Mien Ga at The Lunch Lady, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam — *Mien Ga* at The Lunch Lady, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Vietnam is a foodie destination. A visit to the country will be incomplete if one didn’t experience its incredible food culture. So taking my cues from Mark Wiens, Erwan Heussaff, and the late Anthony Bourdain, I made sure that I visited the iconic food spots of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) or Saigon.

But I have to be honest that my foodventure in HCMC wasn’t extensive since I was also on a vacation with friends. I was able to visit only a few (less than 10, I believe) local spots that serve traditional Vietnamese food! (There! I have another reason to visit Vietnam!). So forgive me for my failure (yes, I consider it a failure not to do an extensive foodventure in a city LOL).

So here are the 5 dishes I recommend:

Banh Mi at Banh Mi Huynh Hoa

Banh Mi is a sub filled with different kinds of meat, pickled vegetables, and seasonings, smothered with mayonnaise and liver pate, all sandwiched in a Vietnamese baguette. Along with Pho and spring rolls, the sandwich is one of the Vietnamese dishes that have made international recognition. Obviously, this dish has French influences.

The best banh mi in Saigon is at Banh Mi Huynh Hoa. (Disclosure: My friends and I only tried one more banh mi of the same kind. But my favorite food vloggers and even our local tour guides say confirm that Huynh Hoa’s is the best.) Huynh Hoa’s version has lots of meat in it, packed between crispy baguettes.

I had a bad experience with liver pate in a banh mi I ate in Manila. I didn’t complement with the entire sandwich. But in Huynh Hoa, it blended well. So the pate got a redemption!

Fortunately for me and my friends, we stayed at a place near Huynh Hoa. Before we flew home, we bought for takeaway and ate it at the airport. What a way to end our trip!

Here’s a trivia before I continue: Banh mi literally means wheat (mi) bread (banh). I learned it from my research ;) But for the purposes of this blog, I will refer to banh mi as the sandwich.

Banh Mi Op La at Banh Mi Hoa Ma

While banh mi is typically eaten as breakfast, there’s still a breakfast version of it. Banh Mi Hoa Ma serves a deconstructed version of banh mi, with the addition of a sunny-side up egg on the side. The combination of the different meats, crispy baguette, and a creamy yolk from the egg is a world of flavors and texture!

Banh Mi Hoa Ma (Banh Mi Op La with Coffee: VND119,000) — Banh Mi Hoa Ma (*Banh Mi Op La* with Coffee: VND119,000)

What adds to the experience is that customers get to eat along the alley way, seated in low plastic stools and tables, which is a typical street food scene in all of Vietnam. Too bad I wasn’t able to take a decent picture of it.

One more thing: Make sure to have your banh mi op la with Vietnamese coffee, which is typically iced and sweetened with condensed milk, and you’ll have the perfect Vietnamese breakfast!

Com Tam at Com Tam Ba Ghien

Since we arrived in Vietnam, my friends and I had been eating banh mi and pho. But on our 2nd day, we finally had our first rice meal. We, as Filipinos, couldn’t last more than a day without rice ‘coz rice is life! LOL.

So we went to Com Tam Ba Ghien to have our rice meal called Com Tam. Literally “broken rice”, it is typically served, as in the case of Ba Ghien’s version, with grilled porkchop, fried egg, cha trung hap (a kind of meatloaf made with minced pork and mung bean noodles, among other ingredients), bi (shredded pork skin that looks like the Filipino stir-fried noodles pancit), and pickled vegetables.

Those porkchops are massive and mouthwatering!

The star of this dish is the porkchop, which is massive. It’s nicely charred and has familiar flavors, a cross between Filipino-style barbecue and tocino (cured meat). All the other elements of the dish, I think, is for texture.

Mien Ga and Spring Rolls at The Lunch Lady

You might be familiar with this spot. That’s because the legendary Anthony Bourdain paid The Lunch Lady a visit for his show No Reservations. Since then, tourists and food vloggers alike have been flocking to this food joint. Because of that fateful day of Bourdainian visit, The Lunch Lady, both the stall and the owner, Nguyen Thi Thanh, was never the same.

At The Lunch Lady, with "the lunch lady" herself preparing the food

The Lunch Lady serves noodle bowls and spring rolls. Interestingly, the stall serves one one kind of noodle dish per day (see the rotation here). We came on a Tuesday, in which Mien Ga was served, a kind of chicken noodle soup. It has glass noodles and a whole chicken leg swimming in chicken stock, among other ingredients. What I liked in this dish are (if I’m not mistaken) the fried shallots, which, when bitten, bursts with flavor.

My friends found it underwhelming. One of them even said that it tastes just like their mom’s cooking. I found it okay (I was fascinated by the whole chicken leg and the shallots). So was all the hype worth it? I still believe so. We just came at a day where The Lunch Lady served a dish that it’s not best known for (I read somewhere that its mien ga is just average and other vendors make better ones).

So okay, I’m not recommending the mien ga but I’m recommending that you still visit The Lunch Lady at another day. That’s what I’m going to do when I go back to HCMC.

By the way, they serve good spring rolls. Well, I’m allergic to shrimp so I didn’t try it. But my friends did and were satisfied.

Pho at Pho Le

Finally, the most iconic Vietnamese dish of all time: Pho. For the uninitiated, pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup that’s composed of rice noodles and protein, typically beef or chicken. It’s usual condiments are herbs, vegetables, lime, and Sriracha.

Many say that one of the best bowls of pho in HCMC is served by Pho Le. We’ve tried at least 3 spots and Pho Le, hands down, our favorite. The condiments were also generous.

I forgot the name of the bowl we got. It has tender slices of beef and springy meat balls, swimming in a flavorful broth, which is also slightly sweet in a good way. This bowl is amazing and is the best dish I had in HCMC!

Bonus: Fusion/Modern Vietnamese Cuisine at Anan Saigon

I read about this in the plane’s magazine on my flight to Taiwan. Anan Saigon serves fusion/modern Vietnamese dishes.

Anan Saigon (It's roofdeck has a view of the iconic Bitexco Financial Tower)

Stay tuned for my article on Anan Saigon.

Okay, I know I missed a lot of dishes and food spots in HCMC (one of them is banh xeo). So what should I try or go to when I return? Comment them below!

Other entries in the Gone to Saigon series: A Throwback to My Ho Chi Minh City Trip (Introduction) | Learning About the Vietnam War | Modern Vietnamese Cuisine at Anan Saigon

Gone to Saigon: Eating Banh Mi, Pho, and Other Vietnamese Dishes