Eating with Saigon’s Transgender On Monday night, Hai and I headed off for dinner to a small neighborhood eatery alongside one of Saigon’s main “canals”. Now, to be clear, that would NOT be “canals” in the sense of Venice, Italy, fed by open seawater. But, much more like the “canals” of Bangkok, fed by the [Read on …]
XO Tours Vietnam OK, I admit it. I’m not normal! Now I’m not admitting to some serious mental deficiency. I mean this, of course, only in the statistical sense – you know, the “normal bell curve” thing. Let me try to explain. I mean, how many people would have left behind the beauty, tranquility and [Read on …]
Vú Dê Nướng & Lẩu Dê (BBQ Goat Udder & Goat Meat Hot Pot) This week I decided it was time to return to California Fitness & Yoga (Saigon’s “premier” health club , better know in the city as “California Wow!)) in order to begin to pay my dues for having stayed away from serious [Read on …]
SAIGON STREET FOOD REUNION Last week I began with “the Pulleys”! Mmmnnn?” you wonder. What’s Joe gotten into now?” Some new kinetic physics experiment? Hoisting a piano from the street up to his apartment’s fourth-floor balcony? Or, God save us, some unmentionable new Asian erotic device? Well, NO. It’s just the same old song – [Read on …]
Just twelve more meals here in northern California before I return to Ho Chi Minh City to once again savor amazing Saigon Street Food! That’s three meals each day for the next 4 days before I board Cathay Pacific’s midnight flight from San Francisco to Saigon. But who’s counting? That would be ME! Now, don’t [Read on …]
Okay, you read about a great new Saigon street food vendor or Saigon eating adventure (presumably here at Eating Saigon!). You decided to take on that adventure by jumping onto one of Saigon’s possibly air-conditioned buses, figuring out how to find your way and pay your fare, and absorbing Saigon’s wonderful sites and smells along [Read on …]
What a treasure trove of community life in Saigon! If you’re in Saigon and wondering how to spend a free day – and if you’d like to take a peek at “real” Saigon (rather than a tourist street or a propaganda museum), considered spending some time at Le Thi Rieng Park. A few years back, [Read on …]
It’s 6:30 am, time for a quick breakfast before starting the work day, or the day’s tour. You’ve had phở six mornings in a row for breakfast, cơm (rice) six evenings in a row for dinner. What to do? How about a big juicy beef steak! That’s our situation a few times each month. As [Read on …]