Street Food Tour

What this tour is

This food walking tour lasts three hours, morning or evening, at street stalls I've been eating at for years 🥰 We eat around 10 different dishes, have some beers and I will share with you a little history too.

Between stalls, we walk through the neighbourhoods they're in. Up the stairs of old apartment blocks, down the alleys, into phố Cam, Saigon's Cambodian street, and through Hồ Thị Kỷ flower market next door.

What we eat

This is the list I pick from. On any given day we eat about 10 of these, and which ones depends on what's open and what's good. Street stalls don't keep office hours… if a stall's shut, or the cook's having an off day, we go somewhere else.

Portions are small, but 10 of anything is a lot of food, so you need to fast during the day or come very hungry.

Bún bò Huế (spicy beef noodle soup)
From Huế, which was the capital until 1945. Lemongrass and chilli go into the broth, and you can smell the lemongrass before the bowl reaches you. The noodles are round and thicker than phở noodles, with more chew.

Cơm tấm (broken rice)
Rice grains that broke during milling. It used to be the cheap rice, and now it's what Saigon eats at any hour. It comes with a pork chop grilled over charcoal, pickles, scallion oil and sweet fish sauce to pour over.

Bánh tráng nướng (grilled rice paper)
A sheet of rice paper on the charcoal, with egg, spring onion, dried shrimp and chilli spread over it while it cooks. It comes folded in half and you eat it with your hands. People call it Vietnamese pizza, but it's closer to a cracker with an egg on it.

Bột chiên (fried rice cake)
Cubes of rice flour cake fried in a wide pan until the outside goes hard and the inside stays soft. Then an egg gets cracked over the top. It comes with green papaya and a soy and vinegar dip, which cuts through the oil.

Pani puri (Indian, not Vietnamese)
Hollow shells, fried crisp. You fill one with spiced water and put the whole thing in your mouth at once. Bite it in half and it goes down your shirt.

Bò lá lốt (beef in wild betel leaf)
Minced beef with lemongrass, rolled up in the leaf and grilled over charcoal. The leaf is the whole point. It chars at the edges and goes smoky and a bit peppery, and that's what you remember afterwards, more than the beef.

Bò lụi sả (beef grilled on lemongrass)
The lemongrass stalk is the skewer, so it flavours the beef from the inside while it grills. Eat the beef. Leave the stalk.

Thịt xiên nướng (grilled pork skewers)
Pork on skewers, grilled over charcoal until the fat at the edges crisps up. It's the plainest thing on this list.

Trứng cút chén nướng (quail eggs baked in little cups)
A few quail eggs cracked into each cup and baked on the grill until they just set. You eat it hot, straight out of the cup, with a little spoon.

Ốc (snails)
The snail stalls are their own world in this city. The menu is a long list of snails and clams you won't know the names of, cooked with garlic, tamarind, coconut milk or salt and chilli. People sit at low tables over a beer and stay for hours. It's evening food, so this one's for the evening tour.

Ốc nhồi thịt (stuffed snails)
The snail meat gets chopped up with minced pork and lemongrass and packed back into the shell to steam. You pull it out with a toothpick. If you've never had snails, start here, because a lot of what's in there is pork.

Chuối nếp nướng (grilled banana in sticky rice)
Banana wrapped in sticky rice and grilled until the outside caramelises. It's cut into pieces and warm coconut sauce goes over the top. The sauce is a bit salty, so it's less sweet than it sounds.

Kem bơ (avocado ice cream)
Avocado with coconut milk and a scoop of ice cream on top. Most visitors only know avocado as savoury, on toast or in guacamole, so the first spoonful catches people out. It's thick and cold, like a milkshake you need a spoon for.

Chè (sweet soup)
People translate it as sweet soup, which doesn't help much. It's beans and jelly in coconut milk, usually over crushed ice, and you stir it all together before you start. Every stall has its own mix.

How the three hours go

We go roughly in this order, but it shifts depending on the day, the weather and what's open.

1. Meet up, and the first stall

   We meet at the pin I send you after booking, or I pick you up at your hotel in downtown Saigon. The first stall isn't far, so we start eating almost straight away.

2. Up the stairs of an old cư xá

   We go up the stairs of the old cư xá, the earliest kind of apartment building in Vietnam. On the stairs I tell people what happened to these blocks after 1975. A lot were taken over by the state and the flats were shared out again, so more people ended up living in them than they were built for.

3. Down the hẻm, stall to stall

   The walking between stalls is mostly down the hẻm, the alleys where a lot of Saigon actually lives. Most of the eating happens along here (noodles, broken rice, something off the charcoal grill, a few small plates), with a beer or two on the way. In the evening we usually fit in a snail stall as well.

4. Phố Cam and Hồ Thị Kỷ flower market

   Phố Cam is Saigon's Cambodian street. Vietnamese families who left Cambodia in the 1970s settled here, and a lot of the people selling now are the second generation, doing what their parents did. Right next to it is Hồ Thị Kỷ, a wholesale flower market that's been running since 1987, with around a hundred stalls spilling onto the street.

5. Something sweet to finish

   We finish on something sweet (chè, kem bơ or chuối nếp nướng), whichever is good that day. From there it's a quick Grab back to your hotel.

Make it yours. Want to swap a stop, skip something, or need it to work around a diet or an allergy? Message me on WhatsApp and tell me what you'd change.

What's included

• 10 food and drink tastings
• Free cancellation up to 1 day before

Not included: transport to the meeting point. If you'd rather I pick you up at your hotel, that's included.

Dietary restrictions and allergies can be accommodated. Message me before booking with what you need.

Where we meet

I send the meeting point after you book. Easy to reach from the main hotel areas.

I can also pick you up at your hotel in downtown Saigon.

Honestly though, the meeting point is easier. Drop the pin I send you into Grab and it takes you right there, cheap and quick.