Saigon's cuisine?

Every eating place in Saigon serves local cuisine. 

There are tens of thousands of restaurants, street food stalls/carts, motorbike food peddlers, and late night food "gõ" in the city, so a recommendation would be almost impossible.

The best thing to do is make some friends, for example some university students who are keen to practice their English and have enough free time to hang out.

They'll be happy to introduce you to some of the best places that you would never find on your own.

This thread discusses some popular dishes:

Which Vietnamese dish do you like the best ?
https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=449061

Today, I enjoyed Cơm tam suon cha ("broken" rice with pork chop and egg cake) and Goi cuon (fresh spring rolls stuffed with shrimp and pork), and later some Bánh canh cá lọc (slightly spicy thick rice noodle soup with grilled fish).

Your profile indicates that you speak Vietnamese.   If that's the case, you shouldn't have any problem finding your way around local favourites, why asking expats for recommendations when you can find them yourself?

There are some oversea vietnameses aka vietkieus are behind the average curve

There are some famous place you can go:

1. Cơm Ba Ghiền. Address: (84 Đặng Văn Ngữ, P. 10,  Quận Phú Nhuận, TP. HCM) (rice, pork grill with special sauce, egg and maybe pork skin if you ask). The best dish i think is rice with pork and egg, you can write this and give the server: "Cơm tấm sườn trứng" price is about 50.000 VND (2-3 $) this is the best "cơm tấm" restaurant in Sài Gòn.

2. Bún chả Hà Nội Vân Anh. Add : (36 Hồng Hà, P. 2, Quận Tân Bình, TP. HCM) and (326K Nguyễn Trọng Tuyển, P. 1, Quận Tân Bình, TP. HCM) (rice noodle with pork grill and dipping sauce)

3. Bánh xèo Mười Xiềm. Add : (54 Nguyễn Văn Trỗi,  Quận Phú Nhuận, TP. HCM) actually i don't like this restaurant. Have another restaurant is better but not working long time ago have better dipping sauce. But VN people and tourists like this restaurant so you can try it. The ingredient is rice flour, shrimp, pork, mushroom, mung bean and fish sauce mix with soy sauce, sugar, chili... for dipping.

4. Hoàng Ty- Bánh tráng Trảng Bàng. Rice paper with rice noodle, pork or beef and vegetable but live in the jungle and dipping sauce.
https://www.foody.vn/thuong-hieu/hoang- … o-chi-minh

5. Spring Rool (Highly recommended ) https://www.foody.vn/ho-chi-minh/goi-cuon-ngon-ngon

If you can eat snail, Come to Ốc Đào
https://www.foody.vn/thuong-hieu/oc-dao?c=ho-chi-minh
we eat many kind of snail or clams, oyster, mussel, crab with  price here, it so crowded at night. shoud find some Vietnam friend go with you.

And you can try Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk, it very strong and creamy. Go to Highland Coffee to try it.

And so on. But I to tired to type and search )

HanaNguyen0790 wrote:

1. Cơm Ba Ghiền. Address: (84 Đặng Văn Ngữ, P. 10,  Quận Phú Nhuận, TP. HCM) ... this is the best "cơm tấm" restaurant in Sài Gòn.

3. Bánh xèo Mười Xiềm. Add : (54 Nguyễn Văn Trỗi,  Quận Phú Nhuận, TP. HCM) actually i don't like this restaurant.

Don't know about the other places, but I vote NO on #1 and #3.

- Cơm Tấm Ba Ghiền on Đặng Văn Ngữ is mediocre.  The restaurant is dirty, the service is inattentive, the staff is rude when interacting with customers.  The only thing good about the meal is the size of the pork chop.  Even the dipping sauce isn't worth dipping.

- Bánh Xèo Mười Xiềm on Nguyễn Văn Trỗi claims to belong to Dì Mười, with ONE framed photo of Dì standing next to some Asian chef at some food competition.  It's false advertising.  They paid for her name but never used her recipe nor ever had her descendants' input in the making of bánh xèo.  Their batter is lumpy (I watched them pouring) and their filling is soggy.  Again, if size (of the bánh xèo) matters, then this place is worth mentioning.  Other than that, pass.

foody.vn

Yeah everything you said about Cơm tấm Ba ghiền is right. But many people accept that things because they like the taste of grilled pork and sauce. Other restaurant is not famous or hard to find, and in VN, actually it's not the restaurant,  we call it's "tiệm" like a small restaurant, and almost of them not clean or have stable taste. A restaurant for us must have nice view, expensive, clean and usualy sell Western food. You can try orther restaurant for Cơm Tấm but it's more expensive and not have good pork. I try many other esle restaurent but never come back.

You can watch this guy enjoy Ba Ghiền's grilled pork:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKYQjnO1W5c

His is Korean. Not Vietnamese.

And about Bánh xèo Mười Xiềm. As i said, i don't like it; but in SG, other restaurants may not better than it. Long ago, i like Ăn Là Ghiền restaurant. They have dipping sauce is better with balance taste. Bánh xèo is the same in almost restaurant. Crunchy and no taste. All taste came from dipping sauce and shrimp or pork, mushroom, mung bean sprout. Other restaurant when i try have the same issue like Mười Xiềm. The dipping sauce is bad, too salty or too much sweet.

You can try this one if you want : https://www.foody.vn/ho-chi-minh/banh-xeo-sammy

Some reviewer tell this restaurant is good but i'm not sure for that. Many times i go to the restaurant have high rate in this page but i'm so disappointed after that.

And for all of you, if you have a Vietnam friend, and they invite you to come their home to cooking some Vietnamese food, ask them boiled a chicken. You will surprised.