Xuan Banh Cuon

Destination dining doesn’t always involve a plane ride. Sometimes all it takes is a speedy trip on the M80. Xuan Banh Cuon is a restaurant filled with diners hunched over piping hot bowls of noodles from morning to night.

Wiggly rice flour-sheets are the restaurant’s namesake, rolled around pork, prawn and black fungus and improved only by a quick dip in a bowl of funky nuoc cham. Northern-style spring rolls are packed with pork and vegetables, chopped into crunchy inch-long nubbins for snacking ease.

Slurp stans will gravitate towards bun rieu cua cha ca, the shrimp and tomato broth holding vermicelli noodles, pork patties and crab meatballs. Sticky rice stuffed with sweet bean paste might be the best-value side dish on the strip, arriving sky-high and topped with golden-fried shallots all for a cheeky fiver.

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