ALL ABOUT HO CHI MINH CITY (SAIGON) (continued)

Dinner in Ho Chi Minh

A dinner in Saigon is diversity. You can have simple foods like in breakfast or lunch. But Saigonese usually likes to have a big meal for their dinner. What is big meal? Saigonese like to have dinner with a group of friends and drinking beer after a long working day. That's why Vietnam is one of the most beer consuming countries on the world. We especially like to have these kind of dinner on the weekends. The best place to drink beer is not in the luxury restaurants but it's on the street. There are so many streets you can find for your dinner such as Nguyễn Tri Phương, Phạm Văn Đồng, Phan Xích Long, Cô Giang...

Most famous food I have to tell is snails and seafood. Snails and seafood in Saigon are cooked with a special ingredients and special recipe that you can't help eating if you are a fan of seafood. The special smell and delicious flavor make your dinner more interesting. A plate of snails is around $2-$3. There are so many seafood restaurants you can choose for these foods such as: Ốc Đào (Nguyễn Trãi, Dist. 5; Nguyễn Thái Học, Dist. 1), Ốc Oanh (Vĩnh Khánh, Dist. 4, Super spicy with big plate ($4-$5)), Ốc Quang Anh (Tô Hiến Thành, Dist 10)...

The second option you can choose for your dinner is Grilled & BBQ. It's also food Saigonese like to eat. What a interesting dinner if you are sitting in front of a smoking BBQ with your friends and drinking beer. There are various kinds of grill and BBQ such as grilled beef, chicken, pork, seafood (octopus, shrimp, squid, oyster, fish)... The price of these is different depends on the type and size of BBQ (average from $4-$5/plate). You can have these foods on Phạm Văn Đồng street (from Thủ Đức until Gò Vấp dist.), Phan Xích Long (Phú Nhuận dist.), Dương Quảng Hàm (Gò Vấp)... There is a new place named Ben Thanh Street Food Market located in the city center. I never visit here but someone said that the food is diversity that you can find any food here. Aside from street food, you can also eat in bigger restaurants like Sườn Cây, Sumo BBQ, Gogi House... The price from these restaurant is 2-3 times more expensive than street food.

Beer club/beer garden - one of the drinking beer places for youth in Saigon. People come here mostly enjoy beer tower (about $20/ 3 liters tower) and dancing with music. There are so many beer clubs recently such as Vuvuzela, Oneplus rooftop, Happy house beer garden, Poc Poc beer garden...

It finishes all foods in one day of Saigonese. Hope I provided enough information for you when visiting Ho Chi Minh city. The next post should be places to visit in Saigon. Let's see.

ALL ABOUT HO CHI MINH CITY (SAIGON) (continued)

Well, it takes me too long to write this post because it's quiet busy these days.

Here we are, the next parts of eating in Saigon...

Lunch in Ho Chi Minh: 

For the lunch, it's not many options because Saigonese doesn't have much time to enjoy their lunch. We mostly have Rice. There are many kinds of rice we can choose. Rice with other foods like soup, fish, port, beef, chicken... or Cơm tấm (that I mentioned last post). 

We also have a very famous rice called Cơm niêu Saigon (also name of a restaurant). The rice is cooked in a soil pot by wood (this is a traditional method of rice cooking in Vietnam), therefore the rice will be burnt at the bottom of the pot making a thin crust of hard rice (called Cơm cháy). This will be a strange flavor and good taste. And the most interesting thing here maybe the performance of waiters. So what do they perform? They will do a performance in front of customers' eyes by throwing the rice form this waiter to another waiter. One waiter will broke the soil pot and throw the rice and another waiter will catch it by a plate (it looks like they are doing circus :)). However, it's the best thing you should enjoy in the restaurant. The price for a pot of rice like that is not too expensive about $2 (only rice). 

Aside from rice, you can also have beefsteak, hotpot, coconut milk-flavored crepes (bánh xèo), rice noodle (hủ tiếu), thick noodle (bánh canh), thin rice paper (bánh tráng). 

Talk a little about hotpot. Hotpot is good to eat with friends. There are so many kind of hotpot we have in Saigon. Such as Thai hotpot, mushroom hotpot, hotpot with sauce of macerated fish, beef hotpot, goat hotpot... it's so good to have hotpot in a raining day :).

 

A little about thick noodle and rice paper. These are traditional special foods in Tayninh province, there is no other places have this special food. Saigon is the unique place where these food are brought to. Although it's not totally delicious as the same flavor in Tayninh, it's also a countable food. There are a restaurant named Hoang Ty where I think it's the most successful restaurant for these food. However, the price is rather expensive (around $2.5 for bánh canh, $5 for bánh tráng). That's why there are many fake restaurants with the same name but the food is not delicious like the original restaurant. The Hoang Ty restaurant has only two address (Hoàng Ty 1 - 74 Trương Quốc Dung, P.10, Q.Phú Nhuận, Tp. HCM, Hoàng Ty 2 - Số 01 Nguyễn Hữu Cầu, P. Tân Định, Q. 1, Tp. HCM), so don't be confused.

Some of restaurants I prefer for those foods: Bò né 3 ngon, Hai chị em (beefsteak $1-$2), (Mười Xiềm, Ăn là ghiền (bánh xèo $3-$4), Nhân quán (hủ tiếu $3), Bánh canh Hoàng Ty (bánh canh, bánh tráng $2-$5), Lẩu mắm nam bộ (hotpot with sauce of macerated fish $10/ 4 people).

Bánh tráng at Hoang Ty