[CLOSED] Bếp Huế (Jalan Besar)

Clam noodles (SGD 7) more like a cold clam salad. Baby clams, peanuts, shredded veggies, topped with chili and pork rinds. Honesty couldn’t identify most of the ingredients. Came with a very liquidy yet strong shrimpy sauce. A unique mix of flavors that I enjoyed but could be an acquired taste.

Found ourselves settling for a random dinner at the coffeeshop at Hoa Nam Building after a late afternoon stopover for coffee at Apartment — couldn’t resist ourselves from trying out the Yu Kong Hor from Ipoh Tuck Kee, which is also located in the same coffeeshop.

Being one of the dishes that is lesser seen in the local Vietnamese food scene, the Bún hên stands out as an offering on Bep Hue’s menu here — for those who are more into rice than the rice vermicelli noodle, there is also the Cơm hến available here as well. Featuring elements such as baby clams, pork cracklings, herbs and fruits, it also comes with chili, peanut — also comes accompanied by a shrimp paste I personally felt was closer to chincalok with a heavy emphasis on crustacean-esque notes. Meant to be enjoyed like Bún chả, one is supposed to give the ingredients in the bowl a good mix, and then use the shrimp paste as a dipping sauce to go together with eye elements in the bowl of noodles. To be really fair, this dish lies a little bit towards the more adventurous side — it is actually pretty strong on those crustacean notes, though there is actually a myriad of textures going on here with the slight crunch of the fruits (think mango(?)) included with all the crispy elements while the baby clams did carry a soft bite; pretty fresh considering we didn’t notice much of an undesirable fishiness going on in here. Personally, this was something which I found to be a dish that is worthy of the experience, though probably I would prefer sticking to more familiar options like Bún chả and Bánh mì when it comes to Vietnamese cuisine.

For those still wanting to give Bep Hue a go but looking for something more conventional, Bep Hue does also offer a variety of more commonly found Vietnamese fare as well — including the Vietnamese Fried Spring Roll Noodles and Vietnamese Banh Mi; would say that it does work as a good option for a round one of dinner since one is probably going to wait for a bit for their Ipoh Tuck Kee order especially during peak hours anyway. Might just as well give this a try while at it!

Was super curious when I saw this at a new Vietnamese store; Bep Hue (same coffeeshop as Ipoh Tuck Lee), and I do love my bun thit nuong. What looks like minced meat are actually little baby clams, and it’s accompanied with a medley of shredded starfruit, green mango, herbs, peanuts, chilli and crispy pork rinds. Instead of the sweet, salty fish sauce mixture that comes with BTN, this however comes with a funky shrimp paste sauce, which I’ll be honest, will definitely take some getting used to.

That said, it was an exciting experience trying something like that, like ordering an unknown local dish while traveling, which I’m missing dearly. Will definitely be back to try their other tamer offerings hahaha.