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Enter the Mandarin

Apr03

Restaurant: Mandarin

Location: Saigon

Date: March 23, 2014

Cuisine: Vietnamese / Cantonese

Rating: solid

Our second night in Saigon lead us to this upscale Vietnamese / Cantonese placed called “Mandarin” (like the lame fake villain in Iron Man III).

The dining room is lovely. And another menu the size of Texas:

Fresh spring rolls with shrimp and pork. Not as good as some, these had a slight medicinal taste (some herb?).

Or maybe it was the slightly strange plum sauce.

Pan fried rice pancakes with shrimp mouse. The mouse was the standard Chinese (and Vietnamese shrimp ball material). Fairly mild.

Slightly spicy fish sauce.

Fried soft-shell crabs with da lat lemon sauce. Good and crunchy.

Special king prawn. This guy was huge, and pretty, but a bit of a disappointment as the meat was bland.

Tea to clean the fingers.

Salty beef in bamboo. It was on fire, which is always cool.

And tasted pretty good.

Sticky rice in lotus leaf. Certainly lovely presentation. The rice itself was good, pretty typical.

Roasted duck Mandarin style. We had thought this might be Peking duck, but no, it was this boneless duck in a sweet lemony sauce. Like lemon chicken but duck. Still tasty.

Grilled eggplant with onion.

Mandarin was solid, but nothing amazing. And it was considerably more expensive than most Vietnamese places. Certainly it was interesting, offering a lovely setting and serving up a hybrid Vietnamese and Cantonese cuisine.

For more Vietnam dining reviews, click here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Cantonese, Chinese cuisine, eating-vietnam, Restaurant, Saigon

Eating Saigon – Hoa Tuc

Mar26

Restaurant: Hoa Tuc

Location: 74/7 Hai Ba Trung, Dist. 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Date: March 22, 2014

Cuisine: Vietnamese

Rating: Fresh flavors

For our first real dinner in Vietnam a friend of ours sent us down the street to this upscale Vietnamese place (imagine that — in Vietnam no less!). Although, actually, there does appear to be a wide variety of Japanese, Chinese, and other cuisines in Ho Chi Minh City.

The interior is nice and there is a lovely patio outside for those willing to brave the 80 something evening.

The menus here seem to be gigantic.

Shrimp chips take the place of bread on the table.

And in true Vietnamese form every dish comes with its own sauce. Left peanut, top tamarind (with chili), right sweet, fish chili, on the bottom salt and lime.

Fresh spring rolls with pork and white rice noodle. In America, we’d call these Saigon spring rolls. Well, how apropos. Here they are delicious. An immunologist I know told me to stay away from any leafy washed vegetables — but since that would meaning eating only Pho, we throw caution to the wind and enjoy these delicious puppies (with the peanut sauce).

Fresh homemade tofu pan fried in light batter with mint, chili, and lime. Very light and fluffy.

RYO – char grilled beef in betel leaves with white noodles and rice paper. A bit of each of the wild collection of greens, some noodles, and one of the beef rolls are all assembled in a sheet of rice paper, rolled, and dipped in the fish sauce. In that pile are baby banana slices, star anise, mint, basil, cucumber and more. The combo tastes great. Very fresh and bright.