Ready for a full day in Saigon again! This time I am smarter and more prepared. I researched what to eat for lunch after realizing even though my mom grew up here, she has no idea where to go and eat in the city that’s not in her district.
First off, breakfast at the hotel again!
We started off with trying the pho ga (chicken pho) this time. It was delicious! Omg the broth was so savory and flavorful. Even the chicken was tender and flavorful. These hotel chefs are knocking it out of the park! The food at the hotel has been better than the foods outside so far.. That makes me question, but these are Vietnamese local chefs cooking it after all. I can see inside their kitchen behind the noodle station: the big pots of broths they’re brewing.
From the hot foods station, I got a plate of:
Stir fried vermicelli. This was more flavorful than last time! Maybe a bit too much because it might be borderline salty. I love the plentiful of mushrooms and beancurd.
Braised beef. Is good as always.
Deep fried sea bass with sweet and sour sauce. This was very good! In fact, my mom and I both got a second helping of this. The fish was soft and tender on the inside.
Sticky rice with Vietnamese ham and pork floss. This was decent! I’m missing my Chinese sausage in it though!
Jello with chia seed and longan. Interesting and different.
Our agenda for this morning we walked to:
Turtle Lake. A place my mom used to come hang out as a kid because it was cool and shady. Now it is dirty and not well kept. Also, all the turtles are gone.
Nguyen Hue Street. It is the main city walk in Saigon with many surrounding stores, food shops, drinks and performances in the middle.
Ben Thanh Market. This is a big indoor market where private vendors sell dry foods, fruits, vegetables, drinks and goods/materials. I saw some ceramic soup spoons I liked and asked the lady in Vietnamese how much. She told me 70k VND for 6 spoons. I said okay I’ll walk around and think about it. As I walked away she shouted 50k and then 30k. I was surprised at how drastically it dropped but I wasn’t in love with the spoons and wanted to see if there were others cuter i would liked. She kept shouting and sounding more aggressive. I was immediately turned off. I should have spoken in English because the first two vendors spoke to me in English, which means they totally thought I was a tourist and not know Vietnamese.
Now we’re strolling around in Saigon Square, which is right across from Ben Thanh Market. We came across an entire level B2 full of food and pastry stalls and even a market! There were a lot of Japanese delights and treats.
There was a Vietnamese chocolate company called Marou and they also sold these adorable little mini macarons that I couldn’t resist!! I got two flavors to try:
Pho and black sesame. That’s right.. I said PHO. The guy says it’s supposed to smell like pho. It didn’t smell or taste like pho at all! More like a dense chocolate. The black sesame was good. The macarons are light, chewy, and the cookies are light.
Then we walked to Banh Mi Huynh Hoa, which was also a short distance away. Then open right at 11am and as we got closer, we saw people walking past us holding bags of multiple baguettes of o banh mi.
When we got there, we noticed that there are 2 stalls of ordering and picking up. We paid and judging from the menu, there are probably no alterations to the banh mi possible. They make them all the same way and they have a very systematic approach to cranking out a lot of banh mi.
We got our baguettes and brought them back to our hotel to chow down and eat. My mom was harsh with her criticism, saying it was too big and had too many meats to accommodate American tourists while I felt like the generous amount of pate and butter and good quality meats made it a good banh mi. The bread itself was lightly crispy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside. I liked it!
For dinner, Anh Bao took us out to dinner again!! At first they picked a Korean restaurant but I was like, “please, can we eat Vietnamese food instead?” And we did!
He picked a restaurant that happened to be on my to-eat list called Goc Hue. We sat upstairs and ordered a variety of dishes. I tried most, but not all. I ate some of everything but most of banh nam la!!!! Omg it was so good. I loved it!!! I ate as many as I could and even Anh Bao ordered an extra plate of only banh nam la for me to eat all by myself!!! What an amazing cousin! Like a brother I never had!!
Bun Mam Ruoc. Rice noodles with pork floss, pork, bean sprouts, cucumbers served with fish sauce. Refreshing and light.
Shrimp egg rolls. Small and crunchy!
Hen Xuc Banh Trang. You grab a spoonful of all the ingredients of mini clams and peanuts and put them on top of a rice cracker and eat ti! I loved the baby clams.
Soy milk. So much lighter and fresher here than in America! I had two glasses of iced soy milk. Their soy milk is so good! It’s different from in a America. Less…powdery? It was lighter and mildly sweet!
Banh beo and banh bot loc we’re both good but my standout favorite from the platter was the banh Nam la..Duhh!
Bun Bo Hue. Delicious and broth tasted light.
Banh Nam La. Very thin. My favorite. Drizzle some fish sauce on too and there you go! It is like a little shrimp dumpling made of tapioca. I loveeee this! Looks unsatisfying but it is so good!
Com La Xen. This special rice dish served in a pot of steamed tea leaves. Very yummy and resembled sticky rice to me.
Afterwards, we went to this place called Hoa Son Koi Coffee to drink coffee or juice while feeding and watching koi fish swim around! There was lively and catchy vietnamese music. It was actually fun!!
I got freshly squeezed watermelon. It was so refreshing and sweet. I realized something in Vietnam: every fruit they drink is freshly squeezed. It’s a common thing around here. They don’t do instant juice. Haha. At least not what I’ve seen.
