Saigon Street Food Extravaganza

Vietnam’s large cities have a distinct street culture. During the day, and especially when it gets dark, the streets are filled with makeshift bars and restaurants, and patrons sit on sidewalks and in the streets on miniature plastic chairs and tables. These places serve $.50 beer and equally cheap street food, and street performers mingle with tourists and locals alike for some roadside entertainment.

Cheap beer, good food, and the opportunity to sit outside and chat with locals? Jemma, Leanne, Liam and I were definitely eager to take part in Saigon’s nightlife. We planned our “Street Food Extravanganza” night for one where we didn’t have to get up early the next day to go touring, and gathered a few other kids from our hostel to take part. Our strategy was simple – a beer and a snack at each place.

Since any good drinking night begins with a pre-game, we decided to apply this to street food and started out with a late afternoon Banh Mi sandwich from the seller outside our hostel’s alleyway. Banh Mi is a baguette (one of the few positive legacies of French colonization) and is filled with a variety of meats, pates, chilis and Laughing Cow cheese (seriously, but not sure why) topped with mayonnaise and a chili sauce. At about $.20, it was an extremely filling snack that staved off our hunger while we got ready for the main event.

Mmmm sandwich

After showering and getting dressed, we met up with everyone and headed out. Our first stop was a stall where the specialty was a shrimp and noodles dish with a spicy soy sauce topper. The girls shared it, while the boys were more interested in the cheap Saigon beers.

Meal #1

Jemma, me and Leanne at the beginning of the night

Stop #2 was what had initially prompted this adventure – garlic chili crab at our “local” street bar where we had hung out for the past few nights. This placed was always packed with Vietnamese grabbing a quick meal after work, so we figured that was a good endorsement of the food. We were not disappointed. The crab was cracked into small pieces so we could easily enjoy all of the flavors, and the boys turned their attention away from the beers long enough to help us finish this one off.

Best meal of the night

We headed to a bar across the street after the crab. Every day we had witnessed vendors selling dried squid, and after a few more beers we decided to be adventurous and go for it. Although the squid are already dried flat when they are hanging from the vendor’s bicycle-store contraption, once purchased they are put through a hand-turned crank to be flattened again. There were six of us eating that night, and we debated on purchasing one or two of these, but it turned out one was more than enough. Even though it was served with chili sauce, it really tasted like nothing. Well, a really chewy nothing.

Never again

After a few more snacks we were all pretty full and ready for the second part of the night. We’d had more than a few cheap beers at this point, and went out in search of a Saigon club. There were tons of places nearby that promised drink specials, and we got sucked into one. From the street it looked like a good time, but inside there were maybe twenty people. Oh well, at least we’d get our money’s worth out of the specials, right? It turns out that all of those 2 for 1 drink deals were literally just twice as expensive as regular drinks. It seemed like too much effort to find a new place at this point, so we just stayed there and had an expensive night out (well, for Saigon – I probably didn’t spend more than $30). Despite the lame club part of the evening, we all had a great night – although the same can’t be said for the next morning. Hangovers in hostels are never ideal.

Liam messing up a cute picture