Three sisters - Sương Sâm, Sáo and Sa! (Glass jelly)

I don't think foreigners like this jelly drink, it may look strange to them and especially its smell or
taste, but it's healthy! I'm talking about sương sâm, sương sa and sương sáo! Like three sisters having a nice family name "Sương"! "Sương" literally means the tiny drops of water that form on cool surfaces at night!
These names sound nice and good enough to impress us with their ability to cool down any thirst in the heat of summer days!

            Sương sáo (black glass jelly) 

There was a time that I confused... sương sâm is dark green color jelly, but sương sa is white or black jelly? Now it's clear to me! Sương sa is white jelly and most expensive, sương sáo is black and a bit cheaper. Sương sâm is the cheapest and most popular! 

             Sương sa, white glass jelly - most expensive! 

            Black glass jelly in the market 

Sương sâm made from the leaves of flowering plant named "Tiliacora triandra", and to my surprise, it's very simple to make this green jelly. We just crush, mash or crumple the leaves in a bowl of water, until the water becomes green, then it takes probably few hours for the green liquid to coagulate! Then we have soft as jelly-like consistency, ready for us to make a cool refreshment!

         Sương sâm, the cheapest among three jelly dew! 

Vietnamese family meal

I have a habit...with curiosity to learn what Cambodian, Thai, Japanese, Korean, French or Russian... normally eat at home, what is their routine dish for lunch & dinner?

There was a time that I thought Japanese eat sushi for lunch and dinner at home everyday or my favorite Russian salad (famous Olivier salad) is a part of everyday's family dinner in Russia!
I was wrong!

Same as for Vietnamese - we don't eat, we don't prepare spring rolls for regular meal! We have very common dish for lunch and dinner and by somehow it becomes super popular food that we easily buy from the street stall or order "à la carte" at the fancy restaurant...to treat our guests!

Usually for Vietnamese, at home, we prepare mostly three or four dishes : one soup (or we call canh), one or two savory dishes (món mặn) and veggies - fresh (rau sống), boiled (rau luộc) or stirred (rau xào), together with cooked rice! 

        Sweet sour soup with fish - one of the most favorite dishes at home in Vietnam, esp. in South!  

These days our life is changing, people seems more busy to cook at home, many small eateries appeared in the street, or around office buildings to serve those family dishes... The 60' break for lunch is more than enough for many office people to walk around the workplace, to select those food that we used to eat at home before! Total cost is around 30-40 k Vietnamese Đồng!

           A slice of freshly fried mackerel at a family restaurant! 

Usually at these places we have more choices for savory dishes but only one or two - for soup! To me, a fish lover, I always order some fried or braised fish. My all times favorite is freshly fried mackerel or another one - braised pork meat with duck eggs.

Noodles with beef stew (Hủ tiếu bò kho)

Another star among the best street food in Sài Gòn!
The smell, the color and the taste of white noodles with beef stew or hủ tiếu bò kho are just so amazing! It would be one of those favorite street foods by many Asians living in Vietnam. I have an old Japanese friend who came here to work. He just fell in love with hủ tiếu bò kho! He has it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I asked him what he likes the most in this dish? When our beef is not that good as your Kobe beef! Surprisingly he said - Beef! It's tender (sure because we stew for hours!), so tasty (of course as we marinate beef with many species!) and it's good!

           White noodles with beef stew (hủ tiếu bò kho)  

And I do love beef stew too! Either with white noodles (hủ tiếu) or with bread! But for bread, the soup should be thicker! Specially I love beef tendon (gân), the feeling to chew a tasty tender tendon in the mouth is always nice! We can have beef stew with yellow noodles as well!

              as famous beef noodles (phở) hủ tiếu bò kho tastes better when some aromatic herbs added...

              as duck-tongue herb (ngò gai) or Vietnamese basil (húng quế) 

Actually I have no idea where the noodles with beef stew comes from! Chinese ? I guess it could be created by some chef after tasting another dish called "bò nấu lagu"(beef stew ..in lagu style???), if  lagu dish requires mostly western ingredients like red wine, tomato paste, potatoes, carrots...while beef stew (bò kho) - oriental spices and only carrots! 

              I'm not a big fan for spicy taste, but my friend is, he loves those small and super hot chili 

But I realized that the way to cook beef stew is similar to beef curry but without only curry leaves, beef stew requires exactly same spices...as five spice powder ( star anise, cardamom, lemon grass...)!

Anyway, we may have different recipes for this super popular dish as it's easy to prepare at home for family weekend gathering, but at the same time the white noodles with beef stew - hủ tiếu bò kho is surely in the list of those street foods that we can't live without!

Frog curry (Cà ri ếch)

I always wonder how many nations love the marvelous curry and consider it as their national traditional pride, except India! Thailand? Japan? or even Vietnam?
When I started this blog half year ago, I have a post about the curry noodles (bún càri) and I did mention about my experience in India, when I realized that many things can cook as curry: from very traditional chicken, beef, goat or lamb to fish, frog, eel...or from favorite sweet potatoes, carrot to okra, eggplant, beans and ...chili! Curry chili!?
Every nation always makes the curry as their own signature dish by adding some specific ingredient as lemon grass in Thai curry or a lot of big onions to thicken the Japanese curry sauce!

               Curry is so popular in Sài Gòn, easy to find many kinds of curry in the city!  

In Vietnam as street food we easily find many stalls selling chicken curry with bread, or duck curry with rice vermicelli, and the most popular among those people who love to drink is the goat curry where they enjoy drinking more than eating!

I still remember when I was kid, in our neighborhood, there was a man, my mom's acquaintance. He already passed away long ago. At that time he had a huge billiard house in Nguyen Trai street and probably he was a millionaire in 1970s (millionaire in 70s was much more valuable than today's millionaires in our country as our currency đồng has been very much devalued).

One beautiful day in order to celebrate some special event, that I already forgot, he cooked a very good  curry to treat the whole our neighborhood. Hundreds of people! The curry taste at that time was so yummy, so tasty to a young kid like me, that I never forget! Mr Bông, his name, was so kind, so generous gentleman but his family situation is another touching story.

            Look like chicken legs but actually it's frog's legs! Frog curry! 

Snails - trendy street food for young Vietnamese

I'm a not that trendy to follow all new "eating trends" among the youth in Saigon! What to eat, where to eat out...but sometime I pass by certain streets and I realized ...yeah it should be something new there.
Groups of young people sitting behind small table, eating something, drinking beer or soft drink, shouting "Dzo!" for joy and toasting!

              Sò huyết (blood cockle) stirred in tamarind sauce at Sáu Nở! 

As some other "eating-out" trends, snails stalls are very down-to-earth street food and always crowded, mostly in the evening or late at night! There are some streets in Sài Gòn famous for this specialities. Vĩnh Khánh in district 4 is one of them! If you go there around 7-8 PM, you see on both sides of this street, occupied by dozen and dozen street stalls selling only snails! Most famous here are Ốc Oanh and Ốc Sáu Nở.

            My favorite - clams (nghêu) cooked with lemon grass...the soup from clam is so sweet!

I don't know since when this snail trend starts? Several years ago?
No fancy place, just on the sidewalk, widely open to the public! Snails, many kinds of sea snail, some I know, some I've never seen ...but now they are so popular, I would even say the most popular street snack food these days. Snack because this's a dish that you better eat between meals. I try only 2-3 times at different places, either before or after dinner!

             Finger nail snail (ốc móng tay!) stirred in sweet spicy sauce, topped with roast peanuts!

         Mussel (chem chép) grilled with green onion & grease, topped with roast peanuts at Ốc Sáu Nở! 

             Same dish as above but at fancy Ốc Hến in Phú Mỹ Hưng!

               Winkle (ốc mỡ) stirred in tamarind sauce at nicely decorated Ốc Hến in Phú Mỹ Hưng!

              Rice snails (ốc gạo) cooked with lemon grass and some other herbs!  

The most popular since long time is "ốc len xào dừa"(Obtuse Horn shell or Mud Creeper stirred in coconut sauce, mixed with lemon grass, chili and topped with traditional Vietnamese mint (rau răm). The sauce is very tasty, a bit sweet, a bit spicy and flavorful with "rau răm", the snail meat is a bit lubricating! To eat this snail is quite funny, you blow from the broken tail, and suck from the head, the meat automatically comes to your mouth!

             Popular mud creeper (ốc len xào dừa) stirred in coconut sauce, topped with rau răm!

Rice vermicelli soup dish with freshwater paddy crab paste (Bún riêu cua)

Wow, I didn't think to express a simple dish with very short name in Vietnamese, I need a long sentence in English and not sure it delivers correctly what I want to say or not! Rice vermicelli with sour soup, fresh water paddy crab (cua đồng) paste, tomato, deep fried tofu and blood cubes...! We simply call it "bún riêu"! It's a super popular street food in Sài Gòn!
Easy to find bún riêu on the street and usually together with another favorite dish called "canh bún" (literally means rice vermicelli with soup) because these two rice vermicelli soup dishes are sharing the same soup base!

             Bowl of bún riêu with freshwater paddy crab paste, deep fried tofu, pig's blood cube... 

In a previous post about fish hot pot in a northern style , I tried to find out what "riêu"means. Getting different explanations from different foodies...some say that, some say this, so I just combine all opinions together and ..."riêu" means a kind of rice vermicelli dish in sour soup, with fish or crab, served with certain veggies!!

Roast duck in Macau style in Saigon!

I'm living in Chinatown, not right in the heart but at the entrance! So...roast duck is a popular dish in this area. Not street food as one duck can cost you nearly 300k VND and it's not a food that you eat right on the street, you need to bring back home to enjoy! Roast duck is so popular, we can have roast duck (vịt quay) for a week-end picnic, for many family celebrations...or just a nice treat to the coworkers in the office during lunchtime!

               I don't know how they roast the duck like this, crispy skin! What's the secret here?    

I still remember, probably more than 20 years ago, I had an acquaintance, she asked me to help her 15-year old son to improve his Russian. One day she gave me a roast duck filled with pâté (tasty ground pork liver - vịt quay nhồi pâté)! It was so delicious that I still remember until today! Especially the strong black pepper flavor from that pâté inside the duck! Where to buy it now?

The roast duck with black pepper sauce (vịt quay sốt tiêu đen) in Macau style is our today's dish. I tried different roast ducks for many times, as I told you - I'm from Chinatown, but only when an old friend treated us to this speciality from "Macau" in Sài gòn - I have to say it's the best roast duck so far I have ever tried!

10 Vietnamese street foods we can't live without!

I love to check the articles on CNNGo, they have many interesting things about food, sightseeings, adventures, travel tips...Especially about the food, very interesting to know how Western tourists taste what we love to eat, to drink in Asia...and how they think about it!
Many articles about the most stinky foods, most repulsive (disgusting) dishes in Thailand or those foods that will send you running to the bathroom...then running back for more!
Or best foods that Taiwanese or Hong Kong can't live without!
So I wonder what could be the street foods that we can't live without in Vietnam? I try to list down within 10 but as I'm living in Sài Gòn, probably my focus is more on the South! I may miss something that is your favorite, please add it to the list and make it 40 (*) street foods that we, Vietnamese, can't live without!
By the way, from this list of 10, we have two - beef noodles and summer roll which have been considered on CNNGo as ones of the world's 50 most delicious foods. To me, it should be more than 2 compared to our neighbor - Land of smile, but as usual that list of 50 always remains a subject of many discussions and argues!

1. Beef noodles (Phở bò)
This could be the No 1 street food in Vietnam and most recognizable Vietnamese food outside of Vietnam. Originated from the North, but has found home in the South since long time, that's why we have "phở" in two different styles: northern and southern. According to some foodies, in Sài Gòn besides these two official northern and southern styles we still have some other "styles", but I would say it's more like taste. Good Phở should have all good three components: soup, beef and noodles! To me beef noodles should be a dish that inspires competitiveness and innovation in chefs, at that time everyone wants to claim the honor title "Beef noodles King"!  

                   Beef noodles at Phở Tàu bay 

2. Broken rice (Cơm tấm)
My all time favorite, but today "cơm tấm" is quite different and to be honest, I don't like it as before. Cơm tấm An Dương Vương or Kiều Giang are far from the best, too commercial! They make so many dishes to go with broken rice and by somehow it makes the broken rice lost the traditional taste as in the old days: broken rice with pork skin (cơm tấm bì) or egg cake (chả trứng)! But even saying so, I still can enjoy good cơm tấm at different places: simpler but more original! To me, most important for broken rice is the rice itself and fish sauce, flavorful rice and a little bit sweet, a little bit salty, a little bit spicy fish sauce and by the way don't forget to top broken rice with special minced green onion stirred in the oil (mở hành)!  

                Broken rice with roasted chicken, egg cake and pork skin at Ba Ghiền 

3. Sticky rice (Xôi) 
This is a great breakfast dish that give you a boost of added energy. Similar to beef noodles, sticky rice  also has two styles: northern and southern and they are quite different. Example, corn sticky rice (xôi bắp) in a northern style is very different from a southern and to me tastier! Sticky rice has sweet and salty. My favorite for sweet is a corn sticky rice in a northern style (xôi bắp), there is many things: softly cooked corn mixed with sticky rice, topped with green mung bean, tasty fried shallots, sugar. For salty one (xôi mặn), my choice could be a sticky rice with dried shrimp, chinese sausage, green onion stirred with oil, flavored with soy sauce.

              Sweet corn sticky rice in a northern style

               Sticky rice with chicken floss  

               Sweet sticky rice in a southern style

Roll cake Tây Hồ (Bánh cuốn Tây Hồ)

I love the name Tây Hồ. It sounds nice in Vietnamese and it means West lake! In Sài Gòn regrettably we don't have any lake. Tây hồ is in Hà Nội. I'm not sure this roll cake originally comes from some place around West lake or not, or just a name! But this stall is famous for long...since 1961!

The steamed roll cake we had tonight is in a northern style, it means cake with filling. I had another post about roll cake at Thiên Hương when I just started this blog. I've been to bánh cuốn Tây Hồ few years ago but never been back there until last night. There are two stalls with the same name but separated by a small road and owned by two sisters.  

            Roll cake (or bánh cuốn) is filled with well seasoned pork meat! 

I went there with friend around 7PM. It's a right time for dinner outside but the stall is half empty. Roll cake probably is not a right choice for evening meal? It's more likely for breakfast or lunch! Same as many other places selling roll cake in the city, always a plate with two pieces of ham (chả), a small bowl for fish sauce that you can serve yourself from a big jar of sauce on the table and finally a plate of roll cake topped with deep fried shallots, blanched bean sprouts and some herbs (Vietnamese basil)! 

I realized that the cake from bánh cuốn Tây Hồ is more glutinous than the other place, bite a cake and I feel the difference ...smooth as silk (sorry not Thai airways!) and a bit chewy, sticky...that's my first impression! Is it a secret that makes Tây Hồ famous?

             Small bowl for fish sauce and personal use! 

As southern-born, I may pour the fish sauce into my plate, but this time I tried a northern style, I take a roll cake and put it in small bowl with sweet fish sauce. I suddenly understand why Vietnamese didn't pay much attention to some details or formalities while eating, if that could make some other nations famous like Korean or Japanese. Actually people from Hà Nội are more keen to the details than people here in Sài Gòn.

              A roll cake without fillings. 


We did order an extra roll cake without fillings. If compared with another kind of roll cake in a southern style I would prefer a cale we call "wet" or bánh ướt! Roll cake in a northern style should be filled with something!

I saw a golden plate on the wall, the name of the owner who already passed away few years ago. The family business since 1961, older than me...I just imagine how it look like, the stall, in 1960s? The roll cake quality? The taste? The service ?

By the way my friend who is an overseas Vietnamese couldn't catch what the young waiter said to him when he tried to order some drink, he asked me to check. I couldn't understand either! It happened twice, here and at broken rice place called "Ba Ghiền"! Seems we are hopelessly out of date!

Bánh cuốn Tây Hồ at 127 Đinh Tiên Hoàng, Tel: 38200584 or 
271 Phan Xích Long, Phú Nhuận, Tel: 39951179  

Bạch Đằng ice cream!

I have no idea when the first ice cream stall Bạch Đằng has been launched in Sài Gòn! Early 80s? Or maybe earlier?
And I can't remember when was my first time to try the famous coconut ice cream or exactly ice cream served inside a coconut called "kem trái dừa" at this super popular spot for many Vietnamese!

                                 Signature ice cream from Bạch Đằng - kem trái dừa  

I couldn't say the ice cream here, at Bạch Đằng, is the best in town, but by somehow it attracts not only locals but also many foreign tourists. It's surely thanks to the golden location, right in the heart of the city, and also a big curiosity to try not well-known international ice cream brands but popular local one! 

How much we, Vietnamese, love to watch people passing by, esp. in one of the best corners in town: Lê Lợi and Pasteur street. This could be also one of the reasons why Bạch Đằng is so popular among the youth. 
The popularity of Kem Bạch Đằng in Sài Gòn is probably the same as Kem Tràng Tiền in Hà Nội. These days Kem Tràng Tiền already found home in this southern city, where the demand for ice cream is always 7 days a week, 4 weeks a month and every single 12 months a year! 

                                    Topped with some fresh fruits: water melon, dragon fruit...

Bạch Đằng never expanded, after more than 30 years ...they only have 2 stalls opposite to each others on Lê Lợi street! They have a new building which looks like more an office rather than an ice cream place! I have a friend, a family friend, whose father used to know the owner. He said the owner has died few years ago from the cancer and a whole family already migrated to Canada. People seems gone but the brand, the stories never!

Glorious sun-dried salted catfish (khô cá tra)

There is always many sudden incidents in our life, some we may expect, some really out of a clear blue sky! Week ago that happened to me, everything have been blown off course! It's like a ridiculous joke from those people I've met! Anyway I already learnt how to leave negative things aside and to move on! So to get rid of that "incident", I decided to go to Long Xuyen with friends last weekend!

I've rarely been sick during the trip but this time it was really bad! I though I got a normal cold early in the morning and it should pass quickly during the day! But afternoon when we arrived to Long Xuyen, it was so hot, to avoid the summer heat, we though to escape to a fish farm on the small island (cồn) nearby could be the best! But it turned out to be worse! It was so windy and made me fell like a dead man!

Long Xuyen is a big city in Mekong Delta, probably, one of the richest cities in that area. I and my architect-friend stayed at Cuu Long hotel, at 400,000 VND per night. Two beds, shower room with bathtub, including a breakfast - a cheap one!

We arrived to my friend's grandfather house in Long Xuyên around 2PM. It's quite large countryside wooden house in a big garden. We had quick good duck curry with good bread right in a typical countryside kitchen that reminds me of the old days: the smell, the two charcoal stoves, the atmosphere!

The curry we had was a leftover from the lunch, but it was good, tasty as it cooked in coconut sauce. I was too tired to take any photos, only until we were on a ferry to the island to visit a catfish farm and to a dinner place in downtown later in the evening!

              Sun-dried salted catfish from fish farm on the island

Catfish or we call cá tra is a popular fish for everyday family meal, especially to cook a famous sour soup "canh chua" or braised catfish in a clay pot "cá kho tộ". I specially love dried salted catfish, khô cá tra, a bit salty, but when we fry and have it together with plain rice ...very very good!

              Fresh catfish has been salted and dried for few days on the sun...

I heard that Thai have a sun dried salted fish called Pla-kem, very stinky so I really have no idea as being Vietnamese, I may not smell it...from this sun-dried catfish, probably slightly strong smell! To be honest, when it fried, without adding any other ingredients, , I keep eating it with just hot boiled rice!  

                  cut it into small pieces and fry...and ready to serve! 

Catfish has a big fatty part, some people like it, but to me, the best one is the skin, if we can make it crispy when we fry...so gooood! This salted fish is the most important ingredient (after rice!) for famous fried rice with salted fish "cơm chiên cá mặn" in many classy Chinese restaurants!

                  Have it with plain rice... a bit salty, crispy skin and so tasty!   

In the evening, after fish farm we went back to the city...After a quick shower and quick refreshment with sugarcane juice right on the street we went for dinner at a popular spot in Long Xuyen!

Here's our typical Vietnamese family meal (lunch or dinner!) in Long Xuyên: sour soup with catfish, braised fish in a clay pot with caramel sauce, stirred veggies...

             Most popular soup dish in every Vietnamese family - sour soup or canh chua