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More HCMC Restaurants

August 11, 2012

Food is cheap, healthy, clean and super yummy in HCMC. It was one of the goals of our trip – to eat as much authentic Vietnamese cuisine! I’ve already featured all the phở bò we ate and our top 2 favorite restos, L’Usine and Ngon, so here is the rest of our trip from the point of view of our tummies. 

LA JOLIE HOTEL & SPA

  • 4D Thi Sach St, Dist 1, District 1 – Riverside, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (View map)

We had free breakfast at the hotel so we took advantage of the free meals in the morning. The food was okay and it was nice to have coffee and something in our tummies before we started our days. The breakfast area and restaurant is small but bright and clean looking – always something I appreciate. There was a limited buffet but the basics of eggs, toast, fried rice, and other Asian breakfast food was there.

 

Com Tam Moc

  • Moc 85 Ly, Tu Trong, Q1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
  • (08) 248 561
Com Tam Moc is a great way to try broken rice for the first time. It’s cheap yet clean so if you are on a really tight budget and need a quick bite. This is for you. I would just order the half fat half lean pork BBQ though because the pork BBQ + pork skin + pork pie doesn’t do anything for me. Each meal is served with a cup of broken rice, soup and nuoc cham sauce. We ended up with 2 extra rice because the staff don’t know how to speak English and misunderstood us. My advice: Just point to what you want in the menu.
Click here for a few pics of the menu.

You could get better com tam at Com Tam Thuan Kieu or Com Tam Kieu Giang, The best place to eat com tam is com tam Ba Ghien, a single mom and pop location in Tan Binh district, best grill pork chop you’ll ever have.

We Restaurant

  • 8 Lê Quý Đôn, 6  Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
  • (08) 3930 9604
We was our last meal before heading of to the airport on our last day. This is definitely one of our most memorable meals in HCMC aside from L’Usine and Ngon! We got some fresh fruit juices, gỏi cuốn or fresh shrimp and pork spring rolls, deep fried soft shell crab, grilled pork and spring roll noodles doused generously with nuoc cham sauce. Everything was close-you-eyes-and-moan-yummy! Seriously. I highly recommend you order the same things.
Oh and did I tell you about the lovely interiors? See for yourself below. Simple and white with splashes of color, just the way I like it.
Click here to see the We Restaurant menu, which had English translations of dishes.

Stella Restaurant and Cafe

  • 119 Bui Vien Street, Dist 1, HCMC
  • 84 8 38369220
  • stellacaffe@yahoo.com

This last restaurant I am only including as a cautionary tale. After walking around the backpacking district during a hot day, we were thirsty, starving and a bit frustrated by the overpriced items in the shops in this area. We noticed that most of the places to eat were open air and no respite from the heat and humidity. Until we saw Stella Restaurant and Cafe (Italan and Vietnamese Food), which had an air-conditioned area. TD was insisting we just get a drink and go back to our neck of the woods for a bite. But cranky-hungry-me insisted on ordering beef noodle soup. It was not the Pho I expected.  And worse it was not as cheap as we thought it should be considering the lesser quality food, seedy ambiance, questionable hygiene, etc. It was less value for money than if we had just eaten L’Usine. To put it simply, it was a rip off. On the bright side we were able to use the not-so-clean rest room and also got hydrated enough to find our way back to Dong Koi.

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1 Comment · Vietnam

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  1. TRAVEL DIARIES: Asia Hitlist says:
    November 12, 2014 at 1:05 PM

    […] L’Usine Bahn Mi for breakfast every morning.  Bun Cha Gio, a vermicelli noodle salad, with fried spring rolls and Nuoc Cham sauce. This sweet spicy salty sour sauce is the secret that makes Vietnamese dishes so addictive! Half fat and half lean pork BBQ with Vietnamese broken rice at Com Tam Moc. Crispy soft shell crab at WE Restaurant […]

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Hello! I’m Ayessa, trailing spouse to a diplomat, mama to DiploBaby and DiploDog and founder of Declutter MNL. I love talking about how to achieve a minimaluxe lifestyle one step at a time.

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