A One-of-a-Kind Saigon Street Food Experience

The Red Plastic Stool
12C Nguyen Phi Khanh
District 1

*****

Announcing the latest “front-runner” in my never-ending search for a truly unique Saigon street food eating adventure! Begin the drum roll please.

Hai actually introduced me to this unique eating experience more than a year ago.  And, just a few weeks after that, a local Saigon TV station sent a reporter and camera crew there to report on this small eatery!

Now of course, that TV news report was in Vietnamese.  So at the time (and still), I really couldn’t quite keep up with the details of the TV restaurant review, as I struggled to determine whether the reporter had used a rising, flat or interrupted-wiggle tone in a key word two sentences earlier. 🙁 .  And of course, as I typed feverishly on my iPhone’s English-Viet Dictionary Ap, trying to translate a key phrase about the food, the TV report had ended with me no wiser as to what was actually said about the food.

But, the fact that the TV cameras scanned the crowded eatery, showing locals consuming their meals with big smiles, friendly waves, and empty bowls, I concluded it was a positive review. Is the drum roll still going?

Given my international travels this year for shoulder surgery, the endless hours I’ve spent trying to understand how to create an effective website, my body’s never-ending need for a regular exercise regime, the demands of friends to join them at Saigon cafes 🙂 , and a very unique aspect of this restaurant itself (read on below), it’s taken over a year to find my way back here.

Now I should stop here and mention that I have not been able to identify any name to this eatery.  So, from here on I’ll christen it and refer to it as “The Red Plastic Stool”.

So, what’s so unique here?

Well, first The Red Plastic Stool is likely the most crowded place I’ve ever eaten.  Not large – just crowded.  Actually, crowded doesn’t do it justice.  Jam-sardine-packed comes close.  A single room, about 2 meters (6 feet) wide by 4 meters (12 feet ) in length.  That’s it.  Rush in 30+ hungry customers!

No room for tables here – not a single one in this crowded room!

Just a tiny room filled with red plastic stools. Maybe 40 of them.  The stools serve primarily as chairs.  “Please wait patiently in line outside until a stool opens up.” (Or carry in an extra stool, place it in a free square-foot of floor space, and have a seat!)

If you’re already seated on one of those stools and another stool becomes empty (and you catch it in time), perhaps it can become your “table”.  If not, you can enjoy your meal just fine with your bowl in our lap.

And want to put your back-pack on that empty stool beside you? FORGET IT.  It’s now the next customer’s seat.

So, enjoy your meal – elbow to elbow, back against the wall, bowl in lap.  It’s never exactly clear where to set your glass of ice tea??  (t least there are small plastic bowls on the floor – beside/under the stools – to dispose your soup bones.)

Oh yes, the food here – Bánh canh giò heo.

 

Bánh canh is a thick noodle made from a mixture of rice and tapioca flour.

Thicker than a regular spaghetti noodle, approaching an udon noodle in thickness.  Usually, I’m a angle-hair noodle (sợi nhỏ – thin noodle) type guy.  But here in this dish, the thick noodles seem to “work” just fine.

The broth is the real treat.  Rich, spicy, a tad sweet, and reddish-brown in color (from a spice? a seed? can’t get the recipe 🙁  ).  A large piece of pork meat – giò heo  – sits amidst the sea of thick noodles.

Now, from what I can understand, giò heo  covers the entire length of the pig’s leg.  So depending upon availability and your ability to make yourself understood, you may request the pork meat to be taken anywhere from the upper meaty leg (thịt không có da), down to the pig’s knuckle, (giò móng – a meatless, grisly, chewable cartridge food item which is quite popular here).

Oh, did I forget to mention, the other unique factor here?  The restaurant is open only about 90 minutes each day!  Sometimes less – if they run out of food sooner.  This is actually the main reason it’s taken me a year to return here.  Trying to fit my schedule, Hai’s schedule and/or the bus schedule into that 90 minute window has been challenging.

The doors open here to the waiting line of hungry locals at 3:00 pm. By 3:30 or so, they’ve likely run out of giò heo  – the meaty option. They probably will still have pig’s knuckles available if you’re interested.  By 4:15 they are just about out of noodles and begin packing up the stools.

Come before 3:00 or after 4:30 and all you’ll see is a closed gated doorway!  So come early to guarantee a stool and a large chunk of pork meat in your soup.

We arrived too late this last visit and missed the pork meat 🙁   On my first visit, it was tender and delicious. Since I didn’t want to substitute the pigs knuckle, I settled for just a bowl of delicious noodles (28,000 vnd – $1.30 usd.) A full meal of bánh canh giò heo (soup, noodles and pork loin) just a bit more.

OPEN from 3:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. COME EARLY!

UPDATE – MARCH, 2016: Hai and I enjoyed an excellent afternoon bowl of bánh canh gig heo here today. Just as delicious and fun (in a chaotic kind of way) as ever … prices have climbed just a bit to about 38.000 ($1.70)/bowl. Still highly recommended.

UPDATE – January, 2018: Again, as delicious and fun (in a chaotic kind of way) as ever.  Try to get here about 2:45 … they run out of some good meat options by 3:15 pm.

Bánh Canh Giò Heo

The Red Plastic Stool
12C Nguyen Phi Khanh
District 1

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