Saigon Street Food Tour - Must Do

Scootering around on the back of a vespa through the streets of Saigon, looking for interesting street food with a local..................  wow, how can we say no to such a treat.
As I was trawling through the internet whilst lazing on the beach at Mui Ne, I came across a local company call "Saigon Food Tour". They do private street food tours at night around Saigon (District 1,3,4 and 10) on the back of a motorbike. The tour takes around 4.5 hours and costs US$60 per person.

For a couple who travels to eat, this would be the ideal way to spend our last night in Ho Chi Minh City before heading back home. The booking process was simple, all done online through their website. We got a confirmation email back within the day of booking. Saigon, here we come !!! 

Anh and Linh (our guide) met us outside our hotel at 5.30pm as planned. They are friendly, spoke perfect english and tiny (a bit like me !! hahaha..... ). They gave us our helmets and a quick lesson on being a pillion passenger (just hang on to the back of the seat) and before we could say go, we were right into the thick of Ho Chi Minh city traffic weaving in and out amongst locals heading out for the night or home for dinner. 

Steph and Anh

Our first eat stop was at a place in District 3 - Banh Xeo Truc Bang. 

First stop - outside Banh Xeo Truc Bang

Cooking Banh Can with terracotta moulds over charcoal

Cooking Banh Xeo Phan Rang

This place has a makeshift kitchen outside and lots of small tables and chairs scattered throughout. 

Banh xeo Phan Rang - These are the big pancakes from Phan Rang Province. These are slightly different to the tumeric yellow vietnamese pancakes you normally see in Vietnamese restaurants. The pastry is thicker, but the filling is the same - prawns, squids, beansprouts.

Banh Can - Small pancakes from Phan Rang Province. These little pattie cakes are similar to Banh Beo, also made with rice flour. However, banh beo is steamed, whereas these little cakes are cooked over coal in the little terracotta moulds. They are fluffy and bread like. 

The way to eat banh xeo and banh can is to wrap them in coral lettuce leaves, with a whole lot of Vietnamese herbs, including Wasabi leaf (Cai xanh), Thai basil (Hung Que), Purple perilla (Tia to), Fish mint (Diep Ca), Shredded Baby mango (Xoai xanh). Dip it into a chilli lime dipping sauce - ah...... delicious !!

Fish Mint (Diep Ca)

Cha Cuon  - Fresh spring rolls with fish sausage

After we devour everything, we put our helmets back on and hit the crazy street of bikes and cars again towards District 10 to a noodle soup stall for some Banh Canh Cua (Crab Drop Noodle Soup)

Banh Canh Cua Gia Truyen

All the ingredients that went into our bowl of noodles

This is Gia Truyen on Vinh Vien Street. This place is busy with locals, all seating on these little plastic seats and tiny tables. Anh and Linh found us a table and started ordering for us. 

This is the house specialty - Banh Canh Cua with crab (cua), shrimp (tom), shrimp sausage (cha tom), quail egg (trung cut) and fried bread (gio chao quay)

The broth was intense and sweet, the drop noodles had just the right chewiness. Perfect. 

As it was hot and humid, Anh ordered a refreshing drink for us - Nuoc Sam. This is a herbal tea made with sugar cane, pandan leaves, grass root, corn silk and a whole lot of ingredients........ delicious and very good for you. 

Steph and I love our Banh Mi. We often go to Hong Ha in Mascot and get our Banh Mi fix when we are in Sydney. On our many trips to Vietnam, we had seen a lot of these Banh Mi stands, but never had the courage to get one. So at the time of booking this tour with Saigon Food Tour, I mentioned that we love Banh Mi. So to our surprise, Anh and Linh took us on a detour and we found ourselves at a Banh Mi Stall that Anh's mum had reccommended. That just made our night........... how awesome was that. (we loved these two gorgeous girls even more !!! )

Pork Pate, Home made mayonnaise, Pork floss

Home made steamed pork (Cha), Rolled Pork, Nem (Pickled Pork)

Anh ordered the pork Banh Mi for us. Do you know what I love about this place, the lady in the photo who served us........ you can tell she's a pro. 

Now that we have tried Banh Mi in Vietnam, how does it compare to Hong Ha at Mascot - Australia - you may ask?? The baguette rolls in Saigon has a nice crunch and the flavour of the filling is subtle with a good mix of meat. I prefer the ones in Mascot because there are a lot more pickled vegetables and sauce is more flavoursome. 

The girls also took us for a quick wander around the flower market that was close by to walk off a bit of the food before heading on to our next destination. 

Our 4th stop for the night is a Vietnamese BBQ Restaurant - Quan Khoi on Vinh Khanh Street in District 4. This street is pumping, full of young locals out in groups having a great time. There were lots of street buskers from singing to flame juggling. 

Anh and Linh showed us to a table and immediately, the waiters brought out our charcoal grill and the girls ordered a couple of FROZEN BEERS for us.......... someone in Australia needs to start serving these. They were perfect for this weather and yes, it was too easy going down, second rounds on the way before the girls could finish ordering our food !!  

We had:

Beef rolls with needle mushrooms (Bo cuon nam kim cham)

sausages (Xuc Xich)

Bacon marinated with house special sauce (Ba chi nuong sot khoi)

Goats udder marinated with fermented tofu sauce (Nhu de nuong chao)

Stir-fried Frog marinated with fish sauce (Ech chien nuong mam)

I am sure by this stage, Anh and Linh must be struggling to take us on the back of the bike..... We had eaten so much, I am sure we had tripled our weight.

So we waddled back to the bike to head onto our final food destination. Dessert (Che). The specialty shop we visited is Che Nam Bo in Dinh Tien Hoang Street - District 1 and looks to be family run.

Here we shared these:-

Grilled banana with tapioca jelly and coconut milk (Chuoi nuong)

Steamed banana with cassava root, tapioca jelly and coconut milk (Che chuoi)

Mixed jelly dessert with jack fruit, dragon fruit and a whole lot of different fruits (Che Thai)

Mashed mung bean dessert (Dau xanh danh)

Mixed bean dessert with mung beans, black beans, red beans and white beans or moon beans (Che dau thap cam)

Thank god, we shared these. I think I would explode from food overload if I had to have all of this on my own. 

This is Anh and Linh, our delightful hosts. They are university students, studying english. So this is a chance for them to practise their english. They gave us great insight into local foods, culture, way of life and the expectations from their parents of their future. They were also interested on what our views are of Vietnam, our education system and what our life is like in Australia and about our work. 

It was the best 4.5 hours and was worth every cent. It was the highlight of our entire trip and we will join these guys on more tour when we return. Being able to be a part of the crazy Ho Chi Minh City traffic as a passenger on the bike was an absolute buzz and we still talk about it now to this day. At no time did we feel unsafe, the girls although tiny had no problem with having us on the back of their bike. 

But what made this tour special apart from all the delicious food was Anh and Linh. Thanks a million girls. You guys ROCK !!!