Xu in Ho Chi Minh Vietnam - 1 of the best fine dining experience I've ever had

It is 8pm and I am still stuffed from the buffet brunch at Ku De Ta. I'll write about that later but first, let me share this absolutely fabulous dining experience I had in Ho Chi Minh. I'd walked past the restaurant on the way to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner the day before, and the simplicity of the menu outside, the glimpse of the interior, and 2 Japanese girls carrying a map and scurrying in, caught my attention. So, the next night, we were back for dinner at Xu. The first level is the bar area which appears to be highly popular among the local folks and expats. Men and women can choose to sit at the bar, high bar tables or sprawl in comfy couches. The dining however, is on the second floor which looks like this. We did not have reservations (duh) but the sincerity (and not menace, I hope) written all over our faces got us in. Don't be fooled by the empty tables - the tables filled up really quickly by 7.30pm.

The servers spoke pretty good English and were helpful and friendly. Upon their recommendation, I ordered the fresh spring roll filled with ribeye. Now, my mother dislikes eating beef and when I mentioned that to the server, he was quick to check with the kitchen and offer to have the spring rolls filled with shrimp instead. However, given that the cost was VND200,000 still, I thought we should still stick with the ribeye.

When the dish was served, truth be told, I was aghast at the size of the portions. SGD12+ for just one spring roll which was sliced into 4 pieces. Yes yes, I know, fine dining, not pig out session but still. But the moment I bit into the spring roll, and the juices of the perfectly done ribeye flooded my mouth mixed with the accompanying greens within the roll, I was in gastronomy heaven. I kid you not. The right doneness, the right portions in each quarter, the sweetness and succulence of the meat, of the entire roll...even my mother said there wasn't any trace of "beefiness" at all. Yet it was still beef to a beef lover, and 1 of the best I ever had...in a spring roll at that!

The next dish is my mum's favourite out of all we had for dinner. Lemongrass skewered seabass. It sounds deceptively simple, and if it weren't for her, I wouldn't have ordered seabass at all because that is a cheap fish. And one that I have caught so many times, F.O.C. So why would I spend VND300K (SGD 18+) on a fish dish in Vietnam.

But..and I mean a huge but here...thank God I had my mother with me. Because the chef in the kitchen worked a miracle with the fish. No, not the Jesus kind of miracle by multiplying the fish. In fact, the opposite. I thought with the price tag on the dish, we would get a whole fish at the least, even if it was a small one. But wrong. Just 4 portions of fish. No kidding. For SGD20, I could get 4 whole seabasses in the market/fish pond.

The sweet onions, coconut milk and mushrooms accompanying the fish were so delicious that I wiped the plate clean. I don't care if those were there to beautify the dish because...they were so  delicious. And the fish, when I say the chef worked a miracle, I meant it. He managed to turn this ordinary-tasting fish, into pure chunks of heavenly sweetness and flavor. And I mean flavor, the kind that bursts in your mouth and makes you think that if the world were to end with this fish dish in your mouth, you have absolutely no regrets. It is THAT good.

Out of deference to my mother again, I ordered the chicken roulade. Out of all the meat, chicken is at the bottom of my list but my mother loves chicken so...Anyway, when the dish was served, I was pretty immune now to the appalling portions. Again, for VND250 (SGD15+), the food was beautifully presented but so, so, so, limited in quantity. Esp when viewed by a glutton.

Now, the puree that accompanied the chicken which was more than ordinary slices/cuts of chicken somehow enhanced the experience of eating the chicken meat which appeared to be wrap around some sort of center. I am sorry I can't describe this dish better but believe me when I say the chicken was the most tender I've ever had.

Up next, coconut braised pork belly. Hey, all I am going to say is that...have you watched Masterchef? Because this dining experience made me feel like....wow, so this is what the really good food in life must taste like. I haven't been eating grass my entire life, and had the good fortune to eat at pretty pricey places both in Singapore and overseas (esp when travelling for work with the "Higher Beings"), but nothing I've eaten so far has moved me as much as the food in Xu. So. Order the pork belly (but only after you had the seabass which is still more awesome)

And surprisingly despite the little portions of everything, I was quite full by the end of the main courses. I suspect it has to do with the fact I ordered morning glory to go with the one bowl of rice that we shared. This was the only dish that didn't have me waxing lyricals because the entire dish was all stems. For VND60,000, I think we should have at least some green leaves!

We had room to spare for dessert and thankfully the server warned us the portions would be really small. I had no idea how small till dessert was served. Now, each dessert cost between USD 75cents to USD2, so we figured we could order 4 and share, so that we could try more. The coconut che (in the shotglass at the end) was ordinary, the durian one failed to impress in anyway, and the pandan pannacotta was just passable. The only one slightly more interesting was the sugar and cinnamon soursop parcel which was recommended by the server.

And...after having the 4 desserts, we ordered another 4 because frankly, a teaspoonful for 2 pax isn't quite going to cut it. The chocolate brownie with ice cream was a waste of money, the white chocolate custard was good, chocolate kumquat truffle was boring and I forget what the last one is. But you should get the drift by now - desserts at XU...not fab. Main courses...Fab.

The Slog Reviews: Don't, please don't miss out dining at Xu if you are ever in the bustling city of Ho Chi Minh...and especially if you are staying in District 1! If I ever have to (touch wood) go back to that city, you can be sure that I'll definitely be back for more of the good stuff.

La Jolie Hotel & Spa in Vietnam Ho Chi MInh

Excuse the appearance of the bed. I snapped the picture when we were leaving because I could not be arsed to do so when checking into the hotel. Travelling with two large suitcases, having to tip the bellboy, and having to move from Sheraton to a well, more affordable one kind of quells the happy-camera button.

Given that I'd arranged for day tours (Cu Chi Tunnel, Ho Chi Minh City Tour) for the next 2 days, there wasn't much point staying on at Sheraton Hotel at USD250++ a night. I'd checked Agoda's reviews and La Jolie had received so many positive comments that it made sense to book a room there for about SGD80 a night.

 

La Jolie is a new hotel and the taxi driver (airport cab) could not find the hotel. We went around a few times till we found the tall skinny building next to some sort of an Indian restaurant, and 2 traffic lights away from Sheraton. The staff were friendly and spoke good English but what I really disliked about the hotel was that they were insistent on keeping our passports unless we gave them USD20 as deposit. I definitely wasn't comfortable letting them hold on to our travel documents overnight and shelled out the USD20.

However, other than that, and the taxi incident, which I shall write about later, I have nothing but good things to say about the cleanliness and condition of the hotel. The room (we were upgraded to a suite on the 6th floor which had an awesome river view) was all in white, clean and spacious enough with free wifi. There was even a bathtub (not just a shower), bathing robes and a safe in the room with 2 bottles of complimentary water.

As for the breakfast, I thought it was really excellent for the price we were paying. There were eggs and pho to be had (by ordering), as well as dessert like coconut jelly which I ate without restraint, soup, porridge, fried noodles, fried rice...and the staff provided excellent service throughout. The environment as per the pic below was clean and comfortable. In fact, I would go so far as to say that other than the drinks available (or lack of), La Jolie's breakfast spread gave me almost as much satisfaction as the buffet breakfast I'd been having at Sheraton.

In fact, our breakfast experience was so good that we decided to utilize the 30% discount coupon the staff gave us upon checking in to have dinner at the restaurant (the same place we had breakfast). We ordered spring rolls, since these are a Vietnamese staple, but the spring rolls turned out to be fried spring rolls and not the fresh ones. Therefore, be very careful when you order spring rolls in Vietnam - always ask if fresh, or fried, if not clearly specified. In any case, the fried spring rolls were decent enough - not swoon-worthy or even close. Despite being a tad too oily for my liking, the spring rolls were crunchy and quite tasty, especially with the dip.

We also each had a bowl of pho. Unfortunately unlike the pho for breakfast, the beef in the dish while plentiful, was either cooked too long or was just plain tough. Not very appetizing. I would strongly suggest against ordering pho as a main course from the menu (unless during breakfast).

Overall, I would definitely rate La Jolie Hotel very highly in terms of service, location, food and condition of the room. Definitely value for money in every way given its current hotel rate. However, the hotel needs to stop holding on to travellers' passports in exchange for a monetary deposit. I hardly think there is any law that mandates that and if this is a policy the hotel has, it definitely is a huge turn off.

Also, the hotel called a taxi for me from off the streets at VND160,000 to take me to the domestic airport. I paid that amount to the hotel staff but when I asked the driver at the airport to give me a receipt (for my travel claims), he wrote that he only received VND130,000. I am definitely not too thrilled about the hotel keeping VND30,000 for doing nothing except sending a staff to flag down a cab passing by which I could have done. That doesn't smack of an honest way of earning money.

Hard Rock Cafe in Ho Chi Minh City

I've been to Ho Chi Minh (HCM) a couple of times but never knew that there was a hard rock cafe there despite staying at the District 1 area hotels like Park Hyatt, and hotels at the Riverside like The Majestic. I always thought that the Hard Rock Cafes would be centrally located or at least in a popular district with visible presence. However, it took a 15 min slow walk from my hotel (Sheraton) to get to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner as the restaurant was located at/next door to Intercontinental Hotel (a 6 min walk from Park Hyatt). Click here for the address. Because we got there about 6+pm, there was some rehearsal going on for a show that night and it was really really loud. The server informed us that if we wanted to stay until the show started, we would have to pay for tickets for the show. I told her that given the noise level, I could not wait to be out of the place fast enough. Snap. The manager was at my side in all of 5 mins explaining that the rehearsal would be over soon and we could get to enjoying our meal without our eardrums throbbing.

We started with the Jumbo Combo: This consisted of the Santa Fe Spring Rolls, Hickory-Smoked Chicken Wings, Onion Rings, Potato Skins and Tupelo Chicken Tenders. The dish came with 4 different sauces for mixing and matching, 1 of which was Blue Cheese. Presentation of the dish was good, impressive, and portions large enough for 3-4 pax. The server suggested that this dish was enough for 2 for the evening, (hint: I should not order any more). But hey, I am Stuff-Thy-Face-If-Stressed-When-Travelling-For-Work. So after demolishing most of the smoked chicken wings, onion rings and chicken tenders, and leaving most of the potato skin behind because it was so hard and not worth me wasting any calories on, I waved the server over and to her horror (Are you SURE? *high pitched tone), ordered the Smokehouse Trio Combo (slightly more expensive (almost VND400K) than the Jumbo Starter which was about VND320,000+).

Smoked chicken, smoked ribs and smoked pulled pork. The ribs were so good that it had me licking my fingers and wishing that I'd ordered all ribs instead. The chicken tasted like well, chicken...and I was so so incredibly stuffed that the taste of the pulled pork did not register much. I think it tasted porky even though it was coated with heaps of some sticky thick sauce. Needless to say, to the smug triumph of the server behind us, we had to ask for bags to take away the fries, and the other half of the Jumbo Combo. Note: I managed to down the entire glass of milkshake before leaving as a final gesture of defiance.

As you can tell from the picture above, the ambiance at Ho Chi Minh's Hard Rock Cafe is really very nice with all those pretty red lanterns at the bar. The servers speak reasonably good English and on a Thursday evening, the restaurant appeared to be popular with expats (no local folks here) and other tourists. I really like Hard Rock Cafe. The atmosphere and servers there (from USA to Ho Chi Minh) somehow make me feel welcome and less alone when I am travelling for work.

Oh and of course, I had to get my HRC fridge magnet. For some strange reason, they did not have the guitar-shaped magnet so I had to make do with this one. And the Love All Serve All bit is missing too. Oh well. I'm not sure if this is true but the guy manning the cashier told me that there would be a Hard Rock Cafe in Hanoi sometime in 2012. I'm so not going to back Hanoi ever if I can help it (more posts on that later) so despite preferring to always buy my own magnets from places I have been, I'll have to get my colleagues to send the guitar-shaped magnet to SG. I bet it'll have a picture of Halong Bay!

Ho Chi Minh City on 16 Jan 2010

Pho (pronounced as "Fur") is one of the most well-known and popular Vietnamese dishes. I have eaten Pho at five star hotels in Vietnam, from street-side hawkers for 20,000 VND (less than SGD 2), at fast-food chain outlets in Ho Chi Minh and even tried home-cooked Pho. I love Pho, a simple yet tasty and filling dish consisting of white rice noodles (kway teoh) and beef/chicken. What marks a good bowl of Pho is the quality of its soup and meat.

On my second visit to Ho Chi Minh (the last visit was in Oct 06) on 16 Jan 2010, the very first meal I had there was Pho Bong (beef noodles) from a coffeeshop. As you can see from the picture below, a bowl of pho is always served with sides like beansprouts (the white vegetable on the left of the pic) which one can add as much of as one wants to the soup which gives the meal more bite (bean sprouts are crunchy). One can also add a dash of lime and chili to give the soup more taste.

I had a room at The Park Hyatt Saigon facing the Opera House. The room was far nicer than the one at Kota Kinabalu, complete with a LCD TV, reclining couch by the window, a wash basin area with a large mirror, a bath-tub and a rain shower. The location at District 1 is superb ( close to shopping centers and to LV, Gucci etc) and the hotel is new with a very nice swimming pool (small cascading waterfall). The Slog Reviews: 9/10. If I had to foot the bill, I would be USD 280 x (no. of nights) poorer. More of an indulgence than necessity to stay at this hotel. Sheraton which is within walking distance to The Park Hyatt appears to be more popular with travellers because of its lower rates.

A picture of myself at the Park Hyatt's reception area. Mirrors are about the only way to get a picture of myself when I am not travelling for leisure.

1 of us had a brilliant idea and connections of some sort so guess where I had lunch...the casino at Sheraton (Park Hyatt does not have a casino within its premises). And, the complimentary steak which I had was mighty good too - thick and juicy. However, we had to have our meals on a foldup make-shift table next to the jackpot machines as there was only one dining area with just one table. I saw some other punters having pizza and pho but I would think that the steak is the best value. The currency used at the casino is USD.

Below is a picture of the entrance of the city's famous Ben Thanh market. I'd been inside before in 2006 and had no wish to revisit the place again (although it is immensely popular with tourists, esp those who like bargaining). There is an extremely cheap (30,000 VND only) public bus 152 right outside the airport departure gates which takes one from the airport to the south side of this market. From there, one can hail a metered cap to get anywhere in the city. Contrast this to my experience of paying USD 8 for a taxi to Park Hyatt from the hotel (I got a cab from the airport taxi counters outside the departure lounge).

Vietnam has lots of rice paddy fields so it's no surprise that many stalls sell rice. The picture below is my favourite picture of the trip which I took in a market (not Ben Thanh). I am not sure how one can tell the different grades of rice apart really.

I also took the picture below in the same market. A friend of mine posed a very good question - how would ladies be able to try on the undergarments before buying? To that, I have no answer at all. To us, it would look like the female seller is wearing her pyjamas in the day but that is the dressing of the common Vietnamese people during the day. My mother tells me that this was how Singaporeans dressed in the 60s to 70s.

It is common to see scenes like the one below on the streets of Vietnam - women wearing the traditional cone-shaped hats and selling fruits (mangos, bananas etc) on the pavements of the dusty streets. I was told that most Vietnamese men are usually unemployed, drink, smoke and beat their wives while the women go out to work. I have no idea how true that is but indeed there were many women selling all sorts of stuff from fruits to bags to shoes under the hot sun along the road sides. We don't have scenes like that in clean green Singapore. When I go to the less developed countries, I am reminded of how good I have it compared to so many others out there who find each day a challenge to put food on the table for their children.

Most of the streets in Ho Chi Minh look like the one below. There are telephone/electricity wires strung above the ground and the most common form of transport is a scooter/bike/moped. The traffic in Ho Chi Minh is crazy - I usually rent a car/motorbike when holidaying overseas but the safest and easiest way for a tourist to get around Ho Chi Minh is by taxi. Trust me on this - just get a taxi for the first day and observe the sheer madness of the bikes cutting right and left and the cars not following the faded white lane lines on the road. Crossing the road as a pedestrian is a challenge too but a smaller challenger than riding around - all one has to do is to inch forward cautiously when there isn't so much traffic (there will always be traffic) and the bikes will avoid you as best as they can. I wouldn't recommend jaywalking though, especially in Ho Chi Minh - one of the cases I had before was a personal injury case where a motorbike slammed into a woman's legs and broke the bones. Although this happened in Singapore with its first/world class health care, the damage to her legs was ugly and lasting.

I'll end this entry with a picture of a home-cooked meal I had at Ho Chi Minh. The rice sesame cracker (pic on the top left) is eaten with the small clams (pic on the top right) as an appetiser. The main course was pho of course (no one can ever get enough of pho :D) and we had home-made coconut jellies for dessert which tasted pretty much like what you can get in Singapore. It isn't often that one can have a home-cooked meal in a foreign land and despite one of my friends putting it as "From Hyatt to Hovel", I would say that it was a privilege for me part-take and experience in this meal.

Grey Hound Racing and Seafood in Vietnam (Vung Tau) on 17 Jan 2010

With some time to spare in the late afternoon, we caught a ferry to Vung Tau. Apparently, it is wise to buy the tickets from Vina Express in advance (the last ferry from Ho Chi Minh to Vung Tau is at 4.30pm) because we saw some unfortunate souls who were unable to buy their tickets. Luckily, we had asked the concierge at our hotel, Park Hyatt, to call Vina Express to reserve the tickets for us. Each ticket has a seat number (the seats on the boat are numbered too) so one is assured of a seat on board and a complimentary bottle of water and wet napkin. The journey from Ho Chi Minh to Vung Tau by ferry is one and a half hours. There is a television on board but unless you understand Vietnamese, there is pretty nothing much else to do or even see on board because the windows are dirty. The only way to get a view would be to stand outside the cabin of the very long ferry but the wind is awfully strong and the view, nothing to shout about. Do note though that each ferry departs on the dot (they don't wait for all late-comers) and the seats are narrow and set very close to each other. The price of a one way ticket is 160,000VND for an adult.

Vung Tau is popular amongst the locals for its beaches. This is a picture I took of one of Vung Tau's beaches from the 9th floor of a Dic Star Hotel. The color of the sea is a dull light grey and the beaches are not made powdery white but a dull shade. Nothing like the beaches of the Tungku Abdul Rahman Marine Park's islands. There weren't any tourists sunbathing at any of the deckchairs put out near the beaches but there were many locals playing ball games on the beaches or dipping in the sea. I didn't see any lifeguards on duty so I guess it is a case of swim-at-your-own-peril. The sea water is rather dirty because right after I got out, my legs started itching. I never had that happen before.

We had dinner at this seafood restaurant on Vung Tau which is immensely popular with indoor and outdooor seaside dining (although you can see only the inky darkness of the sea in the night). The restaurant is rather large indeed and despite most tables being filled, we had no problems at all getting a table and being served quickly.


There were various types of live seafood kept in ponds in the restaurant such as lobster, fish and crabs. I would have liked to order more (and I mean, much more) food that night but as I was a guest, I had no say in what was ordered at all. Here are some of the items that I got to try: boiled prawns (the waitress brought the live prawns to our table for us to inspect first), white clams (these were really good), crab done in chilli (bottom right pic) and pieces of fish in a mixture of salty gravy in a claypot. The Slog Reviews: 8.5/10. Everything was so fresh, so cheap and cooked just right. The white clams and fish dishes especially are unique dishes (I have never had these dishes cooked this way in Singapore, Malaysia or Thailand) which I think are worth a try if you are in Vietnam.

We also had this vegetable dish which I'd never eaten before - pumpkin leaves. I didn't really like the soggy wet taste of the bud but the stems were okay. Wouldn't recommend this dish if one isn't a vegetable-lover.

After dinner, we took a cab to the greyhound racing track, which is the only race course for greyhounds in Vietnam. The track is located at 15 Le Loi Street and the entrance fee for any one over 10 years of age is 25,000 VND for grandstand tickets and 55,000 VND for VIP tickets. From what I understand, there are 12 races every Saturday night starting from 7.15pm until 10.30pm.

Right after we walked through the gate (per the above picture), we saw a dog handler with one of the hounds. He let us take photos of the hound and even with the hound (one needs to hold tight to the collar though) free of charge (he refused to take any tips). The hound as you can see, has a steel muzzle over its mouth so I think children should be fairly safe around the hound.

Here is a picture of the grandstand (which was filled but not packed) and the dog handlers bringing the hounds out onto the track before the race.

Below is a picture of the same scene (dog handlers taking the hounds out before a race) from a different angle. Under blue sign are the numbered pens from which each hound will start the race from. There are different colors for each number on the door of each pen and the hounds will be dressed in the respective colors and numbers from the door they will burst out from.

The dog handlers must be pretty used to having their photos taken together with the hounds because I, like everyone else, was jostling to get a good shot of them with the hounds. In fact, I would advise that one should take a chance to observe each dog before the race when it is brought out, especially if one is intent on betting. One can observe which dog looks tired, drags its legs, acts disinterested or is particularly alert (trotting along, looking very keenly ahead and not distracted by the crowd) before one goes to the counter and places one's bet.

I tried to get a really good picture of the dogs bursting out of their pens at the start of the race but this was the best I could do with my point-and-shoot canon powershot. The race starts with a fake noisy super-fast hare-like contraception making one/half round around the inner-track railings and as it passes the pens, the pen doors open and the hounds rush out chasing after the contraception.

My view is that dogs, much less hounds, aren't that dumb to be fooled again and again by a "fake metal with a red bit of cloth contraception" and the hounds have probaby wisened up a long time ago to the fact that what they are chasing isn't the least bit alive. They probably are running their hearts out to emerge the winner - dogs can get competitive too, no? And below, is one of 'em hounds bounding past the crowd (note the rails on the inner track)...I so need a better camera :)