Art of Broth

It's Not About the Ambiance ...

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... Vietnamese restaurants are very utilitarian, perhaps a result of the Communist history and economy. It's all about the food here, and more often than not, nice restaurants where you'd want to linger are geared towards tourists, serving mediocre food.

Nothing Quenches Thirst Like Fresh Coconut ...

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... this is one of the great pleasures of travel in the tropical world, and an added bonus is cracking open the coconut and digging into the flesh. Unfortunately, these were mature coconuts, and didn't have the wonderfully-gelatinous interior that young ones do.

Beautiful Springs Rolls at Beautiful Saigon ...

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... our hotel, the Beautiful Saigon Boutique Hotel, offered up a nice happy hour special for guests - free spring rolls! Good, but they were a bit soggy - perhaps it is difficult to make things crispy, in such a humid environment.

Very Decent Hotel Breakfast Buffet ...

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... while we weren't blown away by the rooms at Beautiful Saigon Boutique Hotel, the amenities were quite good for a mid-range hotel - a small refreshing pool, free happy hour spring rolls, and a solid breakfast. Just look at the rich, thick Vietnamese coffee - we've always enjoyed the stuff, but it is far better in Vietnam. Something we quickly bought into was how soup noodles are so widely available for breakfast in Vietnam.

Thanks For the Rain ...

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... because it forced our tour indoors to Cong Caphe, a Vietnamese chain of coffee shops. Our guides recommended this amazing coconut coffee, which was basically a tasty coconut sorbet/slush drenched in even-tastier Vietnamese iced coffee. So refreshing and so tasty!

Not Too Shabby Either ...

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... was this nicely-frothed Vietnamese iced coffee. We expected Vietnamese coffee to be better than what we get back home, but never thought it would be this good, everywhere we went.

Dinner at Royal Saigon ...

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... this restaurant was highly recommended by one of the other tourists on our XO Tour, a man from China who had visited Vietnam multiple times. It was fairly disappointing - while this vermicelli bowl featured some tender Australian beef, and the fried garlic chips were a nice addition, it wasn't that different from a version we could find back home. The noodles were a bit thicker than the vermicelli we normally get, which was a nice twist.

Sweet Chicken Curry ...

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... a little too sweet. Dinner at Royal Saigon just felt like it was catered to tourists, and was nearly the complete opposite of what we had sampled with XO Tours.

Fried Bananas ...

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... a bit soggy, like most fried foods we've had so far in this humid country. Counter-intuitively, the combination of fried bananas with strawberry ice cream just didn't seem to work, perhaps because of the extremely artificial taste of the ice cream.

Should've Known Better ...

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... for some reason, we expected a western-style banana cake, but it was an Asian-style steamed cake. Way too doughy for our tastes.

Phuc Long Coffee ...

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... though we've been loving our rich Vietnamese coffee so far, this one was just a little too rich. You can't beat Cong Caphe!