Mr. Son's restaurant attracts diners with dishes he created himself such as stewed liver, offal salad or offal stir-fried with banana blossom.
Mr. Ha Van Son's offal shop at 112, Lane 66, Ngoc Lam Street, Long Bien District, is often called by locals as "Grandma Ginger's offal porridge" or "Uncle Son Bac's offal porridge". "Grandma Ginger's offal porridge was the name in the 1980s, when my mother often carried the goods to the alley entrance to sell. In 1986, the shop was opened at home. In 1998, when I took over, people called it Uncle Son Bac's offal porridge", said Mr. Son, 60 years old. In 2021, he handed over the shop to his son, Ha Nguyen Thanh Minh (commonly known as Son, 33 years old), and he was in charge of the cooking in the kitchen. At that time, Minh named the shop after his father, Ong Son Quan.
The shop has no sign, only a small counter in front, with two sides of lime walls. The 25 m2 outer space has 4 sets of tables and chairs, including the long benches that Mr. Son made himself when he first took over the shop, which are now over 20 years old. The inner space is about 100 m2, uses plastic tables and chairs, has a high-capacity fan, and can serve about 40 customers at a time.
Mr. Son's restaurant is in lane 66 Ngoc Lam, also known as Tang Xe lane.
At first, the restaurant sold familiar dishes such as congee and boiled intestines. After taking over the restaurant for a while, based on his experience, Mr. Son created new dishes. Three special dishes that Mr. Son confidently considered "unique" include stewed liver, intestine salad and intestines stir-fried with banana flowers. The rest are common dishes made from small intestine, liver, stomach, throat, strip, large intestine, tail tip, and intestine head.
For the stewed liver dish, after washing the liver, make a few slits and soak it in fresh milk to remove the odor. After soaking, the liver needs to be washed, all the blood inside squeezed out, marinated with spices according to a special recipe and then stewed for 3-4 hours. "The process of making stewed liver takes a lot of time so this dish is only sold after 8am," said Mr. Minh, the restaurant owner.
The dish is made from cooked intestines mixed with basil, bean sprouts, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, lemon, pepper, vinegar, sugar, and roasted peanuts. The restaurant uses fresh intestines, which are selected and delivered by Mr. Minh at 4am every day. Before becoming an ingredient in the salad, the intestines must go through many stages of preparation. Use salt and alum to clean the slime, rinse once with water, and continue to clean a second time with vinegar both inside and out to remove all the bad smell.
"The salad uses homemade apple cider vinegar to create the traditional sweet and sour taste of the North. If pineapple is used, the flavor will be more Southern," Minh added.
The special ingredient that makes the stir-fried offal dish flavorful is banana flower, a familiar, rustic vegetable. Small intestines, strips of meat, and raw liver are stir-fried with bean sprouts, banana flowers, and herbs. When the dish is almost cooked, add a bowl of fresh blood. When the dish is fully cooked, sprinkle with dried fried onions. Although the color of the stir-fried offal dish is not too attractive, "each piece of offal is covered with a layer of blood, creating a richer flavor and a richer feeling," according to Mr. Minh.
During the hot summer months, offal salad sells better. In the cool autumn weather, diners often order stewed liver porridge or stir-fried offal. Stewed liver porridge has a similar color to offal porridge, is cooked thinly, still has white, soft rice grains, and is sprinkled with green onions. "The liver has a firmer texture after being cooked, when you bite it, you feel the tiny grains breaking apart like you are enjoying fish eggs. Chewing carefully, you can feel the sweet, fatty, and rich taste like pate," said Bui Bich Diep (24 years old, office worker).
The dish of offal salad brings the feeling of the chewy and crunchy offal combined with the crunchiness and sweetness of vegetables. "Enjoying this dish requires more jaw muscles than stewed liver or stir-fried offal," said Mr. Pham Van Chien, a regular customer for more than 20 years, who lives near the restaurant. Mr. Chien added that this was the first offal restaurant he came to eat after moving to Ngoc Lam neighborhood in the 2000s.
Porridge with offal and stewed liver costs 30,000 VND per bowl. Offal salad and boiled offal range from 120,000 to 250,000 VND per plate. Stir-fried offal, potted offal, stir-fried offal costs around 150,000 to 250,000 VND. Boiled offal, sausage, fried tail meat have many prices, from 60,000 to 200,000 VND.
From 6:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. every day, the restaurant sells 35-40 kg of various types of offal. On weekdays, the restaurant is crowded between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. On weekends, customers come later but there are customers at almost any time and the food is often sold out early. For offal hotpot, customers need to order one day in advance so the restaurant can prepare, said Mr. Minh.
In nearly 40 years of operation, the restaurant has gone through many ups and downs, "sometimes crowded, sometimes deserted like during the pandemic of the past two years," said Mr. Son. Most of the customers coming to the restaurant are long-time regulars of all ages, from workers, office workers to students. Mr. Minh said that occasionally there are also tourists from other provinces, or from Korea and China.
In the past, at the beginning of the alley there was a bomb shelter (Tang Xe bunker), so people also called it Tang Xe alley. "The restaurant is located in the alley, so people call it Tang Xe offal restaurant. The restaurant has delicious food, is clean, and the prices are more reasonable than many other famous offal restaurants," said a customer.
Article and photos: Quynh Mai
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