Vegetarian food in Ho Chi Minh city

I was in Ho Chi Minh city for about 5 days last week.

It wasn't too difficult to find vegetarian food. There are a few vegetarian restaurants around, though it does take a bit of effort to look for them. You just have to keep an eye for them. I always look for the word "chay" (pronounced like zai as in banzai).

Vegetarian restaurants are called "quan chay". I was in a shopping centre looking at a menu, which did not appear to have any vegetarian options. The waiter could not speak English, but when I told him "an chay" (meaning "eat vegetarian"), he immediately pointed me to a few vegetarian dishes.

Of course, it helps that my friend there had a few local friends who knew were the restaurants are. Here's a few places I went to.

	Sen Vegetarian (Lotus Restaurant) This restaurant really needs to get into the Lonely Planet or any of the travel guide. It is a good restaurant in the Pham Ngu Lao area, which is the backpackers area. It is less than 5 min walk from Sinh Tourist. Prices are comparable (and in fact cheaper!) than the restaurants that caters to tourist in the Pham Ngu Lao area. A bowl of pho is only 26,000D. (I had a bowl of soup noddles of 35,000D at one of the touristy restaurant) Dishes are 30,000D upwards. A spring roll is 5,000D each. They crispy spring roll (see pic on left) is small and at 5,000D each, seemed pretty pricy. But it really good. They also sell vegetarian baguette (called Banh Mi) for 10,000D each. I tried to buy one to bring to the airport on my last day at HCMC, but they were sold out at 1pm. The mango salad (see pic) is similar to Thai's som tam, but not as spicy. It is sweet and tangy, and the extra herbs differentiates it from the Thai version. It is really tasty and makes a good appetizer. The pineapple rice is more like fried rice put in a pineapple. I won't recommend this. I really like the fried tofu with lemon grass (see garlic). The toppings on the deep fried tofu is a mixture of lemon grass and some other herbs. It was a little too salty for my taste, but otherwise would have been perfect. The second time I visited the restaurant, they run out of it. We ordered a braised pork in claypot (see pic). I must say it looked too much like the real thing! If I weren't in a vegetarian restaurant, I wouldn't touch it! The sauce is really tasty though again too salty. But it's great if you mix it with steam rice. The claypot tofu (see pic) is great too. The dishes here were all between 30,000D to 40,000D (i.e. about SGD $2 to $3). It is cheap by our standards, though this is probably one of the better restaurants locally. But if you go to the tourist street, the prices were all 35,000D to 50,000D. We walked into the Zen vegetarian restaurant (just 3 min walk from Sen Vegetarian), which is listed in the Lonely Planet. The place was practically deserted. We took a look at the menu and the prices were more expensive than Sen! So those of you who end up in Pham Ngu Lau, I really recommend Sen Vegetarian over the other restaurants. Address of the restaurant: 171 Ngyuen Thai Hoc. District 1. It is in the same block as the Chua An Lac temple, but on the side facing the main street. Directly opposite is the New Urban Male shop. The menu is in English, but very little English is spoken.
	Vegetarian Buffet at Liberty Hotel This is the seventh month of the Chinese calendar, also known as the Hungry Ghost month. My friend told me that many Vietnamese observe a vegetarian diet this month. Indeed, I saw a few restaurants put up posters indicating vegetarian options. I was walking along Pham Ngu Lau and I noticed this poster publicising a buffet for 110,000D for lunch and 140,000D for dinner. 140,000D is SGD $10! I am not sure if the restaurant is a vegetarian restaurant or not. We got there at 6pm and the restaurant was full of people. I think we were the only foreigners there. There was a very large spread of food and I didn't get to eat all of it. Finally, I had my first bowl of pho in Vietnam. Pho (pronounce like "fur") is rice noodle with beef broth. The pho was delicious and it was served with 2 slices of "beef". But what I was most delighted to find was a tomato broth noodles. I tried this once when I was in US. It was a vegetarian restaurant ran group of Vietnamese nuns in Portland OR. I liked it very much. But I was not able to find it again. So I was really happy to see it. It was really delicious. Unfortunately, I don't know what is it called. I like Vietnamese fresh spring rolls. They had 3 types of rolls. But one of them had this stinking vegetable which I really hated. There were a few pots of curries on the buffet spread as well. One of the curries is ketchup based (see pic), without curry powder and coconut milk. I don't know why it is even called curry at all. But it is good. I tried this curry when I was in central Vietnam and liked it very much. What is good about the buffet is that it is an opportunity to try many types of Vietnamese food. Well I tasted as much as I could without over-eating. I just could not eat buffet the way I used to eat when I was a te The restaurant is called Van Canh and is located inside the Liberty Hotel. There is a chain of Liberty Hotels around the area. This one is located directly opposite from the famous Ben Thanh Market across the round-about. It is at the junction of Calmette road and Tran Hung Dao.
	Local Roadside Stalls I told my friend I would like to try their local 大排挡(roadside stalls). Our Vietnamese friend brought us to this street where there are 4 to 5 Vegetarian stalls at a stretch. These are small "hole in the wall" eateries, with dining tables spread out along the streets. There were 3 of us. We each had a order of fried wanton, fried spring rolls, fresh spring rolls, curry noddles, and sugar cane. We were really stuffed and the bill came up to only 110,000D for the three of us! A bowl of noodles was only 15,000D! Unfortunately, there is no English menu and no English spoken. If you are not here with a Vietnamese friend, it will be difficult to order. The only thing you could do, I guess is to point at what others are eating. The street is Tran Dinh Xu. It is only a short distance from Pham Ngu Lao. At one end of the street, there is a Vegan restaurant call Dao Vien. The looked like a pretty nice restaurant too.
	Dinh Y If the restaurant is crowded with locals, it must be serving good local food. And Dinh Y does fit the bill. Dinh Y is listed on the Lonely Planet. It is across the road from Thai Binh Market, at the other end of Pham Ngu Lao area. (About 10 min walk from Sen Vegetarian or SinhTourist). I came during lunch time and it was packed with local working crowd. There was only 1 table of tourist. I ordered a bowl of soup rice vermicelli (hu tieu) and it was only 20,000D. (About SGD $1.50). I also order 2 fresh spring rolls (I think it was 2,000 each, i.e. about 15 cents!). But what I enjoyed most was Cha Gio, or fried spring rolls. A order of 6 spring rolls was 15,000D if I was not wrong. It was serve was a plate of greens and a dip. I saw how the locals eat it and ate it the same way. They take a leave of lettuce and wrapped the spring roll in it with other herbs like mint and basil (and a bunch of leaves which I can't recognize). It was great! The waiters could not speak English. They have an English menu and I just pointed at what I wanted in the menu. For simple good and inexpensive Vegetarian fare, I would really recommend this.
	Viet Chay On Sunday, I made a trip to Chua Vinh Nghiem (永严寺), which is supposedly the biggest Buddhist temple in HCMC. This is Chinese Mahayana temple. It was preparing for the Water and Land Grand Service (水陆大法会). There is a vegetarian restaurant within the temple grounds. It is a relatively upscale restaurant. Main dishes were 40,000 upwards. Food was pretty good, but pricy by local standards.
	Tourist stop I took a day trip to Cao Dai temple and Cu Chi tunnels. For lunch, we were drop at a nondescript eatery, which the tour guide claimed is inexpensive. It wasn't expensive for a tourist, but I think the locals would find it overpriced. Most dishes were 35,000D to 50,000D. There were only a few vegetarian options. I ordered a fried vegetarian spring rolls with rice. It was served with 5 mini spring rolls. 35,000D. The spring rolls were actually quite nice though. There are 2 types of wraps used for fried spring rolls. This one was the "net" type, which I like better. I don't know how to specifically ask for this though.
	Fruits On my first day here, I was delighted to find pink guavas at the Ben Thanh Market. It was only 30,000D per kg, which is about SGD$2 per kg! Pink guavas are quite rare in Singapore and are quite expensive. When I was in Taiwan, I bought 1 fruit for almost SGD$1! I bought 1 kg of pink guava and 1 kg of custard apple (I bought smaller fruits for 30,000D per kg. Bigger ones are 40,000D - 50,000D per kg). The guavas were very fragrant. I left it on the table in my friends apartment. When we came back from dinner, the whole place was filled with its fragrance. I had pink guavas and custard apples every day. The only problem was that they rippen very fast. I bought 2 kg of pink guavas home. Unfortunately, quite a few them were crushed. Dragon fruit is not native to Vietnam, but is widely cultivated and cheap here too. But I don't like dragon fruit. Durian was quite common too. These are big durians. But it doesn't doesn't have the pungent durian smell like those from Malaysia. So I wasn't interested.