The village of Pomelo - Làng bưởi

The expression "Làng Bưởi" sounds quite nice in Vietnamese but where I have been last week - not a village or pomelo farm, it was more like a huge countryside-style or garden style restaurant, only 45' away from Saigon by car.

                      "Souvernir shop" in the village of Pomelo 


Pomelo is one of the healthiest fruits, if not the healthiest, I like the taste, the flavour when it's juicy sweet, but I had to admit I didn't like the pomelo here, in this village! It was a bit hard, a bit crispy, not very juicy, medium-sweet, my friends explained all pomelos from this area were like this, not good as another varieties - Năm Roi or Bưởi Da Xanh. Anyway, for consolation, I would say because of the end of pomelo's season, so we couldn't get the best ones.

                     The entrance with a giant pomelo - the reception 

                       The restaurant and the road leading to the inside garden, river...

                     You can get a boat to ride around the village-isle 

                     One of the nice places to cool off in the heat of high noon. 

                  Not the pomelo farm, but quite a lot of pomelo trees around the owner's house.

Pomelo is so popular in Saigon, easy to get a fresh pomelo juice at many corners in town. Pomelo is also one of favourite fruits desert in many restaurants, or an ingredients for traditional "Three S" salad (sour, sweet and spicy). But nowhere in Saigon we could order "from A to Z" all meals made of pomelo, including tea, like here in this "village-restaurant".

                  Our starter - deep fried Pomelo's inner white skin   

                The typical of Pomelo's scent has gone...just a soft-like-cotton filling 

I was so surprised when people didn't waste anything from this "apple-melon" (that's how explain the name "pomelo"!) from the outer nicely-flavour-but-bitter, green thick skin to the inner soft white skin...to its leaves! We even tried all kinds of drink of pomelo: from the fresh juice to Pomelo wine and tea!

Mr Năm Huệ - the owner and the Pomelo's wine inventor 

I had to introduce the head of the village, the owner and the inventor of Pomelo's wine - Mr Năm Huệ. He was very charming and nicely invited us his famous wine from the pomelo-shape bottle. The wine was nice, slightly sweet, bitter, aromatic and beautiful colour!

                       Here you go, if you like, you can buy! 

                    Pomelo salad - typical sour, sweet and spicy...served with deep-fried rice-paper!

              The Pomelo white inner skin with chicken's liver, heart, intestines...

                  Again the Pomelo's scent gone, but this dish was tasty, perfectly seasoned... 

                     Chicken stirred in salt & chilli and with...pomelo's leaves. Very tasty! 

The following dish could be the most interesting - chicken steamed inside Pomelo. We often do this kind of steam with coconut, gourd...but inside pomelo, it was my first time to taste it. It would take hours to steam as the whole pomelo was so soft, I even could smell the pomelo scent in the chicken meat, it was nice and the soup was slightly bitter, sweet!

                       Chicken long-steamed inside Pomelo. 

                     and here you go...open the top, the nice smell was flowing around the table...

              I was wondering did they cook chicken first then put it in pomelo and steamed? 

It was a good lunch, I was asked if I put everything by order from "the excellent" down to "the worst", which dish could go first and last. That was a difficult question, as I didn't want to disappoint our friends who took us over here, who paid for the bill :) :) but I would vote for the steamed chicken inside pomelo as the best thanks to its unique taste and long cooking process, and as the worst - the deep fried inner skin and I wish the chef could do much better!

               The pomelo tea was not good, not bad to me...it was not a great appeal! 

                      Pomelo fresh juice - more ice than juice! 

                  Finally the Fresh Pomelo! 

We couldn't order the famous "chè bưởi" - the sweet soup of the pomelo white inner skin, but we all already tried this dessert somewhere in Sàigòn, so we didn't mind to replace it with the fresh fruit! It was a nice meal in such an interesting environment, nice garden...we've been here during the weekday so it was not busy. I did enjoy the atmosphere in this village.

For those who want to come here, please Google it - Làng Bưởi Năm Huệ, cù lao Tân Triều, xã Tân Bình, Huyện Vĩnh Cửu, Đồng Nai. Not far, only 8km, from Biên Hòa and popular spot for tourists Bửu Long.