The City Named After a Cook

Ho Chi Minh City is named after a cook. Apparently, Ho Chi Minh had worked, in his earlier days as a chef, in the kitchen ofH celebrated French chef Auguste Escoffier. I learnt this from A Cook’s Tour by Anthony Bourdain, one of my favourite writers. It is a book about his search for the perfect meal – a very entertaining read. After reading it, Ho Chi Minh City became the first place I wanted to visit in Vietnam. Although we visited Hanoi first, my wife and I did eventually get to Ho Chi Minh City. WY and Uncle J, our companions from the Hanoi trip, joined us again.

After touching down at Tan Son Nhat Airport, we went to one of the airport money changers and became dong millionaires (one Singapore dollar is worth around 10,000 Vietnamese dongs). We then took bus number 152 from the airport to a street near our hotel in Pham Ngu Lao, which costs only 20 Singapore cents. I was told that Ho Chi Minh City (more commonly known by its former name Saigon) is a city with close to eight million people and five million motor bikes, and the reason for so many motor bikes? ‘No motor bike, no girlfriend.’ Not only did we see numerous motor bikes carrying girlfriends, we saw entire families on motor bikes in balancing acts that would have been more at home in the circus. In addition, the traffic never seemed to stop even though there were traffic lights everywhere. I later learnt from a local that there is only one traffic rule and that is to ‘keep moving’. The weather was less hot than it was in Hanoi but the city was certainly 
more chaotic.

We visited Ben Thanh Market which sells just about anything and everything, and Binh Tay Market, an enormous wholesale market in Cholon, the city’s Chinatown. We also walked around the upmarket Dong Khoi area and made sure we saw the famous Continental Hotel (featured in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American) and the almost equally well-known Rex Hotel. On our third day there, we visited Cu Chi and the Cao Dai Holy See, headquarters of a unique local religion that is a fusion of many influences including Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and Islam. Cu Chi is where the legendary Cu Chi Tunnels are to be found and the visit was one of the highlights of our trip.

The Cu Chi Tunnels are a huge network of underground tunnels that at one time was believed to have stretched from Ho Chi Minh City all the way to the Cambodian border. The tunnels comprised living quarters, kitchens, ammunition stores, field hospitals, command posts and other facilities all linked together and over several stories in some parts. Most of the tunnels that are left are not easily accessible but two sites are open to visitors. We visited the one near the village of Ben Dinh, about 50km outside Ho Chi Minh City. There, we saw numerous bomb craters (this was apparently the most bombed area in any war), remnants of an American tank, various devious and nefarious looking Viet Cong traps and many ingenious hideouts. We also crawled through an enlarged (for tourists) version of a tunnel that was dimly lit in a few places but it was still far too small and dark for comfort. There were three exits along the tunnel at about 30-metre intervals and we all quickly took our leave at the first exit.  

On the whole, our trip to Ho Chi Minh City was as enjoyable as the one to Hanoi. My wife and WY had healthy doses of retail therapy and we all had an enjoyable eating experience. The following are some of the eating places that are worth 
trying out.

Pho 24

9-11 Phan Chu Trinh, District 1

Pho 24 is part of a noodle restaurant chain with 16 branches in Ho Chi Minh City and many others all over Vietnam. It also has a branch in the Philippines (in Manila) and two in Indonesia (both in Djakarta). The restaurant prides itself on the quality of its ingredients and its customer experience, and we could not find fault with either. It was neat and clean and the service staff was very helpful. They were also eager to practise their English and Mandarin with us. We ate here twice and enjoyed both meals. We had different versions of their pho tai (noodle soup with beef) and pho ga (rice noodle soup with chicken) as main courses. In addition, we also tried their fried spring rolls and taro ice cream. I also had their avocado and pomelo fruit drinks (very fresh and refreshing) and ice coffee with milk (superb). An added bonus here is that the food is cooked in a glass enclosure in the restaurant rather than in a hidden kitchen and so you get to observe your food being prepared.

Pho 2000

1-3 D Phan Chu Trinh, District 1

Former US President Bill Clinton dined at this restaurant when he was in Ho Chi Minh City in 2001 and you can see many blown up photographs of him at the restaurant displayed on its walls together with framed articles about the restaurant. The owners pride themselves on using the best original ingredients and not adding MSG or sugar in the soup of their pho. The advantage they have over Pho 24 is their wider spread of dishes. In addition to the ubiquitous pho bo, they also serve a mean stewed beef noodles that came with thick chunks of beef. The avocado fruit blend here was also very good and I had it on both visits.

Quán n ngon

138 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia, Quan Mot, TP

This is the original of the Quán n ngon that we had visited in Hanoi (our favourite eatery there). The restaurant is housed in a refurbished French villa furnished along the same lines. It was opened about five years ago with some of the best local hawkers around and is still very popular with the locals. The menu here is a little different from that of its Hanoi branch and the place was more crowded. The food, however, was just as good. On the whole, I still prefer the Hanoi branch of Quán ǎn ngon as the premises and furniture there are newer and it was not as crowded.

Fanny Ice Cream

29-31 Ton That Thiep, Q. 1

The original of the ice cream cafe we visited in Hanoi, this place serves one of the best, if not the best, ice cream in town. In Hanoi, it was peerless but in Ho Chi Minh City, there was strong competition from local ice cream parlour Kem Bach Dang (see below).

Kem Bach Dang

26 & 28 Le Loi

Kem Bach Dang is a local ice cream parlour that serves fantastic ice cream. After having ice cream here, I wanted to go back again before we returned home. Unfortunately, I did not get the opportunity (although that would be another good reason to return to Ho Chi Minh City). I had a taste of their specialty, ice cream in baby coconut with candied fruits, and it was superb. They also served us a refreshing ice tea called Bong Sen tea that tasted faintly like basil and we had many refills of it from the attentive staff.

Com Nieu Saigon

59 Ho Xuan Hong Street, District 3

I first found out about Com Nieu Saigon from reading A Cook’s Tour but unfortunately, the address was not given in the book. Later, I caught the restaurant on a Food Network programme while I was in San Francisco some years ago. Again, no address was given. However, while surfing the internet before the trip, I came across an interview with Anthony Bourdian in the digital edition of The Guardian in September 2005 where he gave the address. Although it was not exactly the same as the one on their printed card I subsequently procured, it was enough for the taxi driver to take us there.

Com Nieu Saigon has two dining rooms on either side of its driveway with a mostly Vietnamese clientele. In fact, I only remember seeing two groups of foreigners from all my visits there. The restaurant is famous for its shattering clay pots of baked rice and I was told the name of the restaurant roughly translates to ‘Rice Claypot Saigon’. The signature dish consisted of white rice baked into a slightly charred solid cake in a clay pot. Since the opening of the clay pot was too small for the rice cake to be removed whole, the clay pot was smashed. To add to the drama, the rice cake was then thrown like a frisbee across to the other side of the dining room where it was caught by a waiter with a plate. He then flipped the rice cake a few times before serving it in one deft move (really cool), while the shattered clay pot was quickly cleared away. As for the rice cake, it was cut into a few pieces and garnished with chives and a tasty sauce. On its own, the rice cake did not taste very good but it was fantastic when mixed with soup or gravy.

Among the dishes we tried included cai ro xao tom (sautéed kale with shrimp), cha gio cua (pan fried crab meat spring roll), ngheu chien bo (fried clam with butter), muc don thit chien (fried squid with chopped pork), cua lot chien gion (fried soft shell crab), catim nuong mo hanh (grilled aubergine with onion fat), muc nuong sa te (charcoal grilled squid with hot sauce) lau rieu ca dieu hong (red snapper steamboat), dau hu chien muoi xa (fried tofu with salt and lemongrass), ca tim thit bam tau hu tay cam (casseroled aubergine with chopped pork in a claypot), a clam and egg omelette and a sea bass with beans. They were all of a very high standard. For drinks, I tried their hog plum juice and grape juice. The grape juice was very refreshing but the hog plum juice was not as appealing.

I was looking forward to trying their ice cream at the end of each meal but unfortunately it was always not available, as they were too busy to make it (what a pity). My suggestion to go there for our first dinner in Ho Chi Minh City (so that we could return if it was really good) proved to be a sound one.

Anthony Bourdian describes Com Nieu Saigon as his favourite place in Ho Chi Minh City, where everything is good. He also said that travellers who have followed up on his recommendation to eat there never return unsatisfied and it was always his best meal in the city. We had dinner there three out of the four nights of our stay in Ho Chi Minh City. Need I say more?

Richard Tan Ming Kirk

Shook Lin & Bok

© Richard Tan Ming Kirk