Vietnamese food in Ho Chi Minh

What comes to your mind on Vietnamese food? Rice paper spring rolls? Pho? During my trip to Ho Chi Minh recently, I've sampled various Vietnamese cuisines. They are more localised, and don't really suit my tastebuds, but it was a good experience trying out these dishes. 


Restaurant 1 (can't remember the name)

The ever so popular Vietnamese spring roll with prawns, but the herbs are a tad too overpowering. 

In the menu, it was written as "grilled hairy oyster with szechuan sauce". Oyster? more like clam instead. 

Fried frog legs with fish sauce and steamed asparagus. Frankly speaking, I was more interested in the asparagus than the frogs legs. 


Restaurant Mekong Rest Stop


After our tour of the Mekong Delta, we enroute to this restaurant called Mekong Rest Stop for lunch. 

This lady was making some omelette pancakes at one of the live cooking stations. 

In the menu, it is called mekong pancake stuffed with shrimps and pork. 

This is crispy fried "elephant ear" fish. Elephant ear fishes are found along the delta region, and hence is a specialty dish of that area. Deep fried with the scales on, the entire fish is edible, including the scales and the fins. You can also wrap it in the rice paper rolls which are provided on the side, to make your own elephant fish springrolls. 

Everybody was wondering what this big ball was, when we saw it at the restaurant. is it crispy? how do you eat it? is it sweet or savoury? 

The staff actually cuts it into bite size pieces served on a plate. It is actually quite oily though, as the whole ball is deep fried in oil. But this is delicious! Coated with sticky rice inside, it is slightly sweet and chewy. 


Restaurant Quan An Ngon 138


Our dinner in Ho Chi Minh during the last night was the best meal of all the other meals we had during our trip. Restaurant Ngon 138 is popular among locals and tourists, and maybe the reason why their food was more geared towards our tastebuds. 

Fried springrolls with seafood. Thank god it's not another rice paper fresh spring roll again, after having it at almost every meal. 

 Flowers of Banana salad with chicken. This dish is good! the banana flowers are crunchy and coupled with the chicken and peanuts, it's a good salad dish. I've tried a similar dish in Thailand before, and apparently this is also a popular dish in Vietnam.

When we read the menu before the food arrived, there was an item called "rice handle pot". hmmm what on earth is that? and when the food came, everything came to pieces... rice handle pot is actually claypot fried rice! 

And I spoke too soon about the spring roll... as usual, rice paper and a variety of herbs are provided, together with rice noodles to make your own fresh spring rolls. 

This is the steamed mudfish. The fish really has a muddy flavour to it... and I am a person who usually can take any kind of fish, no matter how fishy it tastes, but I can't even accept the overpowering muddy taste of the fish.

When we thought that Seafood hot pot as written in the menu was some sort of seafood soup, it is really an elaborate dish, with a hotpot soup, alongside vegetables and noodles. 

And how can a seafood hotpot be without seafood? a big plate of seafood was put into the piping hot soup. 


Pho 24

The last day in Ho Chi Minh was a last minute shopping day for us at Ben Thanh Market. As there happened to be a Pho24 restaurant just nearby, we decided to settle our lunch there.

Pho24 is a Vietnamese noodle restaurant chain, with 70 outlets opened as of June2012. They even have outlets overseas, such as in Jakarta, Manila, Phnom Penh, Macau, Hong Kong and even Tokyo.

The prices are quite affordable for a bowl of pho, ranging from 52,000VND (approx SGD3) for a simple bowl of pho with beef, to 69,000VND (approx SGD4) for the  "all in" bowl. 

I settled for the Pho Bo, which includes beef fillet, flank and brisket. All phos come with side plate of raw condiments of herbs and vegetables for you to add into your bowl of pho. The soup is very light, and I love the texture of the noodles when added with the crunchy beansprouts and onions together. Simple food is still the best. 


Lastly, how can we forget the famous Vietnamese beer - 333Beer or called "Ba Ba Ba" in Vietnamese. 

Originated in France in 1893, the production subsequently moved to Ho Chi Minh, where it continued to be produced using German ingredients and the best German technology. 


Mekong Rest Stop
60-62 Dong Du Street, Ben Nghe Ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City


Quan An Ngon 138
138 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City


Pho24
located at various locations 
the one near Ben Thanh Market is located at:
134 Le Thanh Ton Street, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City

Tour of the Mekong Delta

The Mekong Delta lies west of Ho Chi Minh city and is an hour and a half drive away. Life in the Mekong Delta revolves much around the river, and the villages are often accessible by rivers and canals rather than by road. 

While waiting to board the boat, I was intrigued by the shops selling these bottles of liquor. 

There are cobra scorpion liquor, huge cobra liquor, even Gekko and sea horse liquor! I wonder who would buy these... locals? or tourist? 

Besides liquor, they also sell cream with snake venom... ? why would anyone want to buy snake venom? wouldn't the venom kill someone? but apparently, the cobratoxan warms your muscles to give you a comfortable feeling. Due to the direct impact of venom, it reduces pains from inflammatory arthritis, myositis and acute neuralgia. Would you care to try some?

Time to board the boat. This boat brings you across the river into the local villages. 


We reached the village which produces various items, mainly from coconuts. These cutlery are made from coconut husks.


These cutlery are made from corals. 




Monkeys made from coconut - they even wear Vietnamese hats! 

How about some wood carvings? If you realise, they can be closed up to become a flat piece of wood. It takes quite a skill to be able to carve the wood.. hence the hefty price to it. Cost about SGD12 a piece, no bargaining allowed. 

Many of my colleagues were buying this coconut candy.

I was more interested in the candy making process. The coconuts are grated first, then mixed rapidly over hot charcoal to form a brown paste. After which the staff would line the coconut paste into long strips and left to dry, Lastly, they would cut the dried coconut paste into small bite size pieces to form the coconut candy. 

We took a short walk to another village. 

Not forgetting to take some shots of the beautiful scenery around. 

We arrived at another village which has a resting hut all made from wood and palm tree leaves.

Various fruits are served, while the villages perform some southern Vietnamese folk songs for you. 

Finally comes the most exciting part of the trip, to take a boat ride along the small canals. 

Each boat can take 4 persons, and have 2 rowers, one at front and the other at the back. 

It's a tough job rowing these boats, and the boat trip lasts for about half an hour. 

We arrived at another village which produce honey products. We were served a small glass of honey water with pollen. The pollen looked like peanuts on first glance, and we were actually wondering why they had to put peanuts into the honey water. Only after finishing the drink then we realised that it was actually pollen and not peanuts! So all of us helped ourselves for another round of honey pollen water!

These are the stuff the villagers are selling - honey, pollen and cream. Yes the packet which looks like peanuts is actually the most expensive item - the honey pollen!

We were also served some snacks, like dried banana, dried ginger, which were available for sale as well.  

And here's the source of the honey! 

The bees actually gives me the creeps from near!

On the way back, everyone was served a huge coconut to quench our thirst. The coconut had alot of juice, but they weren't very sweet. Well it's better than nothing... especially in the hot afternoon weather.


Although it is quite a long way to Mekong Delta from Ho Chi Minh city, and the weather was quite hot in the afternoon, it was quite a good experience to explore the villages of the Delta. If you are in Ho Chi Minh and have a day to spend, do include the Mekong Delta into your itinerary.

Night market at Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh is bustling with roadstalls and vendors peddling their goods at night. Selling a variety of goods from clothes, bags, shoes to art pieces, decorative items, there is something suitable for everyone.

This is the side street with temporary set up stalls located just beside Ben Thanh Market. As Ben Thanh market is closed at night, many of the vendors move outside to sell their goods. 

Many of the push cart trolleys sell this glutinous rice snack. Each colour represents a different flavour, such as sweet potato, pumpkin, pandan...

Fruit peddlers at the night market... no stall, no license needed. All you need is a plastic chair and some space. 

A variety of exotic fruits can be found in Ho Chi Minh such as jackfruit, mangosteen, custard apple, and huge mangoes!

Fresh flower sculptures are sold at this shop. 

Fresh rose bouquets are sold. 

Beautiful bouquet of pink roses. I wonder how much it cost? shouldn't cost too much, as I remember buying a stalk of rose at Ben Thanh market for only SGD0.30. 

Shops selling Vietnamese coffee powder can be found almost everywhere. Besides coffee powders, they also carry coffee filters which is essential for a cup of traditional Vietnamese coffee. I still think it is quite tedious to make a cup of coffee this way. By the time the coffee finish dripping from the filter, the coffee is cold already. Nespresso still wins hands down for me. 

It's hard to guess what this stall is selling, until you study closer at the ingredients. It actually sells baguette sandwiches.. if you notice the baguette on the second level, and the variety of hams below. Baguette sandwiches are also a common food of the locals, due to the influence of French during it's colonial period.

We were attracted by the smell of grilled cuttlefish from far away. 

They still use the traditional way of grilling cuttlefish above charcoal. 

We bought one for sharing. It costs around SGD3 per piece. Is it considered cheap? maybe it costs cheaper for locals...

The finished product. Don't be fooled by it's mild orange colour, it is actually quite spicy! 

This couple is selling Vietnamese rice paper rolls (something like popiah). The husband fills the rice paper rolls with the fillings while the wife grills it on top of a simple charcoal pot. It is then wrapped up and eaten like a popiah. 
If you realise, they are selling it at the pedestrian streets, with just a simple charcoal pot and 2 stools. No stall front, no license, no hygiene standards. But I guess it must taste good, as many locals were buying from them. 

Painting shops are also very popular in Vietnam. Many foreigners do come here to buy a painting or two back to their home country. 

Besides the traditional vietnamese style paintings, modern or "imitation" art paintings are also sold in the shops. 

These are actually 3D pop up cards, and they cost a hefty SGD2-3 a card. 

Although the cards are not cheap, I give credit to the people who carve out the 3D works. They are really intricate and super complicated!

Vietnam is still packed with motorcycles. Almost every person owns a motorcycle there. It's hard to cross the roads there, as there are usually no traffic lights and many vehicles. As our guide put it: "your hotel is about 8 mins walk away. 3 min for walking, 5 min to cross the road". What an adapt way to describe how hard it is to cross the roads of Vietnam. 

The Saigon Opera House looks stunning at night. The play had just ended, as there were many people coming out from the Opera House. 

Feeling hungry after a long walk back to the hotel, I bought an instant pho from the convenience stall opposite our hotel. This one is under the Pho24 brand, which is one of Vietnam's largest Vietnamese pho chain. Also not cheap, costing me around SGD1.50 a cup. The soup and the pho was quite good. And I actually couldn't find it selling at a few of the supermarkets I went to.. hmm only convenience stalls carries it? 


Ben Thanh Night Market
Phan Chu Trinh and Phan Boi Chau street 
Open from 1830hrs - 12 midnight