Our food team picks the top 10 Vietnamese dishes around Seattle

This story is part of this week’s Vietnamese Food Guide, a special edition dedicated to Seattle’s vibrant Vietnamese cuisine. Find more at seattletimes.com/life/food-drink and in Sunday’s edition of The Mix.

The Seattle area has a rich Vietnamese food scene. Seafood, wings, pho, banh mi, coffee — and that’s just scratching the surface. For our Vietnamese Food Guide, Seattle Times food writers picked their favorite Vietnamese dishes around Seattle. Here’s their (nonexhaustive) list. 

Banh mi nem nướng Hà Nội at Voi Cà Phê 

6105 13th Ave. S., Seattle; voicaphe.com

This Georgetown walk-up spot is tiny but mighty, with excellent versions of Vietnamese coffee in both classic and creative configurations (miso caramel latte, anyone?). And from Voi Cà Phê’s little kitchen, chef Phoenix Đặng provides one of the city’s greatest sandwiches. Mini-mi sizes are available, so you can try different kinds if you like, but get the nem nướng Hà Nội version ($10.42, $6.45 for mini). Tender sausage patties are made with pork shoulder, lemon grass, scallion and more; they get nestled with the usual pickled carrots and daikon and carrots, but pickled chilies, too, providing a more balanced spiciness, bite by bite; both butter and housemade mayo add creaminess, while soy sauce pushes the umami; fresh mint makes a subtle difference. The rolls are the perfect ones from Q Bakery in Hillman City. Based on the version of bún chả at the Hanoi restaurant where Anthony Bourdain and President Obama ate it together, this is a true hero of a sandwich.  

— Bethany Jean Clement

Beef pho at Phở Bắc 

3300 Rainier Ave. S., Seattle; 206-725-4418; thephobac.com

James Beard finalists and sisters Quynh-Vy and Yenvy Pham juggle many projects, but in the Vietnamese community, their names will always be linked to the hole-in-the-wall Phở Bắc in Rainier Valley. If these walls could talk, they would tell you that many poor refugees ate here as a reward after backbreaking workweeks, or that the dining room is often a family meetup spot in between part-time gigs. This Phở Bắc carries the memories of many immigrants who live around the NewHolly area; it offers a taste of their homeland. A deep-marrow broth with isles of beef fat floating on the surface ($16), the beef pho is rich but sweet enough to go down easy.

— Tan Vinh

Bún bò huế at Hoang Lan  

7119 Martin Luther King Jr. Way S.; 206-722-3876; search “Bun Bo Hue Hoang Lan” on Facebook

The OG, this bún bò huế ($15) remains the standard to which all Central Vietnamese beef soups in Seattle get compared. Comedian Ali Wong reportedly ate here during her Seattle pit stop on her national tour last year. The barnyard funky noodle won’t go down as easy as its sweeter cousin, pho. Its spiciness is cut with some pineapple acidity and fibrous specks of lemon grass. The soup is fortified with meatballs and not-so-Instagram-pretty toppings: ham hocks, pig knuckles and blood cake (congealed pig’s blood). Many noodle houses tame down the fermented shrimp paste and the fiery chili to make the soup more palatable for the mainstream (and to avoid getting complaints about the odor the soup imbues). But Hoang Lan doesn’t care about your stinkin’ feelings. It’s served funky as is and with bone-in meats. 

— T.V.

Bún chả Hanoi at Ba Bar 

Multiple locations; babarseattle.com

It’s pork served two ways: strips of pork belly grilled until the edges turn lacy, and sausage patties coarsely ground with added fatback ($19). The components come in harmony when the grilled meats and rendered fat plunge into the vinegary fish sauce to form this smoky, bechamel-rich liquid that plays like some molecular gastronomy trick. This famous Hanoi street food is served with vermicelli noodles and a platter of herbs and greens that are fresher than what many other restaurants offer. 

— T.V.

Garlic butter wings at Miss Pho

10023 Holman Road N.W., Seattle; 206-596-8868; missphowa.com

The chicken wings at Miss Pho — a tiny strip-mall joint in Crown Hill — tick all my most important boxes when it comes to chicken wings. They are crunchy and juicy, the garlic butter rich but not overpowering. These wings are also gluten-free, a total bonus when it comes to accommodating my daughter’s celiac diet. Eight wings come per order ($15), and the crunch holds up even on takeout orders. 

— Jackie Varriano  

Pâté chaud at Q Bakery 

3818 S. Graham St., Seattle; 206-725-9193

Nothing hits as hard as a really great pastry. Take the pâté chaud from Q Bakery in Hillman City. The puffy, buttery disc of dough is incredibly flaky and perfectly envelopes a moist, pork meatball with just the right amount of salt and spice. The porky pastries are priced at an unbelievable $3 each, making it one of the more affordable indulgences around. 

— J.V.

Pork rib at The Kitchen 

7214 Woodlawn Ave. N.E., Seattle; 206-420-4348; exploretock.com/the-kitchen-seattle

Seattle is in the middle of a neo-Vietnamese food phase, with some riffs that seem pretentious or unnecessary. But damn that deconstructed pork rib soup works at The Kitchen. It’s a braised pork rib served with a tea cup of restorative pork broth. You can dunk the rib into the peppery broth accented with lemon juice. Or go primordial and gnaw the strip of meat off the bone and then wash your pork-fatty sheen mouth with the soup. The latter gives you a rush of different chilies and onions. The rib is part of a $75 five-course menu at this reservation-only dining room in Green Lake. Its Vietnamese tasting menu is featured once a week.

— T.V.

Soup (all of it) at Huong Que Deli and Cafe 

7127 Martin Luther King Jr. Way S., Seattle; 206-722-4318

This cheerful family-run spot in Rainier Valley serves a lot of bò né — steak and sunny-side-up eggs served on a sizzling platter with banh mi (just the roll) for dipping in the runny yolks. You’ll see it going to happy customers, but it’s the soups ($15-$17) here that are extraordinary. Two versions of a Cambodian/Chinese classic — hủ tiếu Nam Vang and mì Nam Vang, with silky rice noodles or springy wheat ones — feature a clear but deeply porky, savory-and-sweet broth crammed full of slices of chewy pork, heart and liver; bits of ground pork; still-crisp scallion; fried garlic; a soft-boiled quail egg; and shrimp. Then the bò kho comes with a choice of noodles or a roll for dipping, and there’s no way to go wrong with this glossy, unbelievably rich beef stew. Mix and match with garnishes and sauces, and note that the line for a table forms in the back hallway, and that the place is cash-only.

— B.J.C.

Sữa chua at pretty much every Vietnamese deli

Various locations

Lined up in unmarked plastic cups in the fridge at your favorite banh mi spot waits a custardy-creamy, smooth, rich, limey-tasting treat: sữa chua, Vietnamese-style yogurt (prices vary). Now traditional, it’s made with the sweetened condensed milk that French colonialists brought to Vietnam in the 1800s; the sugar involved balances the fermented tang, making something plain into something perfect.

— B.J.C.

Veggie tofu spring rolls at Cà Phê Sông 

303 Pine St., Mount Vernon; 360-422-0190; caphesong.com

No shade thrown at restaurants serving plastic-wrapped spring rolls, rolled up by the dozens every morning before service, but I am head-over-heels for the freshly made ones at Cà Phê Sông in Mount Vernon. The rolls here, filled with your choice of protein, are made to order, meaning the zingy tofu ginger is warm, as are the springy vermicelli noodles. They aren’t hot enough to wilt the lettuce and fresh cucumber, just warm enough to make you want to polish off the order of two ($7.50) before they cool completely. The housemade dipping sauces (peanut and fish) are the icing on the cake. 

— J.V. 

Honorable mentions: The fish sauce chicken wings at Billiard Hoang in Columbia City; the bánh cuốn, mì vịt tiềm and pho at all three Ba Bar locations; the all-vegan menu at Ba Bar Green in South Lake Union; the seafood boil at Crawfish House in White Center and Renton.