Just listing street food clusters such as Ben Thanh market and around District 1, District 5 Market, Ba Chieu Market, Bui Vien... is enough to make your eyes look sagging.
But it is also important to emphasize that, although Saigon street food is "dirty-tone", there are 3 special dishes that come to life: Hue beef noodle soup, "Sa Bi Chuong" broken rice and Saigon fried rice noodles. In these 3 dishes, 3 addresses with Saigon cuisine have emerged: Bun bo Ut Hung, Bai Rach rice plate, and Bay Ho noodle soup.
We must start with the bowl of Ut Hung beef noodle soup at 6 Tu Xuong in District 3. The bowl of Hue beef noodle soup is famous around the world because it is one of the most popular dishes in Vietnam. Saigon has hundreds of luxurious and expensive Hue beef noodle stalls, sidewalk stalls, preserving their identity, and changing them.
The story of Hue beef noodle soup also causes controversy about whether it is delicious or not, whether it is right or not, and is no less flavorful than Hanoi pho or Quang noodles. However, the bowl of bun bo at Ut Hung restaurant solves all these problems.
Ms. Ut, a village girl from An Cuu, a three-generation family cooking beef noodle soup, went to Saigon to start a business, met Mr. Hung and then decided to create a bowl of Ut Hung beef noodle soup, with a strong aroma of shrimp paste balanced with lemongrass flavor, very suitable for the "Hue" diners.
Ms. Ut still uses a Hue-style pot with a round bottom, neck and neck, and mouth to cook noodles in the old way, but has also added crab cakes, shrimp cakes, silk cakes, beef cakes, and rare beef according to modern eating needs, not just thinly sliced beef, square pork blood, and square pig's nails. However, she is determined not to reduce shrimp paste, add sugar or fragrant ( pineapple) to the broth.
The bowl of U Hung Hue beef noodle soup is even better because it can accommodate all social ingredients to eat the noodle soup. From politicians, showbiz stars, intellectuals, workers, traders, students, and manual laborers all sit and eat at this shop, equally, enjoy and satisfy equally.
While shrimp paste can harness all different ingredients in a bowl of noodles, the delicious taste and the rich, free-range, and elegant personality of Ut Hung and his wife blend the basic colors of society, while the price is very cheap, only 45,000 a bowl.
Now we will move on to a dish called Saigon, which is Saigon noodle soup. Up to now, that "Saigon sweet soup, thick and fragrant, many thousands of bows" has passed the geographical space of the sunny and windy Southern land and gone global.
Bread is an image that symbolizes the rich and spacious personality of Saigon cuisine: A bowl of golden apricot balls, open the heart to welcome the whole world from jambon, pate, sausage, cold meat, pork rolls, fried eggs - fried pork rolls, butter, cheese, cotton shrimp, cucumber, pickled melon, chili sauce... "close and rich.
Saigon has thousands of Saigon branded sweepers and sweepers, Saigon brands are famous across the five continents, but come and eat the Bay Ho brand of sweepers, the brand of sweepers has gone into the Rap of Saigon players: "The bicycle has not exploded yet, but it laughed and sounded crispy, let's say it's as crispy as the Bay Ho brand of sweepers".
Bay Ho bread appeared in 1930 in Saigon, passed down through 3 generations, and is now being taken over by his grandchild. Initially, Bay Ho watchtowers were sold by their grandfather from watchtowers, now the grandfather sells them in a fixed shop on Dinh Tien Hoang Street.
However, the quality of Bay Ho blood alcohol banh mi has not changed over time. Familiar customers of the restaurant who have been coming to eat since the 1990s still keep saying: "Crunely crap, flying". Only the selling price has changed but it is still in the affirmation: Serving the poor a delicious meal for only 20 thousand dong.
But the poor in Saigon still love another dish, broken rice "Bao thuong soy sauce". broken rice may be the only dish that Saigon invented in this land, not brought from elsewhere. However, it also relies on the living customs of many ethnic groups gathered here to create this dish.
broken rice is often envisioned as follows: broken rice with grilled pork ribs, sliced pork skin and shredded eggs. The ribs, skin, and Ting will be read and driven into Sa Bi Chuong, ngheing the dreadful sound of a strange martial art dish. Now, broken rice has become a vast world with countless side dishes, full of rice and spices.
Like Hue beef noodle soup and banh mi, Saigon has many famous delicious broken rice restaurants such as: La Phi Khanh rice plate, Muoi Hang Xanh rice plate, Thi Nghe rice plate, Ba Ghien rice plate, Cao Boi rice plate... But the most attractive brand that sounds creepy is Bai Rac rice plate.
That is a chain of broken rice stalls on Le Van Linh Street, District 4, hidden behind a market. At midnight, after the late market session, people will gather the trash in a pile behind the market, creating the above name. It sounds unhygienic, but the food is delicious and indescribable with its delicious side dishes.
Its appeal is associated with the life of the market. Trong mui com thom, mui suon nuong hap dan, con co mui cua kenh rach, cua nhung dong rac dang duoc don di giua dem. No doi lap voi anh den ruc ro muon hong nghin tia o phia ben kia con kenh.
That is the smell of Saigon, of the four continents, even though the rice dishes are very diverse with toppings from grilled ribs, braised meat, grilled eggs, squid rolls... making a plate of rice worth hundreds of thousands of dong still popular. Saigon people went out to eat atai Tre in the middle of the night and were still borderlessly happy.
That is the true Saigon style, to make money, you have to spend, have a lot of spending, have a little spending. "How much do you have, 60 years of your life?".
