here & now

Feb 152019

here & now
74/1 Phạm Viết Chánh
Bình Thạnh District
028 2253 8183
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The day’s heat was already pushing past 90 F at 9:30 am, when Hai and I set out on our morning jog / “power-walk” to Bosgaurus coffee shop, about 2 miles away. Only a few blocks into our mini-marathon, I noticed a shortcut through an alley we hadn’t noticed before and took a quick right turn.

BEHOLD! A sign appeared in our path! The Grand Opening of a new restaurant – here & now – located right here in our neighborhood! A vegetarian restaurant, no less! Today would be a lucky day.

Hai already had other plans, but clearly this is where I would be having lunch today! And, I had planned to enjoy lunch with my good friend Thang today. So, this would be the place – here & now!

Greeted by a Buddha, a serene water pool and koi moving among the giant lotus leaves at the entrance, I had every reason to be hopeful our new neighborhood restaurant would be a winner.

It was grand opening day, so things seemed just a bit confused, the wait staff unsure of their respective duties. In any case, we didn’t mind waiting a bit in such a lovely and serene dining room and admiring the simple, but striking decor. (And Thang did have lots of exciting new software and website news to discuss.)

When finally we ordered and the food arrived, all was good with the world. Gorgeous presentations and very good food. Mostly Vietnamese, a dash of “Western”, and all vegetarian … YUM!

I decided then & there that I would return to here & now tonight with Hai for dinner. I had a feeling he’d love it.

And the bonus when we did return that evening for dinner was there were three additional floors above the entry level. Hai and I choose to have our dinner roof-top, enjoying the mild breeze, a filtered view of the Saigon River and some very delicious vegetarian food.