Street food in Ho Chi MinhCity (Saigon) is arguably the best in Vietnam. The street food scene in Saigon
permeates every district, neighbourhood and alleyway. The city boasts so many
street food outlets that Saigon feels like one gigantic open-air restaurant.
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Food + atmosphere = street food
Every day tens of thousands
of street-side eateries offer up delicious, cheap food in an informal
environment on the city’s sidewalks. Street food is about more than food; it’s
about atmosphere and ambience. As a friend of mine pointed out, if you took
street food home with you it wouldn’t taste anywhere near as good as it does on
the street. Eating street food is without doubt one of the best things to do in
Saigon.
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Night Hawk: street food stalls illuminate saigon’s street
On this page I’ve put
together a list and guide to my five favourite streets for street food in
Saigon. There are photos and a description of each street, including my
recommendations of particular places to eat, and all the streets are plotted on
my map. While some people have strict definitions of what is and isn’t ‘street
food’, I define it as anything that’s eaten outside, on the street, at
affordable prices.
LIST OF STREETS:
1.
Vạn Kiếp Street: border of Phú Nhuận & Bình Thạnh districts
2. Sư Vạn Hạnh Street: District 10
3. Vĩnh Khánh Street: District 4
4. Phan Văn Hân Street: Bình Thạnh
District
5. Cô Giang Street: District 1
GUIDE TO STREETS:
In oder of my own personal
preference:
1. Vạn Kiếp Street: border
of Phú Nhuận & Bình Thạnh districts
Even in the light drizzle
of a cool rainy season evening Vạn Kiếp Street is a thrilling exhibition of
Vietnamese street food. Showcasing dozens of different dishes all in the space
of a couple hundred metres, Vạn Kiếp Street straddles the border of two of
Saigon’s most vibrant districts, Phú Nhuận and Bình Thạnh. Neon signs prick the
night, illuminating the slanting rain as they announce the specialities of each
food and drink outlet: phở, bánh canh cua, bánh mì, bánh xèo, bún mắm, bún bò
Huế, bún chả, nem nướng, chè - there must be at least fifty different dishes
available on this street and over a hundred eateries to choose from. The street
is packed with young Vietnamese – I rarely see any customers over the age of 30
– all clustered around small plastic tables, hunched over on small plastic
stools, talking, eating, gesticulating, laughing.
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Skewers for grilling at Quán Út Lang
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Don’t miss Quán Út Lang, an
intoxicating barbeque joint with mounds of fresh meat, seafood and vegetables
on skewers, cooked to order over a huge coal-fired grill, on the corner of Vạn
Kiếp and Phan Xích Long streets: the grilled octopus (bạch tuộc nướng) is
incredible. There’s good bún chả (northern-style rice noodles and grilled pork
patties) available at Quán Ăn 3 Miền, 157A Vạn Kiếp. The pork is grilled on the
sidewalk (a common scene in Hanoi) and the scented smoke wafts into the street,
enticing all who pass to stop and eat, like a vaporous Siren.
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Grilling on the sidewalk for bún chả
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2. Sư Vạn Hạnh Street:
District 10
Sư Vạn Hạnh is a long,
lively street in general, but the section between Ngô Gia Tự and Nguyễn Chí
Thanh streets is partiuclarly frenetic and jam-packed with excellent street
food. When I lived just up the road from here my housemates and I would call it
‘The Ghetto’ because the area is dominated by several run-down, Soviet-style
apartment blocks. Because there are so many people living so closely together
in this neighbourrhood (and because conditions are so cramped inside that
people would rather spend their time outside) the area’s street-life is
exceptionally vibrant. Food stalls, vendors, casual eateries, cafes and bars
line the street, all in the shadow of the delapidated apartment complex. Young
and old, families and couples take their seats on plastic stools at metallic
tables and tuck into the various street treats on offer. The contrast between
the energy and colour of the street food scene here and the grey, grim,
concrete bleakness of the apartment buildings (some of which are now in a state
of demolition) is extreme and compelling.
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Bánh xèo cooking on the street side
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This street’s speciality is
bánh xèo (savoury crepes filled with pork and bean sprouts). Dozens of places
serve small bánh xèo cooked on circular trays over flaming, coal-fired
barbecues. My favourite is at 004 Lô H (literally ‘Block H’), where the family
have been in the bánh xèo business on the same spot for 14 years. At the corner
with Hòa Hảo Street there’s a good Chinese-style noodle outlet called Tai Phát.
Try the mì vịt tiềm (egg noodles with duck in a deeply aromatic broth). The
noodles are sold from a classic xe mì (noodle trolley) decorated with painted
dragons and scenes from Chinese mythology. Right at the southern end of Block H
(Lô H) there’s an outstanding Vietnamese dessert stall on the corner. This
place is rammed with young Vietnamese who gather around the tiny tables in
groups to enjoy any of the sixteen defferent kinds of dessert sold here. All of
them are gooey, sweet, colourful and involve sticky rice, green bean or coconut
milk in some form or another. The textures and flavours might be unfamiliar to
most foreign palates but the sheer variety and youthful energy of this stall
make it one of my favourite street food finds in recent months.
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Choose from 16 different desserts
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She’s been serving bánh xèo for 14 years
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3. Vĩnh Khánh Street:
District 4
Apparently one of the
favourite haunts of the notorious Vietnamese gangster Năm Cam (executed in
2004), today Vĩnh Khánh Street is one of the most popular places for street
food in Saigon, especially seafood. Every night young people throng the
sidewalks sporting trendy hairdos, tattoos, and the latest fashions from South
Korea – you rarely see anyone over the age of 25 here. The atmosphere is
electric: hundreds of small and large groups of friends hunker down at tiny red
and blue plastic tables, splitting shells, cracking crab legs, clinking beer
glasses and having a really good time. As if the thundering cacophony of
laughter, traffic, and orders being shouted wasn’t enough, some enterprising
teenagers pull up on the curbside with giant amplifiers strapped to the backs
of their motorbikes and proceed to blast out karaoke for the ‘entertainment’ of
all street food customers. There are fire eaters and street dancers too. To say
that the food scene here is vibrant is an understatement: it’s choatic, loud,
busy, oppressive, unrelenting and a glorious celebration of food, fun and
youth.
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Vinh Khanh street is the famous for seafood
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Head to Ốc Oanh (534 Vĩnh
Khánh Street) for seafood and shellfish. This is the most famous of all the
seafood joints on the street. In Vietnam fame often leads to apathy and a
decline in quality, but this is not the case at Ốc Oanh where the portions are
big, the seafood fresh, and the service brisk and efficient. Try the ốc hương
ràn muối ớt (fried sea snails with salt and chilli) and the sò điệp nướng mỡ
hành (grilled scallops with spring onions and peanuts). Prices are a little
higher here than elsewhere but it’s worth it. Be prepared to wait a few minutes
for a table, and don’t be shy to shout over the din when it comes to ordering.
Near the intersection with Hoàng Diệu Street is Quán BBQ Lúa (33 Vĩnh Khánh
Street). The speciality here is grill-it-yourself barbecued meat. A small
coal-fired stove is placed on your table onto which you lay chunks of marinated
beef, pork, goat and fish. The sườn heo ngũ vị (pork ribs in five spice
marinade) is delicious.
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Street side barbecue at BBQ Lúa
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4. Phan Văn Hân Street:
Bình Thạnh District
A long, narrow street
connecting two of Saigon’s biggest arteries, Phan Văn Hân Street is lined with
cheap food stalls frequented by locals and students from nearby universities.
Just across the Thị Nghè Channel from the glitz and glamour of Saigon’s central
District 1, Phan Văn Hân Street has a very local, unpretentious atmosphere. The
street is densely packed with food vendors, shops, homes, businesses and
motorbikes, creating an intimate environment where space (which is in short
supply) is often shared. Snail and shellfish eateries – lit by naked
fluorescent light bulbs – set up on the pavement next to the peeling plaster of
old homes; bánh xèo stalls occupy local people’s doorsteps; soup vendors serve
customers at tiny tables on a slither of sidewalk no more than a few feet wide.
The scented smoke from all these food vendors drifts into the street, where
their wonderful aromas mingle with the exhaust fumes from passing traffic.
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Shellfish eatery on the street
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This is a very lively
little neighbourhood where all the classic Vietnamese street food dishes are
well-represented. Come between 6.00-8.30pm to experience it at its busiest. Try
the delicious bánh xèo at 101/2 Phan Văn Hân; they’re crispy on the outside but
moist on the inside: perfect. A fried street food classic bột chiên (rice flour
cubes that I often refer to as ‘Vietnamese French fries’) can be found right on
the corner of Phan Văn Hân and Xô Viết Nghẹ Tĩnh streets. The vendor here has
been serving bột chiện for 20 years and has gotten pretty darn good at it. One
of the most famous noodle joints in the area Lương Ký Mì Gia (1 Huỳnh Mẫn Đạt
Street) is right at the eastern extreme of Phan Văn Hân Street. They sell all
sorts of noodles but the dish that brought them fame is mì vịt tiềm (fresh
yellow noodles with marintated duck) – get here early because they run out of
this popular dish fast.
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Bánh xèo at 101/2 Phan Văn Hân street
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She’s been serving bột chiên for 20 years
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5. Cô Giang Street:
District 1
Cô Giang is a long, straight
street that unofficially marks the southern perimeter of Saigon’s burgeoning
backpacker area in District 1. However, Cô Giang Street is a lot quieter than
Phạm Ngũ Lão, Bùi Viện and Đề Thám streets whose bars, western restaurants and
mini-marts make up the centre of the backpacker district. In general,
travellers who choose to stay or spend time on Cô Giang Street are looking to
get something more ‘authentic’, more ‘Vietnamese’ from their time in Saigon.
While Cô Giang is not as densely packed with food stalls as other streets in
this list, it still offers plenty of local street-life and bustling open-air
eateries, especially around the intersection of Cô Giang and Đề Thám streets.
In the evenings bright fluorescent light bulbs illuminate streetside barbeques,
whooshing woks, and bubbling cauldrons. Scented cooking smoke fills the air and
hangs, like a Dickensian fog, over the diners sitting at tables on the
sidewalk.
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Smoke fills the night on Cô Giang Street
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Right on the corner of Cô
Giang and Đề Thám streets there’s a cluster of hugely popular outdoor
restaurants, specializing in thick Chinese-style fried noodles called hủ tiếu
xào. Quán 17 is particularly good for this dish and there are plenty of other
items on the menu here – most of which have been translated into inadvertently
hilarious English, thanks, I suspect, to Google Translate: ‘vegetable of
transcendent garlic’ was one of my favourites. Don’t miss the stalls selling bò
lá lốt (grilled beef rolled in aromtic betel leaf); they’re easy to find
because of the smoking barbecues out front and the enticing smell. The bò lá lốt
at Hoàng Yến (121 Cô Giang Street) is superb and very cheap too (20,000VNĐ per
portion).
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Multi-tasking: beef rolled in betel leaf on the grill
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From: Vietnamcoracle
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