One of several posts to featuring some of our favorite places in Saigon.Nhu Lan Bakery is more of a favorite of Ilene's than of mine. She and another traveling companion discovered it on an earlier trip and it became a regular place for the two of them, and it's about the first place Ilene wants to check in with on each visit now.
I don't know what this kind of restaurant is called in Vietnamese, which there seems to be at least one of in every neighborhood, but the atmosphere most resembles a New York deli like Katz's, except with table service, as well as take-away. There's always a strong local vibe and the staff have a no-smile, seen-it-all attitude. Cheap, plentiful, fresh food is the main attraction, as well as watching the hustle. Nhu Lan in particular always has a hum of traffic in the evening of people examining the cold cases on the sidewalk to find a dinner to take home or seated on the stools inside gobbling something before a night class.
They have a big variety of a kind of meat pie made with sweet, flaky, pastry-like dough and stuffed with various meat or sweet bean pastes. Also lots of banh mi--sandwiches with shaved meat or poultry. Ilene's favorite dishes--fresher than in most places, in her opinion--are the spring rools and banh cuon, moist rice flour wrappers stuffed with spicy ground pork and dunked in fish sauce. I love the fresh fruit juices and shakes. Most dishes are about $1.25.
On the side is a small grocery of things dried or canned that are good to stock the hotel room with--jars of sour or salted plums, for example, which Ilene is addicted to.
Nhu Lan is at the corner of Ham Nghi and Cong Tru not far from where Nguyen Hue butts into the river. While you're in the neighborhood, head one block west to find the entrance to and stroll through the "old market" that operates on Ton Tham Dat Street.
-Robert
