Trip Report: Vietnam & Cambodia

[Caitlin]

I went on a four-week trip to Vietnam and Cambodia in December and January. I have a bunch of pictures, but I can't figure out how to get them on here. If anyone can explain it to me, I'd appreciate it! Here's a report of most of my food experiences on the trip:

SAIGON

Bahn mi thit nuong at a pavement stall in front of 37 Nguyen Trai in District 1 (about a block past an intersection of at least 3 or 4 streets that appears as a circle on my map). The sandwich lady sets up around 5:30 p.m., and sells some of the most delicious sandwiches I’ve ever had. They consist of grilled pork meatballs on a French roll with barbeque sauce, cilantro, and some other veggies. At 5,000 VD (roughly 33 US cents) each, you can’t go wrong. Afterwards, walk over to the Ben Thanh market (only about a 10 minute walk) – the building itself is closed, but there are lots of outdoor vendors in the evenings and restaurants set up in the streets surrounding it. I enjoyed walking through there and seeing all the nighttime activity. I found the recommendation for this place on noodlepie.com, which is a must read for anyone planning a trip to Saigon. Here’s a link to noodlepie’s page on Saigon street sandwiches – it has great pictures of this sandwich (scroll down to find the section on this place, which he considers the best in Saigon):

http://www.noodlepie.com/blog/street_sandwiches/index.html

Banh Xeo at 46A Dinh Cong Trang (off of Hai Ba Trung, but a ways out – you’ll need to take a taxi, but it’s well worth it). Banh Xeo are Vietnamese crepes that have shrimp and pork cooked into them. To eat them, you wrap them with multiple greens, then with a piece of rice paper, and dip them in a fish-sauce-based sauce. One of my favorite Vietnamese foods to eat, and its name is my favorite thing to say in Vietnamese. This place is very off the beaten path and is worth going to for the experience, if not the food. It’s especially fun to watch the ladies squatting over fires, cooking the crepes in blackened pans.

Pho Bo (beef noodle soup) at Pho 2000 (right across the street from the Ben Thanh market – to the left if you’re facing the front entrance to the market). You could get it cheaper on the street (a large bowl of beef pho is almost $2 here, if I remember correctly), but it’s a lot more enjoyable to eat steamy pho in the comfort of an air conditioned restaurant that serves cold drinks than outside in Saigon’s sweltering heat. The customers here are mostly tourists and wealthy Vietnamese.

Pho Bo at Pho Hoa at 260C Pasteur Street. This place seems a little more “authentic” than Pho 2000 (we were the only non-Vietnamese in there when we went). The beef was of a slightly lower quality than that at Pho 2000 and the location isn’t nearly as convenient, but the fried dough sticks they give you to dip in your broth were much fresher and better than Pho 2000’s. This place is also in the 1000 Places to See Before You Die book.

Chao Vit Thanh Da at 20/1 Xo Viet Nghe Tinh in Thanh Da district. This place is VERY off the beaten track. Our taxi driver had to stop and ask for directions twice – we first came to a place that appeared to have this address, but it didn’t look right – you’ll know you’re at the right place when you find it because the name of the restaurant has “chao vit” in it – as do several others nearby. This place is pretty far out from the city center, but it was a fun little adventure for us taking the taxi ride all the way out there and getting to see a different part of Saigon than we otherwise would have. As for the food – just one dish is served: duck with a delicious rice porridge (cooked with chicken – or maybe duck – stock and scallions) and an amazing ginger flavored dipping sauce. No English is spoken, but our waiter held up two fingers (there were two of us), I nodded, and soon after, food for two was delivered.

Bun Thit Nuong at Quan An Ngon, 138 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia Street in District 1. Bun thit nuong is another of my favorite Vietnamese dishes. It consists of vermicelli noodles, barbequed pork (which has some sort of sauce or seasoning on it that gives it great flavor), some cilantro, and a sweetened fish-sauce sauce. This was my go-to meal in Vietnam whenever I didn’t know what to order, and I liked it every time I had it. My first time, though, was at Quan An Ngon, which is across the street from the Reunification Palace, so it’s a great place for lunch after a morning visit to the palace. I really enjoyed it there, and that is the only dish I ordered, but I wish I had been hungry enough to order more. The concept of this place is that the owner hired the best street-cooks and brought them all under one roof to cook their specialties. This place was a big hit when it first opened, but there has since been some criticism that better versions of the dishes can be found elsewhere. However, it still offers a great introduction to street food dishes. Try some dishes here and if you find any you like, try them when you see a street vendor selling them, or look them up on noodliepie.com to find vendor locations selling those dishes.

Also went to Com Nieu Saigon, 59 Ho Xuan Street – District 3 (famous for a clay pot rice dish that is served after waiters smash the pot on floor and throw the rice across the restaurant and catch it on paddles). I didn’t like the clay pot rice, but we only ordered it for the entertainment value, so that was no big deal. Other than that I wasn’t very hungry and we were mainly there for my boyfriend to have dinner, but I ordered some crab spring rolls that sounded good. They were just okay and my boyfriend’s dish was just okay too. However, we probably didn’t order very well. We struggled at places like this that didn’t specialize in a certain dish because we had no idea what to order, not being very familiar with Vietnamese cuisine (other than pho and curry and lemongrass dishes).

We had a similar experience at Hoang Yen, 7 Ngo Duc Ke in District 1. This place was recommended in a Conde Nast Traveler article I had read and it sounded great. This was our first meal in Vietnam and we had no idea what to order. My boyfriend had chicken curry, which was good, but I didn’t enjoy my dish – prawns steamed in coconut juice served in a hollowed coconut. They were difficult to eat because they were served complete with heads, tails, and shells, and because they were steamed with the shells on, I didn’t think they had much flavor. The restaurant was very busy and had lots of Vietnamese customers, so I know there was good food to be had there, but I just didn’t have it.

Be sure to go to the rooftop bar at the Rex Hotel for drinks in the evening. It’s overpriced and the cocktails aren’t very good, but the view is unbeatable. If you can’t get a table with a view, there’s a balcony to the right when you’re coming out of the elevator where you can stand and watch the crazy traffic below.

PHNOM PENH

Fish amok at Khmer Surin, 11 Street 57. This was an amazing dish. It was served in a dish similar to a deviled egg dish (a plate with individual little bowls carved into it). In each little bowl, there was a piece of fish coated in curry sauce (but not sitting in soupy curry, like most curry dishes) garnished with a piece of spicy pepper and a dollop of white sauce. I was expecting a big bowl of curry, so this was a surprise, but it was so delicious. It was bursting with flavor even though there was very little sauce. Highly recommended.

Friends restaurant, #215 Street 13 – it is staffed by former street kids being trained to work at the fancy restaurants and hotels. I really enjoyed the food here – we had things like shrimp wontons, sweet potato fries, and I can’t remember what else. But the best thing was this drink called a citrus mint freeze. It’s non-alcoholic, but it was one of the most satisfying drinks I’ve ever had. We were hot and tired after a four hour boat ride from Vietnam and we went to Friends just after we got in. We split one of these drinks and after a few sips, we were practically fighting over it.

I didn’t like the food at Boddhi Tree, which is right across the street from the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum and is recommended in many guidebooks.

The big Khmer restaurants across the Japanese Bridge. Hire a tuk-tuk for the evening to take you across the river to watch the sunset over Phnom Penh and then go to dinner at one of the enormous restaurants over there to see how the Khmers like to dine. We didn’t order very well at the restaurant we went to, but the experience was the highlight of Phnom Penh for us. The menu was overwhelming so we just picked a few things that sounded good, but the food we saw at other tables looked much better than ours. The Khmers like things big and flashy, so these restaurants are huge (ours was in an old airplane hangar) and feature bizarre live music performances (we were there just before Christmas and most of the singers had back up dancers doing Backstreet Boys moves, dressed in Santa suits). Beer girls representing different kinds of beer companies will surround you as you sit down, vying for your business. The whole thing is quite an experience, and is quintessential Khmer.

Happy Hour at the FCC and the Elephant Bar at the Hotel Le Royal.

I loved sitting at one of the window seats at the FCC bar – there’s a great view of street and the river below. The Elephant Bar doesn’t have a view, but is very posh.

SIEM REAP

I got sick in Siem Reap, so I really only have one meal there to write about:

The Blue Pumpkin – they have a location downtown and one by Angkor Wat. I had fish amok ravioli that were pretty good.

HALONG BAY

We went on a three day, two night trip with Handspan. I had read rave reviews about the food on Handspan’s Halong Bay cruises, but I was not impressed. They certainly don’t skimp on the portions and they serve lots of seafood which seems impressive, but everything seemed to taste the same to me, and I got pretty sick of that taste after the first few dishes (every meal has at least six courses). If you’re not from an area where you can get good, fresh seafood, and you’ve never had decent Asian food before, you might really like the food, but having grown up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I wasn’t a fan. However, I don’t think you could find better food on a Halong Bay cruise (except for maybe on the Emeraude), and I thought the price we paid to go with Handspan was well worth it. We did the “kayaking option”, which including a full day of kayaking. That was my favorite experience of the entire month-long trip. It was absolutely incredible to kayak in such a breathtakingly beautiful place – and it was really exciting to paddle through floating fishing villages and get to see them up close. I highly recommend the Handspan kayaking trip – just pack some emergency snacks in your bag in case you feel the same way about the food as I did. I didn’t have anything with me to eat, and I might have gone crazy if I had stayed on that boat one more day.

HANOI

Cha Ca at Cha Ca La Vong, 14 Cha Ca Street. This place has become very popular, especially since it was put in the 1000 Places to See Before You Die book. Many guidebooks are suggesting alternative restaurants for Cha Ca, ones that the locals go to, but I saw plenty of Vietnamese in this restaurant. I’m not one to avoid a place just because it’s been discovered: if it’s good, it’s good, and this place was good. I’ve never had cha ca anywhere else, so not having anything to compare it to, all I can say is that I loved this dish at this restaurant. Cha ca is boneless pieces of fish flavored with turmeric cooked with greens and eaten with noodles and a sweetened fish-sauce sauce. The fish is brought to the table in the pan it was cooked in, on a stand with a small flame so you can add the greens and cook them yourself. Then mix the sauce with your noodles in a bowl and scoop the fish and greens on top. It’s absolutely delicious!

Pho cuon (rolled pho) on Truc Bach street, which runs along the north side of Truc Bach lake (the lake John McCain’s plane was shot down into). There is a cluster of pho cuon restaurants located at the northeast corner of the lake. Pho cuon is sheets of pho noodles wrapped around pieces of seasoned, grilled beef and some greens (maybe cilantro or lettuce, or both – I can’t remember). It’s served with a dipping sauce and it’s wonderful. We also ordered several other variations of pho. I’m not sure of their names, but one was a noodle dish with beef and the other was fried pho served in a gravy like sauce with some veggies.

After eating pho cuon, have some homemade coconut ice cream for desert down the street. I got this recommendation out of Let’s Go Vietnam, but the name and address they provide (Kem Bao Oanh, 7 Duong Thanh Nien) didn’t help us find the place at all. I would describe the place as being on Truc Bach Street, near the corner of Truch Bach and Duong Thanh Nien – just one or two doors down from the corner. If you look up at the building, you can see four or five levels of covered, outdoor seating overlooking Truch Bach lake. I can’t remember if once we found the place we saw that there really was a sign with the name Kem Bao Oanh. These two places are a little ways from the Old Quarter, but aren’t too far from Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, so combining a visit to Uncle Ho, pho cuon, and coconut ice cream makes a nice half day.

Italian food at Mediteraneo, 23 Nha Tho. If you’re craving Italian food, or at least something non-Vietnamese, as we were at this point in our trip, you probably can’t do better than Mediteraneo. We had a wood-fired pizza and homemade ravioli here as a special treat for New Year’s Eve. I’ve had better pizza and ravioli, but this was legitimately good and I doubt there’s better in Vietnam. I think they also make their own mozzarella. The restaurant is located in one of Hanoi’s trendiest areas – right by the cathedral. Lots of cute shops nearby. It was expensive by Vietnam standards, but not for international standards. I can’t remember the cost exactly, but entrees were maybe around $5 or $10 (U.S.).

HUE

On a recommendation I found somewhere online, we went to Cung An Dinh, 31, kiet 177, Phan Dinh Phung, for rice cakes (Banh Beo, Banh Nom, Banh Loc, and Banh Uot), one of Hue’s specialties. I had no idea what these rice cakes would be like, but the review raved on and on about them, so we got in a cab our first night in town and handed the driver a piece of paper with the address written on it. We were dropped off at the end of an alley and the driver took off. We walked down the alley having no idea where the restaurant was. We first wandered into someone’s house, thinking that was the restaurant because people were eating at several tables inside. Fortunately they pointed us in the right direction because we may never have found it. No one spoke English, but they had the menu written on a white board, so I got up and pointed to a bunch of things to show the waitress what we wanted. We ordered all the kinds of rice cakes they had plus an order of bun thit nuong (our favorite bbq pork noodle dish). The rice cakes were quite a surprise. They bore no resemblance to the Quaker Oats rice cakes you might have eaten with peanut butter as a kid – these things were more like vegan oysters. They were basically a slimy patty made from rice flour, garnished with shrimp in different forms. My boyfriend doesn’t eat shellfish, so I was the one who had to try them while the restaurant owner’s entire family (grandma, grandpa, aunts, uncles – you name it) turned around from the TV to watch me (I think the restaurant, which was part of their house, doubled as the living room). The first one I ate triggered my gag reflex, but with the whole family watching, I had to force it down and smile. It was all I could do to eat a few of each kind so we wouldn’t seem rude, while my boyfriend happily ate his pork and noodles. The waitress brought a dipping sauce with each plate, and I didn’t know which was which after she put them down, so I was just using one of them. They seemed similar, but apparently not, because one of the old men got up and showed me (using hand gestures) which one went with which kind of rice cake. He seemed pretty insistent that they be eaten with the proper sauce. That part of the meal was pretty fun, and although I will not be eating Vietnamese rice cakes ever again, I enjoyed the experience.

Bun thit nuong at Huyen Anh Restaurant on Kim Long Street – near the Thien Mu Pagoda (we stopped for lunch on our way to the pagoda. It’s down an alley off the main road, but there’s a sign on the road so you’ll know where to turn off. Good bun thit nuong, and they also have rice cakes (banh uot) if you’re into that kind of thing.

We tried bun bo hue (Hue’s noodle soup) at a place on D Ly Thuong Kiet. Since that was the only place we had that dish, I can’t say if it’s the best, or even the worst, in town. I prefer pho to that version, but I’ve heard many people say bun bo hue is their favorite Vietnamese soup. I’m not sure if I’m just not a bun bo hue person, or if we didn’t have a good version. Someone online had said this place was their favorite in Hue, and it was the only particular location for bun bo hue we had heard of, so we went there. Maybe there’s better out there.

HOI AN

Hoi An Patisserie / Cargo Club Restaurant. This was our first stop in town, and we came back several times a day for the rest of our stay in Hoi An. We never ate at the Cargo Club because we couldn’t get past the amazing sandwiches and deserts at the patisserie. They don’t serve banh mi – just Western style sandwiches. My favorite was a warm goat cheese sandwich on a baguette. They had lots of other great sandwiches, but I can’t remember what any of them were. Hoi An was our second to last stop on our trip and it satisfied all the Western food cravings we’d been having all along. My boyfriend is a major chocoholic and he was pretty much beside himself when he saw their desert case. They have individually sized, sinfully decadent chocolate cakes in several varieties that look like desserts that would be served in gourmet restaurants in the U.S. At $2 each, it took major will power for him to limit himself to two per day.

Ms. Vy’s Cooking School is run out this restaurant. I took the half day course, which included a market tour, a hands-on cooking lesson, and lunch. I highly recommend this course. One of the students in our class was very curious about Vietnamese culture and asked Ms. Vy lots of questions about food and Vietnam in general. It was fascinating to hear what she had to say – she’s a very interesting person – she owns and runs at least three restaurants in Hoi An in addition to the cooking school, which is an amazing success in Vietnam. One more thing about the class – we were shown some of the stalls in the market that prepare food, one of which was a banh xeo stall. I ordered one – it was maybe 25 or 50 cents – and it was delicious. A great snack if you’re hungry while wandering through the market.

It was absolutely pouring rain the entire time we were in Hoi An, which cut down on our enjoyment of the town and also on many of the activities we had planned. I had really wanted to go to a restaurant on the outskirts of town on the beach that is famous for its crabs – Quan Nhan, 9 Thanh Tay, Cam Chau, Cua Dai. We never made it out there because we kept hoping for a clear day when we could go and enjoy the beach as well, but we never got one.

PHU QUOC

We stayed at the Mai House Resort (which I recommend) and ate all of our meals, except one, at their restaurant. I had read they had some of the best food on the island, and we were in full-blown relaxation mode after having been traveling for three and a half weeks at that point, so we didn’t bother to venture anywhere else. I highly recommend the red snapper with hot salt, the garlic bong he (greens sautéed with garlic), and the garlic rice. The snapper is a whole fish, so it’s plenty for two people, and it’s not too salty or spicy, despite the name. It’s just incredibly delicious. They didn’t have the snapper every night we were there, but we ordered it every night they did. If you’re staying somewhere else, try to call during the day to find out if they’ll have snapper that night. This meal was expensive by Vietnamese standards, but a bargain for the quality and freshness of all the ingredients. I can’t remember the exact price, but I don’t think the whole meal was more than $20 – and it might have been more like $10-$15 (U.S.).

[nakji]

Hey Caitlin! Welcome to eGullets!

I'm glad you had a great time here in Vietnam. It sounds like you got to try some authentic eats, which is always great when you travel. Eating rolled pho by Truc Bach lake is one of my favourite things to do in Hanoi. I think you had fried pho (pho chien) - the stuff with the brown gravy? My husband loves it. Did you try pho when you were in Hanoi? Any Hanoian will tell you Hanoi is the best place to eat pho!

If you want to post photos, you need to upload them to ImageGullet first, then copy and paste the location into your post using the IMG tags in the post screen.

I've never tried Cha Ca La Vong, because my husband hates fish, but I should definitely make a point of going.

[miladyinsanity]

You two make a great pair. One SO doesn't eat shellfish, and the other doesn't eat fish.

I hope you manage to post the pictures, Caitlin. Sounds like you had a great trip!

[Peter Green]

Yes, please run up some of the photos!

Good choices in Penh. Khmer Surin's fish amok is one of my favourites. The dish is called a khnom khrok, it's often used in Thai food for desserts, but that dish is an amazing appetizer.

And Friends is a nice little spot. I like the work they're doing with the street kids, and they play around with things on the menu.

But, again, photos! Especially of Vietnam! I do need to get back there.

[Caitlin]

Thanks for the help, nakji. Here are my Saigon food pictures (captions are above):

Banh Xeo

Pho Bo at Pho 2000

Pho Bo at Pho Hoa

Chao Vit Thanh Da

[Caitlin]

Hanoi pictures:

Cha Ca at Cha Ca La Vong

Rolled Pho (Pho Cuon), Fried Pho, and another Pho

Sign at the Rolled Pho Restaurant

Coconut Ice Cream

[nakji]

That's the rolled pho place I always eat at!

Cool!

[Domestic Goddess]

Wow! What an extensive food report, Caitlin. After seeing all those pictures, I have decided that I wanna visit Vietnam and Cambodia for a food-tasting tour.

[jmolinari]

Thanks for the report..i will use the places you name when we visit!

[BonVivant]

an enjoyable read. brings back many delicious memories. also did the trip in dec-jan 2004-2005 but didn't take detailed notes to go with the photos. i planned to stay on Phu Quoc 3 days but ended up staying 7, leaving on the 8th. by now it's probably well on its way to become another Koh Samui with all the fancy 'resorts' being constructed everywhere. did you go to Phu Quoc fish sauce factory?