Chicken at "Garden Mai" - Gà Vườn Mai

I realize that Vietnamese love chicken much more than beef or pork. Chicken is an unavoidable item for any traditional celebrations, this "bird gives birth every day" always has a special place on the altar during any of family anniversaries.
And whenever we talk about chicken - it should be "Vietnamese chicken" (gà ta) or "garden chicken" (gà thả vườn). These two phrases means a kind of chicken being kept freely in the farm, not in a huge industrial cage, they are not fed with special industrial bran, but anything they find in the garden, from human's leftovers, rice to the earthworms. Those "free" chicken are smaller in size, give less meat but their meat is far better, tastier than the"industrial chicken".

                Gà hấp hành - steamed chicken with green onion, superb good, flavored with onion. 

Last night I've been to a place - called "Gà Vườn Mai", an eatery - famous for their seven chicken dishes (only garden chicken!): steamed chicken with green onion (gà hấp hành), roasted chicken with garlic (gà rôti), chicken with Vietnamese mint (gà hấp rau răm), sour and sweet salad with chicken (gà bóp thấu), steamed chicken with fermented tofu (gà hấp chao), with salt (gà hấp muối)...

                    Head to toe chicken - costs you 230.000 VND (by Mar of 2013) 

When they serve, not a plate of few pieces of chicken, but a whole chicken. So either you go there alone or with friends they always serve a full plate. Better be in company, if you don't want to end up with a lot of leftovers on the table.

               

                     Roasted chicken with a lot of garlic. Very tasty. 

                    I really like small golden ground garlic, so garlicky, so tasty, crispy and flavored with fish sauce!

                    same as others chicken dishes, always in whole - from head to toe...  

                  and from toe to buttock, by the way, chicken's buttock is a favorite part to many foodies. 

We couldn't order all seven chicken dishes in their menu, I would love to try others, so I surely come back here one day. The only problem I have is how to get here! It's a real tricky, the place looks very spacious but located in small alley that we do need a guidance. But believe me, it's worth trying!

                    Chicken "Garden Mai", Mai means those trees on the left hand side, our symbol for Tết.

Here's the address 958/10/13/18 Lac Long Quan, Tan Binh district, (one "/" means one alley, so we need to turn right or left at least three alleys to get there!)
Anyway, just in case, here is a number, 3864 3123, if you have a problem to find the place.