Cheap Eats 2011: Bun Bo Hue

Bun Bo Hue is Portland’s signature spot for the restaurant’s eponymous meat-noodle soup. (Bun, by the way, refers to the vermicelli-style noodles; bo to the meat; Hue to the city in Vietnam; Vietnamese dish names billow out like nouns in German.) So the name of the restaurant should also be what you order here. There are only seven bun bo hue options ($7-$8.50), though all are uncommonly well prepared, with their various meats or egg rolls. The broth here is unfilmy with oil, the meat trimmed of fat, the sprouts and cilantro fresh and generous. The decor is both seedily unfinished and teeming with kitschy-domestic interest; knickknacks swarm the shelves and walls, including eight colorful calendars, a beaten-on boom box and a small fountain in which a frog eternally chases a bobbling fly. Tea comes free, but the tart house-squeezed lemonade ($3) is nonetheless highly recommended.