Helen Le is obsessed with mi quang. “I want to make it as famous as pho,” she says of the Vietnamese noodle dish.Le is a native of Da Nang, in central Vietnam, and is arguably that region’s foremost food expert.As a dedicated culinary chronicler, author and influencer, Le – whose full name is Le Ha Huyen – has been creating Vietnamese recipe videos since 2011. Beyond that, she offers cooking masterclasses and occasionally hosts tours, guiding hungry visitors to her favourite eateries in her hometown.We joined one such tour, and the first stop was at one of Le’s favourite mi quang spots, Mi Quang Nhung (135 Nguyen Tat Thanh, Hai Chau), an unassuming street stand in the city’s Hai Chau neighbourhood.Unlike pho, the noodles in mi quang are not bathed in soup; instead, the dish’s thicker broth – which is almost always coloured and flavoured with turmeric – coats rice noodles like a Southeast Asian ragu, with plenty of peanuts, spring onion, coriander, herbs and greens to enhance texture and freshness.A Da Nang staple, mi quang can be eaten at any time of the day, but Mi Quang Nhung is only open in the morning. Naturally, mi quang is the only dish it serves. The noodles are hand-cut into thick strands, and customers can choose from a selection of toppings – stewed chicken, beef, pork rib, fish, or frog legs. We arrived late to find the frog legs sold out, so we settled for snakehead fish fillets, which were firm and flaky.