Food

Food adventure : Stupid, crazy.... you decide!

My Vietnam trip was just becoming interesting with exploring(read as wandering aimlessly) and food experiments!

I read about this amazing restaurant "Khu Du l?ch Th�p Ng� (Bi`nh Xuy�n 2)" 10 miles south of HCM city and wanted to try it. Apparently its very popular with locals and the restaurant is so massive that a tributary of NHA Be River flows through the restaurant, you are chartered on a golf buggy if you have to go to the restroom and all the waiters and waitresses are on roller skates so that they can serve you faster.

There is one specialty about this restaurant that I know of, that is - when you order a fish dish, you are not given the dish, rather you are given a fishing rod so that you can catch your own fish and the amazing chefs at the restaurant will cook the fish as per your request. The thought of catching your food intrigued me! Naturally I wanted to try this restaurant.

Thursday, August 27th 2015 Daya and I hired a Yamaha moped and went in search of this restaurant. I had just looked up the directions for this restaurant and I vaguely remembered the turns. Thankfully my sense of direction didn't let me down. We found the place alright.

We parked our bike and went inside the restaurant, UNFORTUNATELY not a single soul knew how to speak ENGLISH. We mimed "table for two" and luckily the host understood and we were helped on to a golf buggy which took us to out table.

Now the best part, since no one knew english we had to mime everything so that our waiter understands, we tried to mime fishing rod, and his response was like Kimi Raikkonen - NOTHING. We tried google translate and guess what he doesn't know how to read!!

We just gave up and started ordering randomly from the menu! First off, Beer and starters : Since the menu had pictures we ordered a spring roll, hoping it would be decent. We tried to ask him what meat it was and his response? - "a blank stare". we gave up and asked him to get it!! The rolls looked decent and the only catch was we had no clue what meat it was! I took a small bite and my pallets were super confused. It wasn't Beef, it wasn't chicken, it wasn't pork, it wasn't fish either, I hope, I seriously hope that it was a duck or an octopus but what the hell do I know! I'm praying that it was not a dog or a cat!

Special Spring rolls

Since I had already tried Saigon beer, it seemed like a safe bet for me so I ordered one. Apparently in south east Asia people put Ice in their beer. Note to self, Beer with ice is so goddamn good!

Saigon Beer with ice.

Next up, main course! we were stressed and we started to look at the menu for familiar names, there was a Singaporean Vietnamese fusion dish, so we ordered it! The dish looked awesome and it did taste really good, however we had no clue what was in it! From what I could see there were 4 different kinds of meat and I was able to figure out 2 of those. The dish had chicken, pork and 2 other unknown meats! The dish was really good though!

Vietnamese - Singaporean Fusion Noodles

Unfortunately Daya's stomach could not agree with this fusion so he ate just the noodles without the meat - more for me YAY!

All in all it was one heck of a crazy experience and I loved it! Here are few more photos from the restaurant.

Daya posing during the meal

People trying to catch their food in the delata. From what I remember only one guy caught the fish and his freinds were visible jelous. haha. I just wish I could have done that.