Sai Gon faves

See pin

Need glasses? A concentration of shops in this area.

lots of great little restaurants and food stands, usually open late. Personal faves include the cluster of stands near the corner of vo van tan (see red pin).

This intersection has a number of roast duck places. There are also a few bakeries/bread vendors - Vietnamese people like to have their duck with baguettes, it seems!

This strip comes alive at night, with clothing and accessories vendors selling their wares on the footpaths. Prepare for traffic mayhem, as a lot of the Vina kids like to ride up and down (not unlike Chapel St in Melbourne) stopping to hang out with their friends, or buy a new t-shirt or some shoes.

This is the backpacker district, and has all the attendant South East Asia backpacker conveniences, like travel agencies, laundry by the kilo, internet cafes, restaurants serving a mish-mash of foreign foods. There is a good Thai restaurant (Lemongrass?) here, amongst other things.

Iconic, and useful for all that souvenir shopping - prepare to haggle hard, though. At night, the market is closed, but a night market springs up outside. Great pop up restaurants - I think Saigon Stars was one of the better ones?

Great for fabrics. Good food along the side, produce out the back.

A smallish market, not great for shopping, but has interesting food options down Vuon Chuoi St, and the little alleys that run off it (So 3 and So 2 mostly)

An indoor market, with over a hundred little stalls, selling DVDs, electronics, sunglasses, wallets, bags and clothing.

A shopping experience - hordes and hordes of locals shop at this supermarket. Be prepared to elbow your way in at the checkouts!

My favourite supermarket. Not many people shop here, so queues are short, and there's a good selection of pseudo-western products (like decent cheese, and button mushrooms).

Extends between Dong Khoi and Nguyen Hue streets. Reasonable for DVDs, souvenirs, jewellery, sunglasses. Bargain hard.

Banh Mi stand - she has banh bao (steameed pork buns) too!

Com tam stand - the banh trung (egg pate) here is especially good

Banh Cuon stand - the lady makes the banh cuon fresh (often on the spot, if she's busy and running short) so there's some theatre involved.

In the evenings (though unfortunately not too late) a banana dessert stand runs here, in the space of a florist?

Grilled bananas in sticky rice, with a taro/coconut sauce are the go here. They do take-away, mostly.

An awesome banh mi lady - you'll recognise her by the minority headdress she wears (a lot like a mini-turban). She does a mean banh mi trung (egg) but her main innovation is using chilli sauce instead of fresh chillies. Some might say this is bad, but I think even chilli distribution is a good thing.

In the mornings, a lady sells Ha Noi style sticky rice here. She's got a big steamer and a sign. It's got chrysanthemum petals through it, and mung beans (and a little fatty pork) in the middle. Tasty (and filling) breakfast for 6000VND.

A good Chao Long (congee) hole-in-the-wall place. They do Chao Vit too (duck congee).

Stall's still here in Dec 2010. V good Chao Vit indeed!

Great little food stands which locals frequent nightly.

Lots of coffee shops surround htis intersection, which is where the Vietnamese youths hang out at night, when they're not parked on their motos, canoodling, in the middle of the roundabout along with the dried cuttlefish vendors. The whole intersection smells of cuttlefish. Great! Or horrible, if you don't like that smell.

Good little com dia (rice + bain marie dishes) place.

Arguably the best (or most famous) pho restaurant in Sai Gon. Go beef here.

Not sure of the name, but there are chickens hanging in the window. Best pho ga in Sai Gon I tasted. Love the cute little dogs that wander through the restaurant too.

If you're after Cha Ca (a Northern grilled fish and vermicelli dish) this would be a good place to go.

Great place for Bun Cha and Hai Phong-style crab spring rolls as big as your fist.

There are actually two other locations around town, but this one is my favourite. It's pricey (for Viet Nam) but soooo worth it. Make sure you get the chrysanthemum leaves if they have them!

See the other Ashima entry for details. Mushroomy greatness!

The pho 2000 that Bill Clinton visited. Consistently good pho - and according to vego friends, the best vegetarian pho in the city.

another branch of pho 2000 here.

Not sure of the name, but many mock meats are on offer here. Make sure you get a table in the airy downstairs, as the upstairs is rather claustrophobic!

While this is purportedly a pho restaurant, their pho isn't much chop. Their bo kho, however, is great! Have it with a banh mi, or with noodles. Both are great.

A series of restaurants here (with young guys spruiking/parking motorbikes) which offer great variety of soup noodles (bun and banh canh). I recommend the bun bo Hue and the bun cua (not sure about htat name, but it's the crab noodle soup).

During the day, this place sells AWESOME bun mag vit (duck and bamboo shoot noodle soup). I don't think it's open at night. On Buddhist vegetarian days (twice a month) they change it up to vegetarian fare.

Run by a Buddhist nun (who speaks a little English) this place has amazingly good vegetaian fare. Try the stuffed bean curd, as well as the spring rolls.

The place to go for cheap, reliably good massage. Massage is en masse in a room with partitions, separate rooms for males and females. Also separate sauna/steam room/hot tub sections, all included in the price of a massage.

Careful you don't go to the Ngoc Anh closer to Dien Bien Phu. It's much more upmarket, with prices in USD.

My uncle and cousin took me here. Can't remember the exact street number. Great banh xeo. Great spring rolls. Great shrimp/mung bean cakes. They're usually frying them out the front during the day. They look like muffins.

Nice little Japanese restaurant down an alleyway. It's got neon lights, so you should be able to see it from Nguyen Binh Khiem.

Good steaks for low prices, French style. Steak will probably set you back about 80-100,000VND. They also do a mean goat's cheese 'salad'. It's a slab of goat's cheese on a chunk of bread.

Charming courtyard, but bring your mosquito repellent.

Need a break from Vietnamese food? Try the polar extreme - burgers and chips. Black cat has a 2lb burger (bigger than most people's faces) - if you finish it, you get your picture on the wall.

Juice bar that also does good sandwiches. I think it's Australian owned, because there seems to be copies of the latest New Idea and Woman's Day magazines floating around the place all the time.

One of the many places you can go for suckling pig. It's a truly massive restaurant, where massive Vietnamese families congregate to eat not-so-massive pigs. Awesome.

A decent place for banh xeo (it's pretty famous thanks to Lonely Planet). The banh xeo is a little too oily for my liking.

A good place for yum cha. It's a la carte, but it's all you can eat (in two hours). Otherwise, it's a very reputable Chinese restaurant. Always meant to try the Peking duck there, but didn't get around to it.

Not amazing, but easy and accessible restaurant which has all the Vietnamese specialties under one roof. Popular with tourists and locals alike, so book in advance.

A sanitised version of the Vietnamese BBQ/grill at the table restaurant. There are cheaper versions out there, but this place is reliably good. Service can be a little patchy. Try the beef and cheese.

Also, it's outdoors, so apply repellent liberally.

One of the many Mon Hue restaurants. Decent Hue-style dishes, though I've had better bun bo Hue elsewhere. Try the rice with baby clams (com hen)!

http://gastronomy.wordpress.com/2007/08/24/nha-hang-mon-hue/

Great restaurant that does good cha gio (spring rolls) and banh xeo.

Run by Vietnamese muslims - good com dia options for lunch.

A Japanese okonomiyaki restaurant.

A cool little restaurant up a spiral staircase. Great clams. Has another branch down an alley off Ly Tu Trong facing Ben Thanh market.

Nice restaurant, with claypot rice being the specialty. Waiters ceremoniously smash the terracotta pot in wich the rice has been cooked, and throw the rice across the room to one another. Give the rice time to soak in sauces, it's often rock hard!

An institution, with more than 30 flavours on offer. Try the young rice and coconut flavours.

Enchanting little Lebanese restaurant - beautiful decor, good food. A bit pricey. Down an alleyway - look for the neon sign. Blue, I think?

Restaurant (Hanoian chain) that specialises in different types of spring rolls and rice paper rolls.

Good Indian restaurant. A touch pricey.

Fun Czech brewhouse, serving 'traditional' Czech food, and beer by the pint/keg/tower.

Great little place with ICE COLD beers, good grilled seafood, as well as mean clams in lemongrass broth. Perch on little plastic chairs with the locals and watch the traffic roll by at night.

Overpriced drinks with a truly gaudy rooftop setup (check out those concrete elephants!) make for a truly Vina experience. Nice view of the city at night, actually. Cool uncool Philipino cover bands some nights.

An expat fave, the bar serves good drinks, and decent tapas/pizza.

A Spanish-themed bar, favoured by expats. Head for the rooftop, with decent views while you down a jug of sangria (OK, so the sangria's not that good, but in this heat, it's just fine).

In a little courtyard along with Vino (Australian owned wine bar/shop) and an upscale Vietnamese restaurant, Vasco's is one of the livelier bars on the weekends. They used to run a ladies night on Thursdays? where ladies get free prosecco all night.

A discreetly positioned gay bar (ironically above a Gloria Jean's. It's pretty dead except on weekends, between 10:30pm and 1am.

Swishy little upmarket bar owned by my friends My and David.

Cafe. Good for coffee and wifi.

Go here for the sheer gaudiness - the interiors are kind of amazing - and to watch the Vietnamese bourgeoisie watch each other.

My favourite karaoke joint in Sai Gon. Good English selection, and open late-ish (until about 1am).

Mmmm, caramel corn.

Lets you draw up to 9,900,000VND in one transaction (if you get there early enough in the day). Otherwise it's the standard 4,000,000 limit.

Decent pool - almost empty during the middle of the day (Vietnamese people like to try to stay pale) but the change rooms are a bit icky (the male ones are rather cruisey, but not in a good way). Wear your thongs.

A cool place to hang around late afternoon, when people come out to kick the shuttlecock, play badminton, do some brisk strolling, or en masse aerobics!

Ex-pat grade health care at Western prices. Reassuring, as long as you have travel insurance!

It's a long way from D1, but if you're out this way, stop by for late night sweet tofu, or black sesame soup. Yeah, it sounds gross, but it's oh so good!