Intercontinental Club Lounge – Vietnam

We stayed at the  Intercontinental Asiana Saigon in Ho Chi Minh City and our room rate had access to the Intercontinental Club Lounge….. which means… there were breakfast, afternoon tea, evening canapés and refreshments!

all set up for evening canapés!

each night has different food to offer!! i tried each canapé and was quite stuffed for dinner!

and for breakfast!!

an assortment of fresh bread and pastries…

congee with as much condiments as you want!

made to order pho! soooo good! I love having pho as the 1st meal of the day! and they used Australian Beef!

and.. cold vietnamese coffee and condensed milk!!!!!! my favourite! I had 3 glasses each morning and ended up buying a box of Trung Nguyen coffee to DIY at home!

and afternoon tea!

scones.. mini muffins, mini cakes, cookies, fruit, yogurt and some cream-dessert which i fell in love with!

yummm! a mix of cream, fruits, and something crunchy.. some kind of mousse i presume?

I LOVE the food at the lounge and the staff were so nice! They even remembered what I liked to eat and drink!

FAIM? OUI OUI!!

Intercontinental Club Lounge  at the Intercontinental Asiana Saigon Hotel

Cnr Hai Ba Trung St. and Le Duan Blvd, District 1

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Com Nieu Saigon – Vietnam

for our last meal in vietnam, we decided to try anther famous local restaurant, Com Nieu Saigon.

and what is it famous for? CON DAP!!! Con dap is rice cooked in a special clay pot…. the waiter will break the clay pot and throw the rice to another waiter to catch!!!

the clay pot waiting to be cracked…..

the first attempt……. the ceiling was low so the rice hit the ceiling and fell to the ground 😦

the waiter attempting the 2nd throw!!! perfect!

the final product… Con Dap!!!!  crispy rice accompanied by a scallion and sesame topping! I love it! I always scrape the bottom when i eat “bo zai fan” aka. claypot rice..  so i especially love this version cause i don’t have to do the scraping!  I was surprised that the topping was sweet… but it worked out pretty well!

we just had to have morning glory again!!!

and we also had to have king prawns again!!!  yummmm! sweet and sour version!

and to accompany these dishes, we ordered…

com nieu!!!!  rice cooked in earthenware-pot…. it’s soo good the restaurant named itself after it…. but i didn’t think it was as good or as special as com dap…

I’m so glad I visited this place because I just found out that Anthony Bourdain of “A Cook’s Tour” listed it as his favourite restaurant in Vietnam!

FAIM? OUI OUI!!!

Com Nieu Saigon

19 Tu Xuong, District 3

Marina Seafood Cuisine-Ngoc Suong Restaurant – Vietnam

since vietnam is well known for their seafood (especially king prawns), we decided to have seafood for our last night in vietnam.. so off we went to Marina!

and the food!

fish salad….. i love vietnamese salad because there’s rice paper for you to wrap the fillings in… like DIY burrito!

and tada!

i like this dish because it’s unique and you get to dip it in peanut sauce.. but the fish was tasteless…..

steamed tiger prawns in coconut….. i love the presentation!  Apart from being aesthetically pleasing site, the flame was used to keep the prawns warm! The prawns were sooo sweet… but I couldn’t really taste the coconut….

salt and pepper crabs…… omg…. i think this has to be the best crab ever… even better than the sri-lanka crabs i had in singapore! why? the crab was cooked perfectly so the meat was tender and with each bite, crab juice oozed out!!! I haven’t ever had crab with crab juice! and the meat was so fresh and sweet-tasting!

grilled king prawns with 2 flavours….. this was another 1st time…. live, swimming king prawns cause the ones in vancouver and hong kong are frozen…… and this was also one of the main reasons why dad wanted to go to vietnam.. live king prawns!!!! DELICIOUS!  tender and juicy meat!

the king prawns who were so unluckily picked……

clams cooked in french butter sauce….. amazing as well…. sweet, semi-fatty clams….. rich rich rich butter sauce… mom drank the sauce and had to take Zantac!

morning glory with oyster sauce…one of the vegetables that was always on the menu in cambodia was morning glory…. but since we didn’t know what it was, we never ordered it…  however, i insisted to try it on the last night of our trip… and morning glory turned out to be “tung choi”.. one of my favourite vegetables..  i missed out!!!

marina seafood is really good X 3! good price (70usd for 3ppl with fresh seafood!!!), good service (our waitress helped us remove the meat from the king prawn legs cause we didn’t know how to) and good food!

FAIM? OUI OUI!!!

Marina Seafood Cuisine-Ngoc Suong Restaurant

172 Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street, District 3

Quán ăn Ngon – Vietnam

After a wonderful 4 days in Siem Reap, we headed to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam!

We decided to try Quán ăn Ngon, a restaurant which offers pretty much everything Vietnamese cuisine has to offer!

The restaurant is housed inside an old colonial building, so you wouldn’t believe that inside this restaurant is an assemblage of quality-checked street-food stalls!

I like how you can view the food first before ordering… and you get to see how it’s cooked!

the dining area: no air-con again!

we ordered:

steamed rice sheets with pork sausage

Vietnamese pancake

Pho Bo (beef noodles)

Chicken Pho

Pounded shrimp hash fried on sugar cane served with rice vermicelli, rice paper and vegetables

and you wrap it!!!

tadaa!

i don’t know why they don’t provide water to help soften the rice-paper (unlike the HK restaurant rice-paper)…..

Vermmicelli and ground pork meatballs with fresh herbs and fish sauce

grilled shrimps on skewer

steamed clams with lemon grass

the food was very good overall!!! But the service was a bit bad. They gave us a 2 person table (for our party of 3); which cannot hold the amount of food we ordered! When the adjacent 2 person table was free, we asked if we could combine the 2 tables (like what other people did), the waiter said “NO” very rudely……… so we talked to the “head” who reluctantly said yes…….

FAIM? OUI OUI!!

Quán ăn Ngon

160 Pasteur, District 1