Early on my trip to Hanoi, I fortuitously found a Wall Street Journal story from staff reporter Stan Sesser in a second-floor restaurant. I scribbled notes in my journal and looked up directions online before following in Sesser’s footsteps to a few street food spots. I began by riding on a cyclo to Bun Bo Nam Bo. This tiny, picnic table filled Ha Noi restaurant has a wall-mounted menu that lists only four items.

As with many restaurants in Vietnam, what they list and what they have can be very different things. The table told more tales. Still, I was happy with two dishes I bought: bun bo and gio.

Bun bo is a bowl of rice vermicelli topped with shredded lettuce, grilled beef, sprouts, toasted peanuts, fried shallots, and marinated slices of green papaya. It came with a side of red chili sauce spiked with orange juice, sugar and garlic. This made for a terrific (and healthy) one dish meal. The bun bo set me back 15000 Dong, less than $1.

At Bun Bo Nam Bo, I also got a six pack of gio, rubber-banded banana leaves filled with cigars of glass noodle-fused pork pate, springy and vinegar-laced. Good stuff, and they cost 2000 Dong apiece, about 10 cents.