Bún Dâu, Finally

The Vietnamese-street-food staple pops up downtown.

Nhung dao does not remember the first time she ate bún dâu mam tôm; when she was growing up in Vietnam, it was just there. It is, in many ways, an ideal lunch: a spread of proteins, carbs, and vibrant herbs, all dipped in a potent shrimp sauce that invigorates each bite. “People would get some tofu, they’d get some noodles, and they’d bring it all home,” she says. The dish is a specialty of stalls and restaurants around Hanoi, but it remained elusive in New York—until Dao and her husband, Jerald Head, opened Mam (70 Forsyth St., nr. Hester St.), a weekendsonly pop-up. The small all-white space is peppered with squat colorful stools, a wooden bar that seats three, and oversize windows that can open to the street on nice days.

The project takes its name from mam tôm, the fermented-shrimp sauce into which everything on the bún dâu platter gets submerged. Calling it “strong” is like calling ripe French cheese “stinky”—technically accurate but terribly inadequate. More precise is the description that Vietnamese food expert Helen Le once offered on her popular YouTube channel: Bún dâu belongs to the category of foods that “smell like hell, taste like heaven.’”

The couple make their mam tôm with shrimp paste imported from Vietnam, which they temper with sugar, lime juice, and fiery Thai chiles. From there, they build the dish, starting with a bamboo leaf and arranging the ingredients into a circle. There are cubes of golden fried tofu (made with a 60-pound machine Dao and Head lugged back from Vietnam) and blocks of spindly vermicelli noodles. Next comes the pig, or rather, the parts of the pig: crunchy grilled intestine, blood sausage (using a recipe Head learned from Dao’s father), gently poached pork belly, and more grilled pork sausage filled with sticky rice, fish sauce, garlic, and shallots. On top are bright herbs such as diep cá and perilla, which Dao and Head buy from a woman who sells the plants out of a truck on Grand Street.

The bún dâu is fully customizable, but the $35 deluxe spread comes with the works and is big enough to share. Just give the mam tôm a spin with your chopsticks and then mix everything together.