Oasis Cafe
303 Lê Văn Sĩ
Phú Nhuận District
028 3991 1991
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Fish with your coffee? That’s what you’ll get at Saigon’s Oasis Cafe.
Actually, the coffee and fish are served up separately at this Vietnamese, European, Disneyland establishment. The cafe sua da is presented in a traditional ice-filled glass, while schools of koi fish are free to swim through the flooded cafe floor and around the submerged seating pits.
Hai’s nephew suggested this would be an “interesting” place to enjoy our morning coffee and meet his new girlfriend. As it turned out, his girlfriend couldn’t make it. But, Hai and I were still curious enough about a coffee shop that featured schools of free-swimming koi to check it out on our own.
Hopping off our motorbike upon our arrival, we were greeted by a European village facade. What? Lovely, strange, tacky and kind-of fun.
As we entered the “village”, the setting, the foliage, and the ambiance were lovely – in an amateur Disney kind-of-way.
It quickly became clear, however, that a good sense of balance would be required to navigate cafe “floor plan”.
A maze of stepping-stone pathways led the way through the water-filled cafe from table-to-table. Actually, not from table-to-table, but from submerged seating pit to submerged seating pit! Each pit, set a foot or so below waterline, housed a table and benches accommodating six guests. It would be here we’d be enjoying our morning coffee and coconut drink.
While a few small children hopped from stepping-stone to stepping-stone, I walked a bit more cautiously (I didn’t want to embarrass myself and find myself knee deep in the koi pond!) The next challenge would be lowering myself down into one of the seating pits without falling into the pit, or into the river of koi … mission accomplished!
Once comfortably seated, it was kind of fun sipping our morning coffee, pondering schools of koi passing by – just below eye-level – and wondering why I was having my Saigon coffee on the streets of Venice??
In any case, the coffee was very good, the experience unique, the setting quite fun, and the koi very happy not to be on the menu here.
Certainly a fun cafe experience on a hot Saigon morning.
Oasis Cafe
303 Lê Văn Sĩ
Phú Nhuận District
028 3991 1991