No Name. No Tables. Just Noodles.

The restaurant has no name. There is no menu. There are no tables, no chairs. What the place does have are red plastic stools and bánh canh giò móng, a noodle dish with pork knuckles, chili, and lime. The stools are there indefinitely. As for the noodles, they're available starting at 3pm everyday until they sell out. That usually happens in about an hour.

We got there just as the steel drum holding the noodles in a spicy red broth was rolled out from the back of a narrow alleyway. That happened minutes after the gate went up at 12C Nguyen Phi Khanh in Saigon's District 1. Once those two things took place, the woman in charge started scooping noodles for the battery of hungry people that had already claimed many of the red plastic stools.

The setup: It's a four-woman operation; three are seated and working together to compose the noodle dish, while a fourth keeps the small room in order. The third woman is shown in the picture before this one. She's on the other side of the woman in blue there who's on the other side of the bowl of pork knuckles.

The pork knuckles (giò móng). The giò móng can be any part of a pigs leg, down to the trotters. The closer you get to the knuckle, the more cartilage and less meat you're likely to have, but it's braised for so long it all becomes tender and delicious.

Bánh Canh Giò Móng (34,000VND = $1.60), the finished product. The already bright, spicy broth can be made hotter, saltier, or more sour by the additional side of chili, fish sauce, lime, and white pepper that comes with each order. The dish is prepared with minimal ingredients, but each one plays a key role in the overall balance flavors.

"Bánh Canh" refers to the noodle itself, which is made from a blend of both rice and tapioca flour. The noodles are incredibly light and delicate and they plump up the longer they sit and absorb the broth, but "the longer they sit" doesn't happen here.

The little red plastic stools. Dozens of them littered the small space. If there are any to spare they'll be stacked two high to bring the bowl closer to your head for more efficient slurping.

The condiment. We missed the first step: a squeeze of lime. The rest of the ingredients are the same as what garnishes the noodles (sans the green onion): fish sauce, chili, and white pepper.

First thing in the bowl is the pork, then it gets covered with broth and noodles. The video shows the deftness with which the dish is garnished. Watch the noodles finish getting prepared in the video. Green onion, lime, fish sauce, white pepper, and a dash of chili finish the dish before they're sent out for the guests.

Bánh Canh Giò Móng noodles | 12C Nguyen Phi Khanh District 1