"[5][6][7] Food reviewer Mike Sula explains, "Bun refers to the steamed rice vermicelli, which can be a bit mushy.

But added judiciously to soups or stir-fries it provides the elusive element of deep rounded flavor that puts the mam in umami.

"[8] Food critic Mike Sula described the bún mắm in a restaurant, Nha Hang Viet Nam, in Chicago's West Argyle Street Historic District (also known as Little Vietnam): "[I] recommend you fill your soup requirement with the bun mam, a.k.a.

It may not best the bowl you'd cool down with in the sweltering damp of Saigon's Ben Thanh market—that one incorporates pork too—but it's a solid one, brimming with eggplant, shrimp, squid, and silky, thinly sliced fish, accompanied by a heaping side of bean sprouts, cilantro, mint, and jalapeños.

"[9] After describing the difficulty of finding bún mắm in the San Francisco Bay Area, food critic Tim Costner praised a restaurant in Oakland, California: "The front-runner for the Bay Area's best bun mam is probably Bun Mam Soc Trang in Oakland, which really captures the spoils of the Mekong Delta (where the Vietnamese city of Soc Trang is located).