Hong Kong makes an ill-advised move to ban outdoor dining but fortunately, streetfood is too much a part of city life in Saigon for any such ban to work here, at least in the near future. No doubt there have been and will be attempts to clean up the streetfood scene in Vietnam but I doubt they’d ever go as far as Hong Kong’s ban, which even went after terraces at fine dining restaurants. Eating outside is one of the great joys of living in the tropics. And so is ordering a plate of dried squid from the carts that linger around after hours sidewalk bars like stalkers in the night. Get the stinky snack while you can.
Food blogs are extremely helpful in navigating the food of Saigon. The first time I came across Noodlepie, I read it for two straight hours. It was my guide to Saigon’s restaurants when I lived here previously. EatingAsia was briefly based in Saigon but here long enough to point me to a delicious Bánh Cuốn restaurant last week. Next in Vietnam food blogs came Stickyrice, who does a great job covering Hanoi’s streets and restaurants. Then, when Noodlepie packed off to France, Gastronomy filled the Saigon food blog void. Unfortunately Gastronomony has since returned to the states but before leaving, she helpfully compiled a Saigon Top 10 list.
Tonight, I took her recommendation and went straight for the top: Cua Lột, or soft shell crab, served at 94 Đinh Tiên Hoàng, Q1. The soft shell crab with tamarind sauce was delicious. I snapped a photo and posted it below. Take a look at the first photo I posted though. The restaurant’s name is “Quán 94 Cũ”. Quán is restaurant. 94 is the street number. And cũ is old. My guess is that the restaurant was originally just “Quán 94″ but then someone saw how well it was doing and opened up a copycat restaurant nearby. Quán 94 then, to distinguish itself, put the “cũ” in the title so that people knew for sure where to go for the real deal.
Filed under: Southeast Asia
This is a photo of downtown Saigon, looking out across District 1 and what is essentially straight down Nguyen Hue street, even though the street is not visible here. On the left, the tall, pink building is the Sheraton Hotel. To its right is the historic Caravelle hotel, which was popular among journalists during the war and popular among my friends when I used to live here for the all you can eat and drink Sunday brunch. The tall building in the left-middle of the photo is Saigon Center, one of the city’s premiere office buildings. The bulky white building on the right is the newly-opened Hyatt, a beautiful hotel set across from the Opera building, which you cannot see in this photo. The Continental Hotel is blocked from view by the Hyatt. In the foreground is the electricity commission I believe. Construction is ongoing in this neighborhood. You can see the crane on the left. I would guess that many of the buildings in the lower right portion of the photo will not be standing in five years.
Filed under: Southeast Asia
Here’s a photo of Saigon as viewed from District 2. In the foreground, you can see the villas that are popular among segments of the expatriate community. The Saigon River cuts across the middle of the photo. You can see a barge on the right side of the photo, probably carrying construction materials. In the immediate background is Binh Thanh District, which lies between District 2 and District 1. In the upper left corner, far in the distance is District 7, or Saigon South. This photo doesn’t show it but Saigon South’s skyline is essentially full of cranes. I was out there last night and couldn’t count them all. In the middle and right sections of the background is District 1. The tall, bright greenish-blue building is the Prudential building, the most dramatic tall building in the city. The other tall buildings are serviced apartments, office space, and hotels.
Johan spent the weekend in Saigon, taking a break from his work in Bangkok. We ate well and often. Here’s a sample.
Goi Cuon:
Banh Cuon Thit Nuong:
Com Tam Bi Suon Cha:
And Johan even braved the infamous, Trung Vit Lon:
Filed under: Southeast Asia
Saigon is growing rapidly. An official population of 6.5 million; an unofficial population of at least 8 million. Each year hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese come to the city from the Mekong Delta and the rural areas to the north. Downtown is small and congested, with not enough office space, too little retail space, not enough hotels, too few apartment buildings, and small, busy roads filled with swerving motorbikes, city buses, rickety bikes, and SUV’s. To help the city expand and ease congestion, officials are busy developing plans to create new urban areas in District 7 (Saigon South) and District 2 (An Phu). A new central business district is planned in the marshes across the river from the current downtown. A subway is in the works, new ports are being developed, and ring roads are being constructed to divert truck traffic around the city. The pace of development is stunning and at times, entire areas of the city, especially in the new urban districts, seem to be huge construction zones. In five or ten years, the city will look dramatically different.
On Saturday afternoon I had a coffee on the roof of the Majestic, the beautiful, historic hotel at the end of Dong Khoi street, overlooking the Saigon River and out to where some of the new urban areas are being developed.
I’m on a minor mission to eat at all of the restaurants in the alley near my house. After eating at the same bun bo hue stall a couple of times and trying the glass noodle crab soup across the street, this time I went for a little restaurant that serves delicacies from the rural north, with a special emphasis on “cua dong,” which is a type of crab that lives in the rice paddies. I last tasted this dish when I was an exchange student. One day our group went out to the rice fields to help plant rice. For lunch, we were served a bowl of bun noodles with crab from the paddies I had just been working in ground up on top.
When I walked into the restaurant tonight, I didn’t even know cua dong was its specialty until I noticed everyone else eating it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s too eat what everyone else is eating. Earlier today I went into a restaurant intent on ordering the pungent bun mam but saw that everyone else had rice plates, so I followed suit, figuring they knew something I didn’t. Thus, with everyone else eating the cua dong, I did the same. The “fake dog meat with pork stomach” was enticing but it will have to wait until next time I guess. That dish did have me wondering though why someone wouldn’t eat real dog but would eat pork stomach. My dinner was good, not overly flavorful like a bowl of bun bo hue, but light and interesting. Don’t think of it as big hunks of crab meat floating in a soup. Cua dong are small crabs and to prepare them, the chef just smashes them, shell and all, with a mortar and pestle. The resulting gray mash is then put into soup. And then eaten by farmers during a break or people like me at a restaurant in Saigon. After dinner, I strolled down the alley to a little fruit shake stand and ordered an avocado shake. Watching as the vendor expertly cut open an avocado, I heard the gentle sound of a bell being struck. I looked up and across the street stood a beautiful Buddhist pagoda.
Sinh To Bo, or Avocado Shake:
Even though I work downtown, I’m easily able to find the cafes I prefer best for an afternoon coffee when drinking alone. You know the routine. A woman sets up a couple little plastic chairs around a little plastic table and has oil thick coffee stored in a small plastic water bottle and a battered metal pot of tea. Two days ago, I found my new place snuggled between your basic Vietnamese rice stand restaurant and a Western restaurant serving the standard fare of burgers and ribs. I had eaten lunch at the rice stand and walked over to sit down for a coffee. The coffee woman looked at me funny, pointed to the burger restaurant, and said in Vietnamese, “That’s where the westerners eat.” I laughed and told her I preferred Vietnamese food. She shrugged but realizing I could handle a couple of phrases in Vietnamese began chatting to me. More than most, she was unwaveringly patient with me, correcting my pronunciation and offering me vocabulary words when I was stuck, which is pretty regularly. Halfway through my coffee, I looked down and realized she had set up her table on top of an old canon with an unused rocket strapped to the side. It’s rare to see any war remnant around and I think she made clever use of it as a coffee table. I’ll return daily for my post-lunch coffee to continue practicing my Vietnamese. I just hope I don’t blow up in the process.
Filed under: Southeast Asia
I took my new camera out for a spin today and snapped a few shots from the neighborhood.
Everyone is wearing rice-cookers:
I haven’t eaten here yet but I will. I had 5 meals yesterday but managed to miss this place:
Never has a guy who just bought bananas looked so cool:
That dragon fruit would cost you $13/pound at Whole Foods:
Taking a break in the only shade he can find:
