Eating in Saigon (Part 2)

… Heaps!!
Funnily, my street-food bravura met its comeuppance quite quickly. On the 3rd day, I woke with a homicidal belly, of the incredibly watery variety. So I popped 2 Imodiums and continued eating street-food. Ain’t gonna let no nasty nasty tummy bugs spoil mah holiday.

Ngọc Sương Seafood Restaurant

We had dinner at Ngọc Sương Seafood Restaurant the first night. Unfortunately, it was really mediocre. Pictured here, the crab dish. My folks didn’t like it at all. But because I’ve not had whole crab for ages, I quite liked it. Sweet, salty, crunchy, garlicky, tasty. When dad heard I liked it, he immediately cooed “so poor thing!”. I’ve become a crab virgin, time to book a chilli crab expedition in Singapore.

 

Bánh Bò Sữa Nướng, so it said on the front of the food stall. We had no CLUE what that was. We bought one to try, very nice! Each portion was torn off easily. It’s crisp on the outside, and ever slightly milky-sweet and chewy in the middle.

 What is he selling???

Mum and I decided to try finding out how he makes it. We crossed the harrowing road back to where his stall was and gesticulated for him to show us his secret. Aaaah… he uses hot coals under the moulds!

Lương Sơn Quán (Bò Tùng Xẻo) was another must-try place in dad’s culinary itinerary. I forgot to take a photo of the food menu on the wall, it listed things like “minced snake, sauteed field rat, grilled frog legs, sauteed eel with banana, stewed snake with lemongrass”. The menu also suggested fried crickets, grilled scorpions, and if they listed “spiders” too, I’d probably exclaim “oh my!”.

 

Table grilling at Lương Sơn Quán

 

Goats breast

We did table grilling here, choosing ostrich meat, beef pieces and goats breast. All the meats were heavily marinated and the ostrich tasted similar to kangaroo meat. Dad had the goats breast before and thought it was the brisket portion of the goat. He liked it in the past and wanted us to try it too. When I took a bite, I found its texture really crunchy, slippery and rubbery. It tasted unfamiliar, and just slightly nauseating. When I was cooking the third piece, I pushed the marinade aside and peered closer. It was the mammary gland tissue of the goat. I could almost discern the shape of a teat. After I spoke aloud about that discovery, that dish went down in table popularity dramatically. Even dad struggled eating it, lol.

Street bún chả at last!

One afternoon, we strolled past this stall. There were no signages, but on closer inspection, I was pretty certain it was a bún chả vendor. Score! When we first asked for one portion, she just gave us one grilled pork meat on a stick. Dad did more pointing, and she put everything together. Street bún chả at last! Dad really liked it, the herbage was fresh and pungent, and the grilled pork nicely charred and aromatic. I personally found the pork seasoning on the sweet side, and the nước chấm type sauce was also really sweet.

 

Saigon was hot and dusty everyday we were there. After a few kilometres of walking, I’d want an iced cold drink. Knowing where we could find a place to sit and drink was another question though. They all looked like eateries, can we just stroll in and have a drink? We eventually entered this place and sat down. Turned out the lady owner could speak Cantonese! Ahhhh sweet sweet sweet Vietnamese iced coffees…

Bánh bột chiên (fried rice flour cake) 

They started frying something really enticing at the front. My food-blogger eyes started to sparkle. The lady said it’s “good to eat” in Cantonese, so we shared a plate. Thanks to Lauren, I now know it’s bánh bột chiên (fried rice flour cake). It reminded us of chye tow kway (fried carrot cake – see post on chomp chomp) in Singapore, except the cubes were firmer, evenly fried and there was no chye poh (preserved daikon). The dish was served bland and you used the many bowls of sauces to season it to taste. It was a great afternoon snack to accompany our iced refreshments.

 
We ate here for lunch on our last day, thanks to Billy’s interactive Map of Saigon Faves. I had quite a terrible night with many visits to the loo. Cháo vịt (duck congee) seemed like a good meal for a tempestuous stomach. The congee was utterly delicious, we all loved it. Mum really liked the salad that came with it, but I found both the salad and the nước chấm sauce too sweet. Just having the congee on its own with the beautifully steamed duck pieces was wonderful enough. My tummy needed things to be bland. We absolutely enjoyed this meal, it was a great way to end the trip!

The duck pieces reminded me of Hainanese chicken rice. They tasted quite similar too!

Each bowl had a piece of coagulated pig’s blood in it. We never see that in Singapore anymore.

This marks my final food post for Vietnam, I’ll blog about Malaccan food next. We left the country happy to have tried such a variety of novel foods. I had to visit a doctor in Singapore to fix my gastroenteritis, but it was worth it! In general, I found that this city’s drinks and sauces tend to be too sweet for my palate. I’ve also noticed drinks in Thailand and Penang tends to be equally heavy handed with sugar. Maybe in Melbourne, bits of Vietnamese cuisine has been ‘bastardised’ into less sweet versions just to cater for the Australian palate? And you know what? Secretly inside, I think a little bit of bastardising might actually be okay, haha!

Source: fatboo.com