Bowl of soy sauce noodles priced at less than $1 wins over Ho Chi Minh City's breakfast crowd

Ngoc Bich said she has been selling soy sauce noodles for nearly a year now, using her mother's recipe.

The dish isn not complicated to make, but its toppings require the seller to spend a lot of time on preparation: getting up before dawn to boil meat and eggs, shred vegetables, and mix the soy sauce.

Once at her stall, she quickly packs the noodles into paper boxes, arranges them attractively, and wraps them up, for most customers buy to take away.

On good days Bich sells until 8:00 am; on slower days she stays until 9:00 am.

Rising before dawn to make a living on sidewalk

"My younger brother sells at a different spot. This dish is something my family has always eaten, and it's recently become trendy, so I decided to sell it too," Bich said.

She was lucky enough to be lent a small yard in front of a building under construction, so she does not have to pay rent for the space.

Each morning, Bich sells around 100 boxes under the name 'A Bom,' after her nickname.

On regular days she manages everything alone, but this summer her niece, a college student, has been helping out.

About three kilometers away, Kim Phuong, 35, originally from Quang Ngai, central Vietnam, also sells soy sauce noodles 'on the move,' from a motorbike parked at the corner of Truong Chinh Street in Tay Thanh Ward.

With the look of someone used to hard work, she says she only started selling about ten days ago.

She vends around 20 boxes a day and, after deducting costs, makes a profit of about VND8,000-10,000 ($0.30-0.38) per box.

It may look simple at first glance, but the ingredients are bought from the wholesale market, meaning she has to get up at 3:00 am to have everything ready in time.

"I've only just started, so business is still slow. I hope it picks up in the coming days," she shared.

Phuong reveals that her soy sauce noodle recipe cannot do without minced garlic, along with plain water, lime-sugar syrup, and chili sauce, all simmered down until it thickens.

"If it tastes right to me, then that's how I sell it," she said of her approach.

Beyond the basic toppings of tofu, cucumber, and fresh herbs and greens, sellers of soy sauce noodles also add extras such as pork, quail eggs, boiled eggs, Vietnamese pork roll, and fried wontons.

Some stalls also serve bun mam nem (rice vermicelli with fermented fish sauce) and bun tron nem (vermicelli mixed with fried spring rolls), made with similar ingredients.

Booming business in teaching the recipe

On social media platforms, channels dedicated to starting a soy sauce noodle business are thriving.

Every day, channel owners post short clips updating followers on how sales are going, how many bowls they have sold, and sharing their ups and downs.

Driven by this growing demand, some experienced sellers have started offering training and sharing their recipes with people looking to start this street-food business themselves.

Kieu Duyen, who lives in Ho Chi Minh City, says she currently runs two online classes on how to make soy sauce noodles. The basic class, which costs over VND700,000 ($26.6), covers the perfect soy sauce recipe, portion sizes for the noodles, ingredients, and advice on finding a location.

"The more comprehensive class costs nearly VND1.5 million [$57] and is taught one-on-one over video call every day, covering how to run the business, calculate costs, and diversify the menu," she said.

Duyen's learners come not only from Ho Chi Minh City but also from other provinces. Often, after hearing about the course and watching the instructional videos, they can jump right in and become skilled at the business in as little as a week.

Similarly, the channel Anh Ba also offers to pass on its recipe.

Some channels both sell the noodles themselves and build their following through daily videos recounting how their sales went.

Soy sauce noodles may turn out to be just a passing fad and a short-lived business, or they could endure, depending on the seller's dedication and market demand.

Phuong's dream is to sell more portions of noodles and eventually have enough time to build a TikTok channel, later adding a shopping cart feature to sell other goods through affiliate marketing, so she and her husband can provide for their two children, one about to start fourth grade, the other still in preschool.

Making a living far from home, women like Bich and Phuong do not rely on their soy sauce noodle carts alone. In the evenings, Phuong turns her noodle cart into a stir-fried corn cart, along with pre-peeled fruit, and goes around selling until late at night.

Who knows one day, these young, energetic owners of small noodle carts might become successful business owners. Saigon-Ho Chi Minh City has nurtured so many dreams like this one!