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Where do you take the most powerful person in the world for dinner? Probably not a street-side hole-in-the-wall where dinner and a beer costs about six dollars, right? Wrong. Back in 2016, President Barack Obama joined Anthony Bourdain for a sit-down meal in Bún Chả Hương Liên, a noodle spot loved by locals but pretty much unknown to everyone else. “There is no better place to entertain the leader of the free world in my opinion, than one of these classic funky family-run noodle shops you find all over Hanoi,” Bourdain declared. “I’m guessing the President doesn’t get a lot of State dinners like this.”

He may have been right, but Obama looked completely at home. Both he and the US President, it transpired, were “Southeast Asian enthusiasts.” Bourdain’s love of the nation’s food culture began when he arrived in Vietnam for the first time to film an episode of No Reservations in 2002. “I love Vietnam,” he announced. “I love it now. I loved it from the minute I arrived for the first time.” Tony regarded Vietnam as a hitherto unseen realm of flavour. “Going to Vietnam the first time was life-changing for sure,” he said, “Maybe because it was all so new and different to my life before and the world I grew up in. The food, culture, landscape, and smell; they’re all inseparable.”

When Bourdain returned to Vietnam in 2016 for Parts Unknown, Obama’s presidency was coming to an end. The pair sat down to enjoy fragrant bowls of noodle soup and steamed pork dumplings but stayed to discuss everything from politics and fatherhood to the importance of travel. “We’re at a point where we seem to be turning inward,” Bourdain began, pinching a bale of noodles between his chopsticks. “I mean, we’re actually talking about building a wall around our country. And yet you have been reaching out to people who don’t necessarily agree with us. Gaza, Iran, Cuba. I mean, I just wish more Americans had passports. The sense which you can see how other people live seems useful at worst and incredibly pleasurable and interesting at best.”

“It confirms the basic truth that people everywhere are pretty much the same,” Obama replied, seeming to embody the entire American liberal agenda. “The same hopes and dreams, and when you come to a place like Vietnam and you see former American Vietnam vets coming back. When you see somebody like John Kerry or John McCain – two very different people politically and temperamentally but who were able to bond in their experience of meeting their former adversaries. You don’t make peace with your friends,” he concluded. “You make peace with your enemies.”

Bourdain received no instruction from the White House about which topics he was allowed to talk about with Obama. Subsequently, the pair were able to converse as friends. “Is it appropriate to chuck one of these whole suckers in your mouth?” the president pondered, pointing a chopstick towards one of the remaining patties. “Well, slurping is totally acceptable in this part of the world,” Bourdain chuckled.

Since Bourdain and Obama’s meal at Bún Chả Hương Liên, the restaurant’s popularity has sky-rocketed. It remains in pretty much the same condition, apart from a few important changes to the menu, which now includes the “Combo Obama” for guests hoping to dine on the same food the pair enjoyed during their visit. For about 105,000 VND ($4.50), you can get bun cha, a seafood spring roll, and a bottle of Hanoi beer. What you can’t do is sit at the same table. That’s because it’s currently behind a wall of display glass for all to see. Topped with plates, bowls, chopsticks, and bottles of beer, the table looks as though it’s awaiting the return of Bourdain and his presidential companion. Sadly, Bourdain never got the chance to return. When Tony died in 2018, Obama tweeted a photo of the two men drinking beers at the table. “This is how I’ll remember Tony,” the caption read. “He taught us about food — but more importantly, about its ability to bring us together. To make us a little less afraid of the unknown. We’ll miss him.”

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