Tastes of Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam

We decided to take our time and visit all the spots our food tour guide from Hanoi recommended. We also enjoyed the street food, but I’m focusing on the restaurants we found with some hunting. By chance, our  Tastes of Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam recommendations were located within a 10-minute walk or less from our hotel.

Best Restaurant Guide – Tastes of Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam

Tastes of Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam

Our first adventure was finding the aptly named Secret Garden restaurant. This place is a hidden gem; a modern rooftop restaurant with excellent views of the city and delicious, home-style Vietnamese food. It was not the easiest place to find. The restaurant isn’t advertised at the street level. But it seems as though enough people come searching that the local businesses in the alley pointed us in the right direction. Five flights of stairs later, we made it!

Ho Chi Minh City

It is beautifully decorated. Since we arrived so early, we could choose any seat in the house. The portions are small enough that it’s worth picking a few dishes to share with the table. It is a perfect place to watch the sunset too! 100% recommend visiting here if you ever find yourself in Ho Chi Minh City.

When I think of Vietnamese food, my mind immediately goes to a banh mi sandwich. Our food tour guide recommended a low price spot in the backpacking district of Ho Chi Minh City. The restaurant was about a 30-minute walk from our hotel, but we decided we had nothing better to do, and it’s a great way to see the city. In my mind, I’m looking for an actual restaurant since all are given the name, Banh My Chau Nghiep and the cross streets of Duong Bui Vien and Duong Da Tham. We couldn’t find it anywhere! We walked the streets for what felt like 20 minutes, asking the hostels if they knew of the place. No one seemed to know what we were talking about.

About ready to give up, we found it! Easily overlooked, it was a small stall on the street corner (no website for this food stand). There were some local kids in line waiting, and we watched what they ordered, and followed suit. Again, not realizing we would be getting the sandwich off the street, we set off to the park a few blocks away and found a shady bench to eat under a tree in the park on a bench. We had to keep moving to avoid the sun.

The sandwich was good. Was it worth the long walk in the heat? Maybe not, but fun to see a different part of the city.

Tastes of Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam – Last but not least

The last place we set off to find was a modern and hipster-inspired café for an afternoon pick-me-up. Again, we were lucky, the café was only a few blocks away from our hotel, and we were craving something sweet. L’usine is part shop/part café, with the restaurant located on the second floor. It is a great spot for breakfast in the city, but our hotel offered a pretty extensive buffet breakfast, so we weren’t able to experience it. We opted for dessert instead! Be prepared for more high prices, but it was a nice escape from the hectic and hot city.

Not everything we sought out was off the beaten track. We found a coffee shop franchise, Thuc Coffee that had great ambiance and much-needed air conditioning to escape the blazing heat of the city.

We had an excellent dinner a few blocks from our hotel that was right on the street; the block had restaurants along the entire street, so we just chose the first one we stumbled upon and were quite lucky with our pick.

There are thousands of places to try in Ho Chi Minh City that won’t break the bank. You can eat insanely well for less than $10 a person, which makes Ho Chi Minh City and Vietnam as a whole such a fantastic place to visit. Take all the advice you can from other travelers and hotel staff. There is a tiny chance you may be sent to one of the bad restaurants.