Touch down in Ho Chi Minh….phheewww…the usual large sea of motorbikes…
The hosts booked me into Vien Dong Hotel…@ USD80/nights inclusive of breakfast, while we were at the lobby..we were entertained by musicians and dancers..oh oh..this definitely smelled of a tourist hotel !
I was asked what I would like to have for dinner..Ah, surely Vietnamese Food mahhh ! The driver dropped us off at Vietnamese House . Soft lights, red napkins, wine bottles and all…
For drinks , I ordered a young coconut. I don’t think they expect me to eat the coconut as they didn’t give me a spoon to do the scraping..
For starters, we had Vietnam House Sampler (VNM 129,000). Pork pie : the texture was like steamed egg with meat, the pie didn’t taste very porky-ish but was light and quite enjoyable. Papaya salad : this didn’t pack as much a punch as as the Thai version of som-tam. Fried spring roll : This came not mounted on the customary sugar cane stick but was yummy as usual. Charboiled Beef in ‘Lot’ leaves: Initially I thought the black covering was seaweed, turned out to be some kinda leaf, from my internet search Lot leaf = wild betel leaf, the leaf didn’t have much flavour which allow the flavour of the beef to shine through> this is my favourite amongst the four starters.
Pan fried shrimps and green rice raviolis (119,000 VND) : this was a pretty dish and am happy to report that this taste as good as it looked. The shrimp paste had that strong sweet flavour of shrimp and the texture soft yet firm. Can’t find any fault with this.
Clam in lemongrass – ah..the soup had the subtle light fragrant of lemongrass , this was simple, fresh and nice..
We had progressed with dinner although the Big Boss was caught in the Ho Chi Minh jam and had not yet arrived, so at this point, the waitress was asked to slow down the serving of the dishes…. ahh finally…Madam Boss had arrived and the dishes continue to fill our table..
Steam Grouper in bean paste : There were a lot of garnishing ( and bean paste) on the grouper that they almost seemed to drowned the fish…I was worried that the bean paste would make the fish over salty but luckily this was not the case. Due to the long wait for Madam Boss, the fish was slightly over cooked, which made the meat a bit tough, which was a pity as the fish was fresh and would have been smooth and sweet
Sautéed morning glory with garlic ( 69,000 VND) : fried garlic were sprinkled on sautéed kangkong, this was a bit too plain and the KangKong was a bit over chewy.
Bittergourd soup with shrimp balls : thinly sliced bitterguoards and tasty shrimp balls. The broth was nothing to shout about though
Fried rice in lotus leaf : I couldn’t taste any infusion of the flavours from the leaf into the rice and I wasn’t sure was it due to our delay in getting the food on our table that result in the rice being a bit dry and the meat a bit tough and ‘old’ . This was so-so for me
Overall, an interesting meal
Website : http://www.vietnamhousesaigon.com/home/en.html
location :
Banana leave grilled tofu (Đậu Hũ chiên giòn) …. this was the only item on our lunch table that I can be very sure of naming correctly from the online menu - soft tofu wrapped in banana leave and grilled, the aroma of the grilled banana leaves were absorbed into the tofu and made the tofu rather aromatic and smokey-ish , the tofu were supposed to be dipped into a cincalok- ish sauce ( fermented tiny prawns) , the cincalok sauce was very pungent and a bit over salty. I saw the agony in my mat salleh colleague’s eyes when he tried the cincalok, and the uncertainness of should he spit or swallow the cincalok stained tofu…..ah..priceless. ; )
The various dips served with our meals : clockwise : fish sauce ( the clear yellowish sauce ) , salt and grounded pepper, rock salt and peppercorns , Vietnamese cincalok
Seafood spring rolls Chả Giò Hải sản – fried popiah loorr…with seafood for filings, as my usual mantra- deep fried stuff are usually delicious , these were too
Cockles in sweet and sour sauce, this was the first time I had cockles cooked this way as usually only the more glamourous la-la are cooked in such a way. The cockles were fresh and juicy and the sticky gooey gravy works well with the mollusk. Searching from the online menu , I wonder if this dish is : Sò Huyết cháy Tỏi , translated by Google to be rather vampire-ishly > Blood flow to cockle , Coo…gross or what ?
Grilled fish – I am not sure what kind of fish this was but I think it was like a catfish thingy. The grilled fish was fresh , (the waiter came by with the live fish in a plastic bag as evidence before it was killed) but the meat was tasteless. The fish was suppose to be dipped into the rock salt and peppercorns , and wow…it totally changed the flavour of the fish from bland to ROCKSTAR, no wonder wars were fought over spice.. and Beckham married Victoria.
Deep fried ribs , this taste like nam-yu ( fermented beanpaste) ribs, the meat was tender but the taste were a bit overpowering for my liking
Fish hot pot – as per earlier day experience where the spare-parts of the chicken were made into another dish -soup, the fish shared the same fate…spare part of the fish that we had earlier were made into soup.. There were bamboo shoots and tomatoes in the sour soup with the fish head, fish bones, fish fins, etc . The sourness of the sour soup can be from the tiny sour belimbing , asam gelugor, sour leaves or processed sour –rice. we soaked our rice with the soup and oh..it was gorgeous..i think I am liking the sour soup very muchie…
Overall, an enjoyable meal…
