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Song Huong - 71 Alfrieda Street St Albans (03) 9356 0567

I though I may have been dreaming about St Albans. So I enlisted some noodle hunters to trek out there, and confirm it actually exists. Toby, Asha, E and I, loaded up the car and headed off. Much to my delight, it wasn’t a dream.

We had a bowl of soup and some spring rolls at Song Huong. Toby and I both had Bun Bo Hue which included a great knuckle of pork bone. The quality was equal to Duan Com Viet Nam, which is just next door.

We left for a walk around town. Further along are two more noodle shops in construction. It just gets better. I feel safe in the knowledge that I won’t run out of noodle shops to visit in the near future. Toby and I thought we might go and check out Sunshine next.

Duan Com Viet Nam - 69 Alfrieda Street St Albans 3021

• 11:48 Departed - Drove north along The Chandler.
• 12:12 Arrived - Alfrieda Street, St Albans.
• 12:18 Duan Com Viet Nam - Cafe run by a couple from Central Vietnam. Bun Bo Hue is the specialty, there’s a large range of drinks. I couldn’t go past Bun Bo Hue, it came in small/medium/SPECIAL/xl. I asked what was in the SPECIAL? I was told it was “better than normal.” I had to have it!
• 12:20 Ordered Bun Bo Hue - Fully expecting stomach bits.
• 12:25 Soup Arrived - It had a beautiful citrus fragrance, and was accompanied by a lovely plate of shredded lettuce and herbs mixed together. To my surprise no offal, only large chunks of braised pork and beef… and some processed cakes of untraceable animal origin.
• 12.40 Soup finished - I see others drinking Vietnamese style coffee with condensed milk.
• 12.41 Coffee Ordered - I’m a big fan of this style of coffee. Too often, people compare it to the type of coffee we drink in Melbourne. I don’t think it’s a fair comparison. It’s a totally different thing, and I could think of nothing worse than having a cafe latte after the meal I’d just had. Somehow though this coffee works and I enjoyed watching it drip slowly into the glass. I stirred it and drank the sweet dark liquid. Haven’t seen it anywhere else in Melbourne.
• 12.53 Paid, left, departed
• 13.24 Arrived home - Resumed work.

Cafe Hien Nhi - (03) 9310 9151 - shop 3, 47 Alfrieda Street St Albans 3021

I got totally lost on the way out there, but on the trip home I realised that it’s not all that far away. As my mission statement is to “search for great and surprising food under my nose”, I was very happy with my trip to St Albans. I’d never given the place a second thought. The end of a train line, nothing else.

What I discovered was a pleasant little shopping area with a distinctly Vietnamese flavour. Bakeries, hair dressing salons and real estate agents compete for attention with Vietnamese and Chinese signage. Numerous Asian grocery stores sell fresh noodles, vegetables and you name it. There are a number of Viet/Chinese restaurants, but what got me impressed was the concentration of dedicated soup shops. There is a strip of three that have seating on the street. Bun Bo Hue is advertsed a lot.

The Restaurant that I had a quick bowl of soup at was called Hien Nhi. It was in a little lane way off Alfrieda Street. It was a pretty random choice. I liked the atmosphere of all the lads lazing at the tables on the footpath out front, cigarettes and hot tea flowing.

I ordered Hu Tieu, a noodle soup with pork broth. It was lovely, the broth was strong and aromatic, accompanied by thinly slice rare meat, lettuce, crunchy pork croutons, and spring onions. It wasn’t until after I’d throughly enjoyed this bowl of noodles that I realised that the house specialty was Bun Mam (noodle soup made from dried fish), maybe I should have ordered this…argh regrets…