Al Qasr

Before I start this entry, I would like to wish everyone Happy New Year! (:

My siblings and I cooked a simple NYE dinner and watched Public Enemy by way of celebrating the passing of 2009. I enjoyed our quiet, homely celebration because I personally dislike squeezing with crowds. Anyway, I hope that 2010 will be a great year for most, if not all, of us! May we make good use of time and effort to pursue the goals that we've set for ourselves!

On the eve of NYE, Jeffrey and I met up with a couple of friends at a Lebanese restaurant called Al Qasr in Holland Village.

One of our friends suggested having Lebanese food and we found this welcoming restaurant diagonally across Walawala. We browsed through the menu and found the items palatable so we went in and got ourselves a table.

The interior of the restaurant was very well-designed. The brown and red colours and the intricate details of the decorations on the walls gave off an exotic feel.

Turkish coffee ($5). I didn't expect it to be so dark in colour! My friend ordered this because he read/ heard about it =)

Complimentary soft nuts (tastes like one of those nuts you can find at kachang puteh stalls).

Complimentary vegetable nibblers.

As none of us have tried Lebanese food before, we simply chose what we thought we would like and thankfully, all of us gave thumbs up for our respective main courses. I think Lebanese food tastes a little like Indian food in that it's pretty laden with spices. As a result, the food is extremely flavourful and it leaves you and your tastebuds feeling highly satisfied. Here are some photos of our main courses:

Vegetarian kebab ($22).

Shirazy kebab/ Chicken kebab ($22).

Sultani kebab/ lamb kebab ($22).

Fish fillet ($27).

We dug into our food and finished all that were on our plates =) The staff were extremely friendly and nice. Not only did they offer us complimentary turkish sweets for dessert, they also served us complimentary cammomile tea after that! All of us were very impressed with their good service.

Complimentary turkish sweets.

In sum, we thoroughly enjoyed our dining experience at Al Qasr and we would definitely return for more good food! =)

Peach Garden @Thomson Plaza

After not having Chinese food for a couple of weeks, Jeffrey and I decided to indulge in some good Chinese dimsum! We've heard pretty good reviews about the dimsum served at Peach Garden so we decided to pay that restaurant a visit.

Although we went during peak hours, we managed to secure a table without having to wait too long. It's times like this that I appreciate going out with Jeffrey alone as opposed to being in the company of my extremely large family because I was hungry and I wanted food!

This outlet definitely has a more informal setting compared to the restaurant at OCBC building. Personally, I prefer the more informal setting for lunch because it makes me feel more relaxed.

Complimentary peanuts. I love this kind of big peanuts! =) I finished the entire dish on my own.

Since we've never had dimsum at Peach Garden before, we weren't familiar with their ordering system. For those who reminisce the old days when dimsum is ordered and served when the dimsum trolley comes to your table, you'll love Peach Garden because that's exactly how it's done! Surprisingly, there were only two trolleys of steamed food and one trolley of fried food being pushed around, which in my opinion is way too little for a restaurant that's packed with hungry patrons like me! Perhaps they should have more trolleys moving about during peak hours because we had to wait pretty long for the trolleys to come by.

Another thing about Peach Garden is that they've a rather mysterious pricing system. The reason why I say that it's mysterious is because I've no idea how much each item costs! If I'm not wrong, the different dimsums are categorized under four categories: small ($3.30), medium ($3.60), large ($3.90) and special ($4.20). I have no idea which dimsum comes under which category because the waitress simply served whatever wee ordered then she put stamps on our table's dimsum sheet without telling us much each dish costs. In any case, Jeffrey and I agreed that Peach Garden's dimsum are a little more expensive than Crystal Jade's but the quality of their dimsums are about the same. I guess your personal preference becomes the deciding factor as to whether you'd dine at Peach Garden or Crystal Jade. Alright, enough rambling.. shall post photos of what we had that day! (:

Har gao (shrimp dumplings). They were pretty average. Personally I prefer the ones served at Crystal Jade because the prawns are more succulent.

Shrimp and chives dumplings. This was much better than expected, perhaps the chives gave the dumplings more taste.

Siew mai (shrimp and meat dumpling).

Chee chong fun with roasted pork filling. It's less salty and less flavourful than Crystal Jade's, so perhaps you'd like to try their famous cheechongfun with scallops instead.

Xiao long bao. It's only average so don't order this if you want to save space for other dishes.


Gluttinous rice and condiments wrapped in leaves. I actually enjoyed this quite a bit because the gluttinous rice to condiments proportion was just right =)

Pan-fried carrot cake. We were utterly shocked when we saw these three measly pieces of carrot cake because we expected them to be much larger! They were a tad disappointing because we thought that they would taste much better than others we've tried but they were just slightly above average.


My favourite dish: custard buns! (: I never expected the custard to ooze out so beautifully. I'm pretty sure that there was saltedegg egg yolk in the custard mixture because the taste was quite strong. I think the saltedegg egg yolk accentuates the sweetness of custard by providing a subtle saltiness to it. Absolutely divine.

Last but not least, we ordered a plate of egg tarts which weren't spectacularly good but they're light enough so people who are nearly full to the brim should be able to find enough space for one final egg tart (:

On the whole, the food wasn't as good as we expected it to be and the service was pretty slow. I guess it'll be better to dine there on a weekday when the staff aren't so busy. I'll return again some time in the near future, but probably on a weekday (:

Quan An Ngon

If you only have the time and budget for ONE good meal in Saigon, I would recommend Quan An Ngon. Personally, I feel that a meal at Quan An Ngon will make your trip to Saigon complete =) We'd trouble locating this restaurant because they shifted to a new location! Thankfully we managed to find their new outlet because it isn't too far away from their original location.

The restaurant is non-airconditioned so it can get a little warm during hot days. The high ceilings and numerous turbo-fans help are effective in helping to keep the place slightly cooler. Quan An Ngon serves a wide range of street food which you can pick and choose either from the menu or by ordering them from the food alley.

As we were seated on the 2nd level, we didn't have the chance to visit the food alley so we ordered straight from the menu.

Fried spring roll with sweet and sour sauce. Although the spring rolls were fried, they didn't have a very oily after-taste. The skin wasn't very thick so we tasted more of the condiments than the skin, which was great! =)

Rice flour spring rolls. The rolls here tasted slightly better than the ones we had before because their ingredients are much fresher. I loved the sauce that came along with these spring rolls =)

A plate of stir-fried mixed vegetables.

Tofu cubes covered with saltedegg egg yolk. Sinfully good! Gives a new twist to the conventional fried tofu with sauce.

Seafood noodle soup. The soup base was mouthwateringly delicious! I'm usually not a big fan of soup base but this one was exceptionally good! Do try it when you're there!

Roasted chicken with rice. Not too sure what it tastes like because I didn't try it but Jeffrey says that it's fantastic (:

Che Suong Xa Hot Luu! Wow I actually wrote down the name of this dessert because it's their must-try dessert! It's the first dessert on their dessert page so be sure to look out for it! Essentially, it is their rendition of chendol and it's a superb dessert to end off your meal! Not cloyingly sweet nor too milky. Try it! =)

As this restaurant is very popular, I'd advise you to go earlier to ensure that you'll get a table! Bon appetit!

Address:
160 Pasteur Road

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Alright that's the very last of my Saigon food posts. Will go back to blogging about local food! (:

Mon Hue

After a long day of sightseeing, we were pretty tired and didn't want to travel far for a meal so we were very thankful when we discovered that Mon Hue was located pretty close to where we stayed! (:

This restaurant is located along a relatively busy street but we managed to find it eventually, thanks to its big and bright restaurant sign!

As the restaurant's name suggests, Hue cuisine is served at Mon Hue. As I've neither been to Hue nor tasted Hue cuisine before, I was pretty excited about trying out their food! Like Restaurant 13 and Ngoc Suong, Mon Hue's menu is also very extensive and there are English descriptions to help non-Vietnamese choose our dishes.

The interior decoration of the restaurant is very pleasant and homely. I love how every cup and bowl has a small hole in it! (: Very aesthetically pleasing.

Complimentary sticky sweet cakes. We wanted to eat them for dessert but they were removed because our table became too cluttered so we never got a chance to taste them!

Little petri-dishes of rice cakes. The rice cake tasted like plain cheechong fun! You're supposed to scrape the rice cake out and eat it with the given toppings. The toppings include grated carrot, spring onions, crunchy things that tasted like unsalted popcorn and a bit of oil. It's a rather bland dish but it's an extremely delightful starter to have.

Their variation of rice paper spring rolls with shrimps. I thought that it was relatively easier to eat this plate of spring rolls since they were cut up into pieces. They tasted pretty similar to the usual Vietnamese rice paper rolls except that there wasn't the usual black sauce with peanuts to dip the rolls in. I much prefer the sweet black sauce with peanuts to the red shrimp sauce as seen in the above photo.

Rice flour roll stuffed with shrimps. This is essentially cheechongfun with shrimps inside. Surprisingly, it was pretty tasteless when eaten alone, which is probably why they provided sauce for us to dip these rolls into. I liked this dish a lot (:

Grilled shrimp paste on bamboo shoots. This was recommended to us by the waitress and we didn't regret ordering it! It's awesome! (: The meat was juicy and tender and I loved biting it off the bamboo shoots. There are other kinds of grilled meat on bamboo shoots which I think you should try as well (:

I think this pile of raw vegetables came with one of our dishes but I'm not sure which. In any case, I didn't touch them because I was busy eating the other wonderfully cooked dishes on the table.

Last but not least, we ordered seafood with mixed vegetables fried rice. We were pretty surprised that the rice was yellow in colour but somehow it didn't taste like pineapple rice. In any case, this plate of fried rice was pretty average so may be you can order more of their recommended dishes and skip this instead.

I'd recommend this place to people who prefer to sample a variety of Vietnamese food instead of having just one main course. It's a great place for treating your tastebuds to an adventure!

Address:
98D Nguyen Trai (Limmies: near your hotel)

Ngoc Suong

If you are a seafood lover, Ngoc Suong is probably THE restaurant that you should visit when you're in Saigon. It is located pretty near the War Remnants Museum so you can pop by this restaurant for lunch/ dinner after your visit to the afore-mentioned museum.

Ngoc Suong provides a wide range of affordable seafood dishes so it's really a dining haven for seafood lovers. This restaurant is one of the few restaurants that has air conditioning so rest assure that you'll be dining in comfort (:

Apart from ordering coke, we also ordered orange juice and coconut juice because we were simply too thirsty!

Coconut juice which wasn't cold so it wasn't as refreshing as I wanted it to be.

Because the crabmeat and asparagus soup at Restaurant 13 left us with a positive impression, we decided to order this soup again at Ngoc Suong. Ngoc Suong's soup had more condiments but the soup base wasn't as thick or flavourful.


The highlight of our meal was these two fried stuffed crabmeat rolls. They were SO tasty that we were tempted to order more! The crispy skin complemented the delicious crabmeat by giving it a light, crunchy taste. It's one of their featured items and definitely a must-try when you dine there!

A basket of stirfried mixed vegetables. Unlike other restaurants that simply place the vegetables on a plate, Ngoc Suong actually serves them in a basket! The basket is pretty sturdy because it softened but didn't crumble even after absorbing the vegetable sauce. I liked the fact that they really used a mix of vegetables for this dish.

Fried seafood noodles. As you can see from the photo, they were very generous with their seafood! The noodles were unusually fine and they were cooked just nice - neither too undercooked nor too soggy.

It'd be better to gather more people to visit Ngoc Suong because it would mean that you can order more seafood dishes! (: Be sure to order their featured dishes and you will not be disappointed!

Address:
172H Nguyen Dinh Chieu, District 3
or
17 Le Quy Don (as listed on the cover of the menu)