Tammy's Bun in a Box: Not Bad for Four Bucks

Noodle: Bún with cha lua, nem chua, and pork skin

Source: Tammy's Deli, 7101 Martin Luther King Jr Way S., 760-1172. RAINIER VALLEY

Price: $4

I've documented my longtime obsession with the plastic-wrapped goods at Vietnamese delis before. I always pick up little sweets and snacks -- green sticky rice with coconut and pandan leaf, spring rolls with shrimp, papaya salad topped with slivers of dried beef, the rice-flour crepes called banh cuon -- but I've always stopped short of buying a box of noodles for lunch. Yesterday, I was rushing home from taking my sister and kids to the airport, and stopped in at Rainier Valley's largest Vietnamese deli for something to eat when I got back home.

This box of bun, or cold rice noodles, attracted me because it has cha lua, or steamed ham, and nem chua, pickled cured pork sausage, not a combination I often see on restaurant menus.

The meat was great: the cha lua was suitably mild and spongy, the slivers of cooked pork skin had a great gelatinous crunch, and the nem chua was a little tart and packed with black peppercorns, which kept the back of my mouth tingling. The cooks used slightly larger-gauge vermicelli for the bun, which stayed toothy and didn't clump together, but they didn't really include enough herbs and vegetables or provide enough nuoc mam to give the noodle salad those fragrant, sweet-spicy flavors I love. Not the greatest find, but pretty good for $4. (Next time I'm at Tammy's feeling peckish, I'll just pick up the spring rolls with nem chua, which probably cost $2 or less.)