First Look: Hem Street Food Serves Unfamiliar Banh Mi by Day and Ho Chi Minh City Energy by Night

Northbridge has no shortage of Vietnamese restaurants, but Hem Street Food feels different. Plastic tables spill into the alley, stools sit low to the ground, and suddenly Aberdeen Street feels less like Perth and more like a side street in Ho Chi Minh City after dark.

Hem  is the latest opening from “Danny” Nguyen Thanh Thien Dang, who moved from Ho Chi Minh City to Perth 14 years ago and first made his mark with Sup So Good, the William Street pho shop known for introducing rockstone pho to the city. This time, he’s gone broader and more personal. Hem, which opened on December 16, is southern Vietnamese street food as Dang remembers it.

During the day (9am–2pm), it’s all about banh mi. Fish cake versions, made in-house with mackerel, fly out the door alongside grilled pork, roast pork, grilled chicken, and a traditional pork banh mi stacked with pork loaf, char siu, roast pork and floss. All the pâté is made in-house, and the traditional pork gets a glossy, savoury house sauce of green sticky rice, egg and oil – rich and creamy, with just enough freshness to balance the porky indulgence.

At night, the menu shifts south. Literally. These are the snacks you find on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, not the pan-Vietnamese greatest hits Perth already knows. There’s banh trang nuong: grilled rice paper cooked over charcoal, topped with egg, dried shrimp, pork floss and herbs, then folded, sliced and dipped into tamarind sauce. It’s smoky, crunchy, sour, sweet and deeply moreish – a dish that rarely travels north of Vietnam, let alone overseas.

Banh trang tron (rice paper salad) follows: shredded rice paper tangled with green mango, dried chicken floss and punchy seasoning. It’s crunchy, chewy and soft all at once – a textural mess in the best way. A combination plate of fried fish balls, shrimp balls, quail eggs and peppery house-made beef balls disappears quickly, while deep-fried squid beaks tossed in fish sauce, garlic butter and corn kernels arrive dangerously addictive, with a banh mi roll on the side to mop up the damage.

Dessert is no afterthought. There’s taro pudding layered with jelly, coconut pearls and sago, but the flan – set loose with Vietnamese coffee, coconut jelly, chestnuts and pearls – steals the show. It’s complex without being heavy, and unlike anything else in the city.

“We’ve seen a lot of young Vietnamese people coming in,” Dang says. “I think it reminds them of home.” Just as important to him is watching non-Vietnamese diners perch on low stools, drinking milk tea and working their way through dishes they might never have seen before. “That’s the atmosphere I want to bring to Perth.”

On Lion Walk, with plastic stools underfoot and southern Vietnamese street food on the table, he’s already done it.

Hem Street Food

1/70 Aberdeen Street, Northbridge

0450 652 611

Hours:

Tue to Sun 9am–2pm, 5pm–9:30pm

@hemstreetfood