The custom came about because it was deemed wasteful to throw away leftover rice but today the traditional cold rice is a signature of this dish.
Toppings of bean sprouts, chopped spring onion, julienned banana blossom, fried peanut, fried crackly pork rind (fried pig skin), fried ground chili, chopped Vietnamese coriander (laksa leaves). And, the signature ingredient, clams from Con Hến island on the Perfume River.
Con Hen is an island in the middle of the Perfume River which meanders lazily through Hue city towards the sea. Con Hen literally means "clam island" in Vietnamese. I took this picture of the island from my room at Imperial Hotel in the heart of Hue.
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| Basket clam. Photo credit: Wikipedia |
The tiny basket clams are boiled to make a soup which is emptied hot into the bowl of rice and toppings before eating.
They are quite stingy with the soup hor?
I took a sip of the soup. It was a umami bomb. Not deep savoury umami like crustacean umami (e.g. prawn) but smoother, gentler yet robust umami with a subtle underlying sweetness.
Fold, roll, toss and mix everything in the bowl thoroughly.
Oh... my.... this is addictive.
There're softness, crisp and crunch.
The savoury umami soup blended with mild heat from the spicy chili and sweetness from the rice.
Every mouthful was a delight. I craved for more, even knowing we have 3 more food stops to go.
The soft slightly chewy tiny clam meat itself though, doesn't have much flavour. Just a bit of residual briny sweetness as most of its flavours had been leached to the soup by boiling.
Anthony Bourdain likes Cơm Hến too.
I love the Cơm Hến from this eatery but have no idea how it compares with other shops. Would love to be back in Hue to try more. Do you have any to recommend?
Restaurant name: Quán Thuý Bún Bò Huế
Address: Vĩnh Ninh, Thành phố Huế, Thua Thien Hue
Tel: +84 91 239 85 71
Date visited: 1 Mar 2020
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