Saigon Street Food
Thursday, November 5, 2009
A day in the life...
Hellooooo lovers, I’m baaack! Thank you for all the well wishes while I was on hiatus – it’s nice to be home 
(and back on the interwebs).
As most of you know, I’ve been eating myself silly the past 15 days — I know, what’s new. But no, this has been a really special kind of silly. The eating-my-way-through Vietnam kind of silly!
Well, to be more specific, not quite all of Vietnam, since an unexpected detour to Hong Kong for a roundtrip price of $150 proved too tempting to pass up, but for sure, through a majority of Hồ Chà Minh City (a.k.a. Saigon). Don’t worry, you’ll hear all about HK feasting as well, all in due time. First things first though…Viet Eats! Wooop wooop!!
There is a good reason why even hardened eaters like Anthony Bourdain have fallen so in love with the cuisine of Vietnam. It’s fresh, vibrant, varied, and satisfying without feeling gluttonously heavy.
And, most often, it is cooked on the spot, right before your eyes, on the street, by someone who has been making that one particular dish over and over, for years, decades, quite possibly, generations.
Since Hua’s father and uncles are locals, we had the benefit of zipping about on the back of their motorbikes (amongst the unimaginable number of other motorbikes on the road), being led by the nose to some of the most delicious food I have ever tasted.
That’s a big statement, I know, but I stand by it. These local favorites are something special. Purveyors of food so good, so exciting, so complex in flavor yet simple in execution, I ate like I was starved (which is absurd because I don’t think I once felt the sensation of “hunger” the entire trip). I now pass this joy to you. Go seek these places/dishes out…
PLACE: The vendor below a sign that says “Ná»n Nhà Äất”
This vendor doesn’t have a sign, so I’ll provide the next best thing — the sign above the storefront where this little set-up is situated.
DISH: Bá»™t Chiên Cha Gue (pronounced “chow gway”)
TRANSLATION: Pan-fried Rice Flour Cake with Egg
ADDRESS: 91 Hà Tôn Quyá»n (cross street: Tân Thà nh) – P.15, Q.5
Cha Gue/Bột Chiên
Located in District 5, sort of like the Chinatown of HCMC, Hua’s dad took us here for a snack on Day 1. The bar was set high early.
Awaiting Crazy Deliciousness
The dish consisted of thick, rectangular pieces of pan-fried rice flour cake. The perfect golden crisp on the outside is beautifully offset by the smooth, supple texture on the inside.
When the rice cakes are nearing the end of their browning, an egg is cracked over them and the rich orange-hued yolk is broken. Throw a handful of minced green onion on the pan to warm through, and add bits of fried onion, fried pork skin (like little precious bits of chicharrones), and garlic. The dish is then served with a side of homemade pickled daikon and carrot slaw, and a savory dipping sauce of sweet soy sauce and a dollop of chili sauce.
The Bá»™t Chiên Cha Gue, hot off the pan, had this corner bumpin’, and even in the rain people were pulling up on their motorbikes and shouting their orders to-go from the street.
Apparently, business is so good that the owner doesn’t want to grow his operations because he’s afraid he wouldn’t be able to handle the volume. Interesting how this kind of success would inspire a very different response back home, as I envisioned a fleet of Kogi taco trucks multiplying like rabbits in the streets of LA.
Bột Chiên
PLACE: á»c HÆ°Æ¡ng Phô Mai
DISH: Wok-fried Snails in a heavenly sauce
TRANSLATION: Bliss
ADDRESS: 37/3 Nguyá»…n Cảnh Chân – Q.1
Wok-fried Snails, á»c HÆ°Æ¡ng Phô Mai
After day of shopping in Saigon Square we were carted off to rejuvenate ourselves with a little pre-dinner feast of the most amazing snails I’ve ever had.
Making amazing snails in District 1, á»c HÆ°Æ¡ng Phô Mai
I was skeptical as we turned onto a tiny, dimly-lit, nondescript, side-street. It would have been a little sketchy if it wasn’t for the insanely cute kindergarten class that was being held a few doors down.
Cute kids near snails
The set up of the shop was typical — a kitchen (comprised of a few burners and a grill) that spilled out from the ground floor of someone’s home onto the street, a few small tables and chairs along the street, and an extra bonus here, a lady squeezing fresh sugarcane juice right across the street! It couldn’t have been better.
Making fresh sugarcane juice
We over-ordered of course, and out came dishes of small snails, large snails, clams, crab, even balut!
For those unfamiliar, balut is a fertilized duck egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and then eaten out of the shell with a spoon. You heard right, a partial chick (please don’t hate me). Since it was my first time trying this delicacy, I was advised not to look directly at it (kind of like that adage of not staring into the sun). The texture can be challenging if you’re squeamish, and you can’t help but look too closely, but the flavor was good. As expected, a combo of an egg and chicken, but all in one bite. A little dish of salt and pepper mixed with lemon juice added a nice kick of flavor, and of course, some herbage, Vietnamese coriander leaves.
Balut
That was probably the most exotic thing I tried on this trip, but the snails! Those may have been the best. Boiled first to cook through, then finished off in a wok, seared until some magical sauce evaporated and coated the shells.
The snails themselves were meaty and succulent, but the sauce, now that was truly extraordinary: a little creamy and cheesy, with a touch of sweetness, and a tinge of heat that played on our lips. It was caramelized into almost a crust on the shells. We unabashedly licked our fingers clean while still reaching for more. The flavor teased us as we chased after it, wanting to savor it, have more of it, freakin’ bathe in it.
Bliss
PLACE: TÃn Phúc
DISH: Hủ TÃu Nam Vang (pronounced “hoo tee-yoo nam vang”)
TRANSLATION: Pork and Crab Noodle Soup
ADDRESS: 16 DÆ°Æ¡ng Äình Nghệ (cross street: CÆ° Xá Bình ThÆ¡i) – P.8, Q.11
Hủ TÃu Nam Vang, TÃn Phúc
TÃn Phúc is more of restaurant than actual street food, although, with its breezy architecture, you could technically drive right in if you really wanted to.
Regardless, it is delicious. Only one dish is served so you can’t mess up the order: Hủ TÃu Nam Vang. (In Cantonese we call it “gum been fun.”) You can order it “dry” but the soup is so good that you probably won’t want to.
Basically, hủ tÃu is a noodle soup similar to pho, but more seafood-based and with a light broth. Prior to this meal, I had never tasted it before, so I did some research on its origins. Vietnamese culinary expert Andrea Nguyen had much light to shed regarding this addictive dish. According to Andrea, “At its core, hu tieu signals a Chinese-Southeast Asian style noodle soup made with a pork bone broth and no fish sauce.” But, there are many rifs on it, one of which is the Nam Vang style, “Nam Vang” being the Vietnamese word for Phnom Penh (the capital of Cambodia). Thus, Vietnam’s proximity to Cambodia resulted in this Cambodian-Chinese concoction.
Herbage
TÃn Phúc’s rendition of Hủ TÃu Nam Vang is divine. The soup is phenomenal, sweet and rich, made from the stock of pork bones and crab shells. The angel-hair-thin opaque rice noodles have just the right amount of springy chew to them. And the toppings are generous portions of pork meat, tendon and heart, crab meat, and shrimp. Tear up handfuls of leafy Romaine, Chinese celery and flat Chinese chives, add some crunchy bean sprouts, a touch of chili pepper, and you good to go.
The result is soul-satisfying. Warm, comforting, full of umami, fresh and healthy feeling. I bet a bowl of this could cure a cold like nobody’s business.
The best part? Lunch for 5 people here rolled up to a mere $9.75 USD.
TÃn Phúc
Back in September, Thy Tran wrote a great article on Street Food Beyond Festivals in which she compares the young street food culture in the U.S. to other places where it has been “long embedded into their daily rhythms.” Witnessing the street food culture of Saigon brought that alive for me. Daily rhythm is right, it seemed like everyone eats out all the time whether it’s having your morning coffee delivered to your front door from the coffee lady down the street, getting some fruit to-go from the number of fruit vendors rolling around, or popping a squat on a little plastic chair at a tea-party-sized table for dinner. Sure, the convenience, affordability, and quality of product are all great. But it is the daily human interaction, the chit chat, the sense of community that comes with it, that makes this daily rhythm so soothing.
Street Scene
Bột Chiên (for Cha Gue)
91 Hà Tôn Quyá»n (cross street: Tân Thà nh) – P.15, Q.5
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Phone: 0903380574
á»c HÆ°Æ¡ng Phô Mai (for Snails)
37/3 Nguyá»…n Cảnh Chân – Q.1
Ho Chà Minh City, Vietnam
TÃn Phúc (for Hủ TÃu Nam Vang)
16 DÆ°Æ¡ng Äình Nghệ (cross street: CÆ° Xá Bình ThÆ¡i) – P.8, Q.11
Ho Chà Minh City, Vietnam
Phone: 3.9627977
Welcome to Lick My Spoon, a place for all things delicious. 
Great post – I love it! Reminds me of Laos where we were this summer… I posted a LOT about the street food there earlier this fall. Glad you had a great time and look forward to reading more!
ooh i’d love to visit Laos! would love to hear of your food adventures there!
Ahh, balut will soon take over the world!
What a wonderful travelfood-logue; the snails sound awesome! I will have to be sure to pay attention to street foods when we are in Manila for Christmas. Last year, my mom – at her mother-hen best – ushered us to very nice restaurants and eateries but I do feel as if we missed some unusual and interesting foods. But given that my goal will be to eat as much as I can, more than likely I’ll catch some good grub!
And thanks for the link to Thy’s article on Street Foods Beyond Festivals – excellent read!
hahah yeah…all hail balut…
can’t wait to hear about xmas in the Philippines!
What nice pics, you must have had a great time and a great food experience. It’s always nice to experience another place with street food!
Seeing those pictures bring back memories. I am so glad that you had an awesome time eating great food and enjoying great company!
next time you will have to come with us!! think of all the food adventures we’ll have
Great post! Awesome pics. Makes me want to go back! I remember going 3 years ago, and everyone telling me NOT to eat the street food or the nuoc mum cuz they use water in it. Vietnamese food is not the same without fish sauce, so that was not fun. I did however have the BEST banh bao from a lady’s cart once, and it was prob the best thing I ate all trip. If I ever go back, I’l def have to reference this post. Glad you had fun!
yeah, at first i was definitely concerned that my stomach would not be able to keep up with my appetite…but i was lucky and didn’t have any problems! and YES had some amazing banh bao from a little cart! so friggin good.
You are so brave for trying the fetal duck egg!!! I recently featured rau ram (Vietnamese coriander) on my blog and mentioned about the dish very briefly, but I’m not sure if I could ever try it…
I would love to visit Vietnam someday. Thanks for taking us to virtual tour HCMC!
Thanks, Em! yeah, i fell in love with all the herbs there! will have to check out your coriander post!
I have always wanted to visit Vietnam. Love this food-travelogue. Thank you and welcome back. Looking forward to reading more.
Hello,
I just came across your blog and enjoyed it very much. I’m a banquet manager and write a blog about the daily aggravations that go with my job…from cranky chefs to nasty customers and everything in between. I hope you enjoy it. Please visit and leave a comment. Have a great day!
So You Want To Be a Banquet Manager
What a wonderful read and a great guide for travel eating in Saigon, I am saving it for our trip! No plans for the immediate future but when we do, I’m referring to this post!
It looks as if you had an amazing time and indulged in some fantastic dishes… I am so jealous. Thank you for sharing with us your adventure!
I now want to go and visit!
great meeting you–even though briefly–and congrats for the recognition!! We always eat street food in VN because that’s the real deal–thanks for the delicious culinary tour– The first dish, the pan fried rice flour cake is called “bot chien” literally fried flour… cha que is vietnamese ham that’s fried.
Hello there! It was great meeting you too! thanks for the education — i really need to learn some vietnamese
interesting though, i wonder if the difference in what we called it was because we were referring to it in Cantonese? Any ideas?
Yup, street food is well alive and kicking in Southeast Asia and I miss it so much here! Char gue looks very similar to the ‘carrot cake’ that we have in Singapore….I think I might just cook up a batch to satisfy my craving!
yeah…are you referring to “Law Bok Go”? i LOVE that stuff. my grandma used to make a mean law bok go. The chau gue we had was more of a cross between law bok go and pan fried cheung fun.
back to the LBG though…do you know how to make it!?! omg…i sense a cooking party coming…
Congrats on the Foodbuzz Blog Award!
Ashley
Niman Ranch
This is a great site, if you have a second check out this unique video wine blog to find great wine to go with great food. http://pardonthatvine.com/
damn that all looks so freaking delicious! I love the idea of traveling by motorbike, it really adds a sense of adventure… great photos too.
seeing vietnam by motorbike is definitely awesome! heart-palpitating, life-threatening at times, but nevertheless, awesome.
Congratulations on your two wins at the Food Blogger Awards!
This looks wonderful. But most of all, I wanted to congradulate you for winning two awards! CONGRATS! You deserve it!
It’s too bad we didn’t get to meet during the festival. Congrats on your awards win though! And looking forward to your posts. This trip looks like a dream. If we could travel the world and eat our way through each country, we’d be in heaven!
Fantastic post with awesome photos. What a delicious adventure! I hope to visit one day…what a great experience!
Congratulations on your awards! Your photos are beautiful! I was chuckling when you wrote on balut, it’s something I grew up eating, quite enjoyed and never thought was exotic or squeamish. But now I hesitate at the thought of trying to explain this experience to my friends. LOL!
hahaha thanks! and yeah…eating balut was quite the adventure for me. maybe one day i’ll be able to crack it open and suck it down without a second thought
aspirations.
China has a wide variety of good foods to offer. Specially in noodles recipes. They have good secret between each food,specially of those street foods that you have shared. Great share of foods.
[...] Chocolates, leave a comment here telling me about one of your favorite food/travel experiences. (Street food in Vietnam? Blueberry-picking in Maine? Spam masubi in Hawaii? I want to hear about food and place! [...]
Hi LickMySpoon (LMS). I am VNese and I was scratching my head when read of your restaurant name Nen-Nha-Dat. Of course some of the restaurants picked and chose their unique name to stand out and/or trying to give impression to customer such as Cuc Gach Quan (Brick restaurant), but Nen-Nha-Dat was pretty weird by itself. Then when I saw your picture of “Nen-Nha-Dat” I couldn’t stop laughing. Sorry, I was not laughing at you of course but at the sign.
LMS, IT WAS A REAL ESTATE SERVICE COMMERCIAL SIGN of someone. Nen=Foundation, Nha=House, Dat=Ground/Zone, Mua=Buying, Ban=Selling, Ky Goi=Liening…. The sign loosely transalted at:
REAL ESTATE SERVICE – SERVICE OF BUY – SELL – LIEN and then the phone# and address. And what you been eating, judging from the picture and your description, I thinh that was BOT CHIEN, a street nack (not real meal) very popular in VN’s street. Google the word “BOT CHIEN” and you will see for yourself… Thank you for sharing w/ us your eating experience. Hope that you were enjoying the food. Happy Eating.
Hi Johny,
Thanks for the translation help! I knew that wasn’t the name of the vendor…but wanted to include the sign to help people find the cart. And, yes! Bot Chien, that looks and sounds right…I wonder why my Cantonese speaking family was calling it Cha Gue…
Thank you, Stephanie. Share with you a secret. Many of VNese street food was posted everywhere but I rarely read about BANH CAY. BANH CAY (Curried Cake) was a cheap famous street food only known by locals and never made to “news”. Google BANH CAY and you will see most of the sites in VNese. If you tried “Bot Chien”, you ‘ve to try that one the next time you there… There still many not-make-to-news street foods that only locals knew about such as: Xoi Chien Phong, Xoi Man (sticky rice with Chinese sausage), Banh Gan (Liver Cake – Trust me, there’s not an ounce of any liver in there, just the name), Banh Cong… Well, there’s a statistic I read somewhere said VN has about 1,600 street food/snack. I believe it caused I was there…
ooh Banh Cay looks good! Â deep fried, spiced deliciousness! Â thanks for the insider’s tip
maybe we can go on a little street food adventure next time I’m in VN! Â
Sure, sure, Stephanie. YES, WE CAN (excerpt from mr big O.). A little chat w/ you about the cheap street food. We student/pupils of schools used to have some little change of money from parents when go to school and we’ve got to spend all of the money in order to get more the next day (Same concept anywhere in the grown-up worlds nowaday – You have to spend all your alotted money in order to ask for more in the budget next year… Isn’t that true?). So the mission of the street vendors was to invent/come up with snacks that tasted darn good and super cheap to rip us up to the last dime of our money change. And they did. And they did good, real good. With passions… Hmmm… Yummy… Benefit to everybody… Pickled Guava, Phyllanthus Acidus fruit cook in caramel (Don’t know what the English name for this one- Googled and came up w/ this scientific name), fresh Ambarella cover with salt and chilli mixed… “Chuối chiên” (Deep Fried Bananna), “Bánh rế”, “Bò bÃa”, Che (Sweet – Oh mine, the Sweets)… We only have short time between recesses and after school end. Food had to be: Good, cheap and most important, easy to hide, too. So the foods got to attack all your tastes with immense authority at once, Bing Bala Bang! Oh that was good! Or the mission will fail. Taste it! Just like the movie: Love At The First Bite… Salty, Spicy, Sugary… To Spend Or Not To Spend? Hardly any argument here. Spending every last dime to street foods, sometimes have to make line or even fighting for, we were happily broke everyday… Well, no worry, there was always tomorrow. The Sun Will Also Rise. You just couldn’t escape all the traps. No money today? No problem, just “sign the book” (Eat now, pay later – aka IOU)… Some came up w/ mottos and poetries written on the stall to make you feel good… “Eat the grain, Good for brain, Keep you sane, Under the rain… ” Some of the food stalls even have gambling games for food. Here, play the game, cut the thread with one slice of plastic knife. You win, eat double, you lose, no problem, still eat, but just the regular portion… The food stalls went along with the technology world too. They have loud Karaoke or showing movies clips to attract us the victims. Some distributed pictures of Superman (for boys) and Snow Whites (for girls), some even performed street amateur magics… The food haven in front of VN schools (and I guess most of Asia the same) was phenomenon… If you were a student, you know what it was like. Only happened in Asia with the view of students overrun the food stalls when recess time or when the school out bell ring. I still can see vividly the scene of bell ring, the students pouring out as ants and over there the food owners were ready with big grins, look at the students running toward the stalls like a stampede: Come to mama and papa, my children! And eat! A pleasure that only VN/Asian students enjoyed. Perfect places and time to gather one last time before schoolday ends, to eat and gossip about others and teachers… I learned my “Bot Chien” from there, 4th grade. Learned to running quicker than others to the stall. Why? To get the first Bot Chien batch and to be able to request the blacken ones. If you’re late, has to wait for the owner to fried another batch and trust me, it never tasted as good. See? We were trained. Food trained, since very little. To spend all your money in food was your duty and it was righteous. To eat means to live. Eat anything, anything has legs, (well, except furniture). Trained to compete for the best food available. And trained not to waste any food at all. Hey, look! I found a fly in my cake. The stall owner will say: “Well, what was the big deal? Just took him out and eat the rest”. “Oh, OK, if you say so. Wow, that was hectic”. I know I know, I talked too much. When come to food, I can go on for hours… Let me tell another one and I will shut up. Added to the background of why so many snacks and dished in VN was the Nguyen king, who ruled a united Vietnam from Hue in the 19th century. This king was a food gourmet legendary. Instead of concentrate in ruling the country, he devoted his whole life in… eating. He refused to eat the same meal twice in a year, so you can easily guess who had the super-hot seat job in town: The royal kitchen. Be creative or be beheaded, not only the cooks, but their whole family and relatives… What a job, what a world! So they scrambled everyday to create new foods/snacks and not just any make up ones, it had to look good and taste good too, to make the big boss happy. OMG, The pressure, “the” ultimate pressure!.” The king of course didn’t eat one dish at meal time, he got to have at least 3 or 4 dished at meal, plus desserts. You do the math. The royal kitchen had to came up with 1,440 different dishes in one year and 720 different desserts (Thank Buhda at that time we still used Lunar year, only about 360 days per year, saving the royal kitchen couple days worth of food) – Couldn’t keep up with the “demand, the royal kitchen enlisted a whole army of their families and relatives to go everywhere to study, to dig, to invent and perfecting the new dishes… Be inventing or be dead, litterally. The list of new dishes was formed quickly and lengthy, even that mean had to “borrow” some of the neighbord’s countries ones, the BANH CAY, BANH RE definitely had India influence in those) Et voila: When the big boss finally not eating (and breathing) anymore, his legacy left VN an immense variety choices of food. Thank you, King. You are always my hero… I will shut up for now… Thank you for reading… (They mentioned about the famous king in here: http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/ultimate-food-guide-to-vietnam/3 )…
OMG this post rocks! We just came upon the blog too, & of course had to follow your posts on Twitter.Â
Vietnam is a probably at the top of my list personally as to what countries I would want to spend at least a couple weeks or month eating my way through. It’s hard to get a Vietnamese fix here in the same way. And I keep hearing time and time again, that when in Vietnam it’s all about the street food and markets.Â
Did you get a chance to visit any of the larger markets?Â
It’s also incredible how even what seems to be the most simple and cheapest of street food has an explosion of color and variety in one bowl, plate.Â
Also, how were the snails?
Â
Dare To Eat
Thank you so much, Ilya
There was a daily market in District 5, right outside the doorsteps of where we were staying so we lucked out. It spanned a few blocks and was just full of interesting foods and produce.
The flavors that are coaxed out of what seems to be simple ingredients is just unreal. You definitely need to visit!
The snails were amazing! I need to figure out how to recreate them!
-s-
[...] http://lickmyspoon.com/travel/saigon-street-food/ [...]
Oh! So sorry our paths didn’t cross in Saigon. Â Next time, it would be great to meet on the streets here in Saigon. I hope you have/ will check out http://www.eatingsaigon.com before your next return trip. We love your posts !
Hi Joe,
Not as sorry as I am! I will definitely be in touch next time I’m planning to visit. From the looks of your site, we’ll eat well
Thanks for reading!
[...] The vibe was comfortable yet classy. The food had all the vibrance and freshness I loved about Vietnamese street food, but executed by a refined hand, with an eye towards high-quality ingredients and adorned with [...]