Our “Biggest Fan” – a guest post

Jul 182014

Once in awhile Hai and I get a note from an Eating Saigon! follower that makes our blogging all worthwhile. Michelle and her hubby from Singapore are true Saigon food adventurers, and apparently, our “biggest fan.” We thought you might enjoy sharing Michelle’s recent note to us.

Michelle … our “biggest fan!”

Hi!

My name is Michelle. I just got back to Singapore after an eventful trip to HCMC … not 3.5 hours ago. After visiting Eating Saigon! to leave a note of gratitude, I read about Hai’s restaurant. You have me (and my belly) yearning to return … tomorrow!!

One of 16 meals in 3.5 days … the best way to enjoy Saigon!

My husband and I were in HCMC for about 3.5 days, and all-in-all, had about 16 meals, if not more. No joke!

It’s been unreal, the amount of food we ate. My god! Just thinking about it is stunning. We stuck as close as possible to your blog recommendations, but when we passed by something that looked delicious, we could not help but stop and taste it!

I want to take this opportunity to tell you a funny story— just last night (gosh, has it only been 26 hours ago? It feels like I’ve had so many meals in between!), we were lounging in our hotel room nursing our bellies when my husband asks me if I wanted to go to the Saigon Chao Lady. I had been going on and on about her porridge, but he’s never been keen on porridge. So a trip there hadn’t yet materialize.

The Saigon Cháo Lady – love her cháo

Well, he remembered that she closes at midnight and we didn’t have anything going on, so at 11:20 pm, we decided to pop over and have supper.

Long story short, on our way to the Chao Lady I got alarmed by the meter reading in our Saigon Tourist taxi. (We had stuck to Mai Linh and Vinasun taxis while we stayed at the Park Hyatt for the first two nights.) I thought our Saigon Tourist taxi meter read 262,000 instead of 26,200!! That must have aggravated the driver that I was accusing him of rigging it (my mistake).

He asked me how much I usually paid to get there (we fibbed and said 50,000) and protested that it would cost 100,000 (in the end, we were right, but anyhow). The driver lost his way, and then, what struck me was he said he was sorry, and turned the meter off. He just asked us to pay whatever we felt comfortable with. Are all Vietnamese people so real?

We ended up getting off along the main road at 285 Cách Mạng Tháng Tám and walked down the long alley – ALL THE WAY!! All the friggin way … to house number 137. In the dark!

I was so scared out of my wits because … well … I am paranoid of bad things happening in the dark. So scared that I clutched my husband’s arm and balled my other fist “just in case”. He laughed at me, btw. And said it would have been useless anyway. But, he proceeded to puff his chest and say that it’s a good thing he’s a “heavy-set” (read “thick”) man. His logic being that it would scare off possible bad guys. How cute is that?

Anyhow, we got there at the stroke of midnight, having RUN some and speed-walked some, sweaty and panting, only to find the Chao Lady had run out of food!! … an hour earlier at 11:00 pm !!! (So, you might want to correct her hours in your post.)

[Eating Saigon! NOTE: Local street food vendors typically cook everything fresh and on the spot. If they have more customers than usual on any given day, they may very well run out of their unique food early. It’s a part of the Saigon eating adventures experience. Be prepared!]

But they were all so sweet. None of them spoke English so they woke someone up to talk to us and asked us if we needed a taxi called to send us back to our hotel.

We declined graciously, but downright disappointedly. I was close to tears 🙁 . We had fought so hard to get there!!

We walked back out to the main road.

How many meals can you squeeze into 3.5 days? 🙂

We saw many, many food options, and we finally settled for the bánh cuốn (muoc?) I believe just perched outside #92 at 285 Cách Mạng Tháng Tám. We feasted on sublime bánh cuốn, steaming hot, silky smooth and fresh. The best I’ve ever tasted. Then, we cabbed home.

Sorry for the long story. I just wanted to let you know that your blog really made our trip so much fun and adventurous. It’s most unfortunate to admit that we plan our trips around food predominantly, but Eating Saigon! gave us so much access to local fare that we would have never had the guts (ha ha) to try. I thank you again, and again, and will dream of when we can return to HCMC.

PS: I don’t believe you have a post on Phở Hoa on Pasteur Rd. It came highly recommended and was alright. We had a debate and decided that it comes closely after your #1 and 2 picks for phở in Saigon. Their gỏi cuốnwas quite darn good though. Hot and tasty!

[Eating Saigon! NOTE: We tried Phở Hoa many years ago, but it was filled with tourists and we thought just “so-so”. But, based on your advice, we’ll give it another try! 🙂]

PPS: I think your Red Plastic Stool eatery is closed on certain Sundays.

Preparing banh canh gio heo at The Red Plastic Stool

We cabbed there on Sunday, but it was closed.

[Eating Saigon! NOTE: Again, it’s a part of the Saigon street food adventure. Local vendors occasionally (and unpredictably) close their shops for personal reasons – family issues, Buddhists holidays and celebrations, illnesses, the World Cup, or whatever?? One must be prepared to “bounce back” and move on to the next eating adventure … just as Michelle and her hubby did].

We were undogged in our pursuit though, and returned the next day to slurp their noodles up. Bonus! We arrived 20 minutes earlier and watched them prepare everything from outside their house (intrusion of privacy much?).

Your biggest fan (unreservedly),
Michelle Lee