Choi Jong-rak is a South Korean YouTuber who has lived in HCM City for five years. Jong-rak, his elder brother Sungrak and a friend now run a YouTube channel where they often share their experiences about culture, life and food of Vietnam and South Korea.

The channel of the three young men has 970,000 followers, and each video attracts tens of thousands to millions of views.

With a passion for Vietnamese cuisine, Jong-rak spends a lot of time traveling everywhere and tasting specialties. He has tried many Vietnamese dishes, from popular to luxury dishes, from super-cheap to super-expensive.

Most recently, Jong-rak visited a restaurant listed among the most famous and luxurious of HCM City, located in district 1, next to the city’s Opera House to taste the most expensive bun rieu in Vietnam.

The young man said he once tried very cheap bun rieu at a street shop in HCM City that cost only VND25,000. He was curious when hearing about a super-expensive bun rieu and decided to taste it to distinguish the differences between the two kinds of bun rieu.

At the restaurant, Jong-rak ordered traditional bun rieu, priced at VND700,000. He commented that the price was very high, even for South Koreans. He was served a bowl of bun rieu with full toppings, including vermicelli, crab, a few pieces of fried tofu, a mantis shrimp and a slice of crab cake.

Diners can sample the bun rieu with banana flowers, mint, lettuce, perilla, lemon, fresh chili and fish sauce.

“The bun rieu here is not served with mam tom (shrimp paste),” he noted, adding that it was included in the dish at the street shop.

The South Korean said the bun rieu was much more expensive than other eateries because of the high rent in the central business district and the high-quality materials.

Instead of field crab, the bun rieu uses Ca Mau sea crab meat, which has very high quality. All the crab meat and crab roe are used to make the dish, so the bun rieu has a strong flavor and attractive fragrance.

The bun rieu is served with mam nhi, a fish sauce specialty of Phu Quoc. This kind of fish sauce is made of high-quality anchovies from the Phu Quoc sea, salted with Ba Ria – Vung Tau’s salt, with no additional water, color or seasoning powder. The fish sauce maintains the natural salinity. 

Jong-rak was suprised about the broth, saying it was far different from what he had imagined. The broth had a strong crabmeat flavor, while crab-roe was served in big pieces, which was different from other shops.

The YouTuber said he once enjoyed a common bun rieu at a pavement shop on NguyenTrai street in district 1. It was a surprise that though the bun rieu was cheap, just VND30,000 per bowl, it was delicious with many ingredients.

Praising the common bun rieu there, he said he understood why the shop was always full of diners. With diverse ingredients and delicious flavor, the YouTuber gave a nine score on a 10-score scale to the bun rieu.

Phan Dau