Dining out - Phan Thiết's specialities in Sài gòn!

I wouldn't say what I'm sharing with you is our street food, but it's 100% surely not from fancy dining spot, it's just a very down-to-earth eating place, where you can spend good time with friends, having very good food and it doesn't damage your wallet very much at the end!

My first "dining out" post is "Specialities from Phan homeland!"(Đặc sản Đất Phan). Phan here means Phan Thiết, 200km away from Sài gòn, a center of many well-known resorts by South China Sea or locally we call East Sea, a very hot spot for many tourist in Vietnam and overseas, a week-end relaxing place for families. In next several years, hopefully, Phan Thiết could become one of the most competitive destinations for tourists in South East Asia along with Phuket or Bali!

We arrived to "Đất Phan" around 7:00PM, while waiting for another friends, we have "fish cake roll" as starters. It's a rice paper roll filled with fish cake (of course!), boiled duck egg, very crispy deep-fried rice paper, a lot of veggies and dipping peanut sauce! When I bite this roll, I love the sound from crispy deep fried rice paper inside! Amazing!  

Chả cuốn (Fish cake roll) and peanut fish sauce

Quick look what's inside after a bite! (clockwise: boiled duck egg, fish cake, deep fried very crispy rice paper, veggies) 

 Next one is a collection of threes dishes with squids, first one is fried-with-fish-sauce (chiên nước mắm) small squids with their eggs inside, it looks good, quite special taste due to the eggs! Then next dish is bigger squid steamed with ginger, dipping chili sauce! Squid's meat is nicely chewy, sweet and tender! The last one in this "squid collection" is "Mực một nắng" chiên! (literally means deep fried "dried-for-one-sunny-day"squid!). Very good! No words to describe!

Mực ống trứng chiên nước mắm (squids with egg fried in fish sauce!) 

Mực ống lớn hấp gừng (Big squids steamed with ginger)

Mực một nắng chiên (Deep fried dried-for-one-sunny-day squids)

After squids, we move to another collection: fresh fish! First one is steamed mackerel, we wrap with rice paper, veggies and dip into sweet chili fish sauce! Next one is "Cá Bóp", I have no English name, but I was told this fish only lives in Central area of Vietnam! The meat is sweet and tasty! I love fish very much so now "Bóp" is in my list!

Cá nục hấp gừng (Steamed mackerel with ginger) 

My favorite "Bóp" steamed... again with ginger!

We still order one more speciality from "Phan homeland" but will share with you in another post about Vietnamese "udon" (bánh canh)! Now just let you know how big is the damage after dinner and for 7 of us! 1,100,000 VND in total, it  means 50 USD!  7 USD per each! Good price for very good dinner at a good place! Hope you enjoy our seafood dinner visually! 

Address: Đặc sản Phan Thiết "Đất Phan" 397 Bùi Đình Túy, P14, Q. Bình Thạnh

Tel: 08 3510 3987 or mobile 0913 193 825