Biz Trip Vietnam - La Cuisine French Restaurant

One of the highlights of visiting Vietnam is French food. I super love French food. Everyday in Paris was heaven to my taste bud. So no matter what, I told myself I was gonna at least eat in one nice French restaurant during my trip. And yes, although I have visited Bistro 48 on my first day, I wanted to try something more authentic. So after much google search and review researching, I decided on La Cuisine, which was within walking distance from where we were staying, and was affordable to my wallet, plus the review was good.

I went there on my last day, planning to order their set lunch menu. Unfortunately, they don't serve set lunch on a Saturday, and the ala carte menu was a bit pricey. My colleague who was supposed to join me for lunch decided the price was too high for him and decided not to join me. I was pretty ok with dining alone, but I think that was the first time a guy actually showed up for a meal, and actually walk out on me, even after I offered to treat him for the meal. It wasn't the nicest experience for me, but I wasn't expecting much. This was on my bucket list, not his. So I stayed and offered a rather awkward situation for the waiters to handle, which isn't really a bad thing. In a good restaurant, good waiter can tell when things are not idea for the guest, and they usually try to make it better for you. I once tried to hide tears from my eyes while dining with my husband, and when I ordered another basket of baguette, they didn't charge me for it even though I told them they left it out of the bill. I felt so touched. That was one of my favourite restaurant. I really appreciated those small gesture of an excellent waiter. Anyway, although the younger waiter in this place was a bit uncomfortable with the situation, the more senior waiter took over and made the whole meal rather pleasing. 

They recommended me to try their pork dish, and since it was within my budget, I agreed. I've learned that you should always go with their recommendation if it is within your budget. Above is the dish ordered, and it was just ok. Perhaps one week of Vietnamese food have numbed my tongue, but I couldn't derived much taste from it. It was just average for me.

I ordered a mixed platter of dessert that came with an espresso and this is what it looked like, a cake, a lime meringue, and a cream brûlée. Everything was pleasant, but didn't quite hit the mark. Actually, the only thing I really enjoyed was the espresso which kinda made everything okay after that. For the two course, and a coke (cause it was a very hot day), came to about SGD40, which was expensive considering I was in Vietnam. But it wasn't the experience that I was hoping it to be. But its ok. I won't give up so easily on cheap French food. If I end up in Vietnam again, I will source for other places to try!

The ambiance was nice and quiet though, with only 2 more tables occupied, and it was situated at the main road so you can watch life goes by outside which was kinda relaxing. The whole deco of the place was also very relaxing and beach like. If only the food has provided a more memorable experience for me....

Anyway, that was my last meal there. After that I had to rush back to the hotel to check out and head to the airport to catch my flight back. And thus ends my eating adventure in Ho Chi Minh. The next few blogs will be about my last day's adventure, scenes of Ho Chi Minh, and the things I bought back from there. Stay tune!

Ref: 

La Cuisine

Biz Trip Vietnam - Japanese Ramen

Continue on our food journey, one of the week night saw us entering a Japanese ramen shop. This is what you get when your travelling colleagues are 2 Japanese and 1 Singaporean -____- If I was on my own, I would have eaten Vietnamese food all the way! (or maybe not, since I ate a lot of Japanese food during my Taipei business trip too.....). Anyway! 

This ramen shop is suppose to be famous! And as we walk in, I saw this sign on the wall and can't help to take a photo of it. I do love miso. My favourite ramen in Singapore is actually Santouka Miso Ramen. I can drink the soup dry. At home, I also have a tub of miso in my fridge which I used for miso carbonara sauce, miso grilled eggplant, and miso soup. But this was the first time I saw a sign board on the benefits of miso! So ta-dah!

While looking through the menu, I saw Highball! My brother mentioned that this was found in every menu he saw in Tokyo as well, and interestingly, I have never ordered a Highball before. And although my colleagues didn't feel like drinking, I decided I wanted to try it, so I ordered Highball Orange. He gamely ordered the Highball Oolong. Highball actually refers to Whiskey. It taste lovely. Even with my super dry dying throat, I though it tasted really delicious. Would definitely order it again. I probably would like the Oolong one better, me being more of a tea drinker.

As I wasn't really hungry, one of my colleague suggested sharing a bowl of ramen with me, and according to the menu, if we order a ramen, we can order the tuna rice at a special price. He ask if I wanted to share. How could I say no? Minced tuna rice is one of my favourite food! Whenever I am in Japan, and if the shop sells it, I would usually order it. I don't do so in Singapore though, cause the tuna rice only taste nice if the tuna was really fresh, and serve with lots and lots of spring onions! 

So above is what we got to share. The tuna rice was kinda dry.... but still, nice. Luckily we were sharing. The ramen was also delicious, especially the roast pork. We both finished the soup dry. We later found out that most Japanese don't finish the soup cause it is not really healthy with all that salt and fats. But we don't care! It was so tasty! Why waste it? 

Biz Trip Vietnam Food - Japanese Yakiniku

This is probably my colleagues favourite restaurant, a yakiniku shop just next door to our hotel! We went there twice. Each time costing around SGD20 per person, which includes meat and drinks. It is ala carte, but still affordable and sufficient to keep us full for the night. I guess we like it here cause it was cosy and while you are cooking the meat, it leaves a lot of time for chatting. 

You can order the meat or vegetables from the menu, and they are served as per below two photos. The quality of the meat was not too bad. One of the favourite was beef tongue. Personally, I love the bbq mushrooms. You then cook it in a grill like the photo above. How nice the meat taste is actually depending on the colleague who is cooking it for you. Some are well done, some are done just nice. I would have prefer it to be more consistent and on the raw side, but still, it taste wonderful.

Mainly yakiniku goes well with beer, but my colleague ordered a shoju on our last night there as well, and we shared the bottle together. I was still having a bad cough, so the alcohol kinda dries off my throat. Not the best feeling in the world. After one week of drinking, my throat was really dry.

For dessert, I ordered Sakura ice cream which I have never tried before. Some of my colleagues ordered matcha pudding, which was also famous. The sakura ice cream taste like cough syrup, so I wasn't a fan of it. I didn't try the matcha pudding until my last night there which I will blog more about in a later post. 

All in all , this place was great for gathering with friends as it provides a warm and casual place to chat, with good food and drinks. Plus, it would have cost us a bomb to eat the same thing in Singapore. I guess that was the reason we went back twice. Cause in Singapore, all that for SGD20? No way!

Biz Trip Vietnam Food - Cong Coffee

Here's another beautifully decorated cafe - Cong Coffee. This one serves food and coffee, but we mainly came here to buy some coffee. Given a choice, I would have loved to just sit there and drink my coffee while admiring the deco of the shop. 

I mean look at it! Photo above is the front counter where you place your order. Look at the lovely lamps! Gorgeous! And the bouquet of flowers in the old water flush! The classic old phone. And I guess what does it for me is the colour - dark beautiful green!

Apparently they also have a second floor, but we were in a hurry to get back to the office, so we just grab our coffee and left. But look at the floor! So lovely! and pink and green and the lightings? Goes so well together!

And the end product of it all, is this cup of ice coffee. What is so special about it is, instead of milk, they use coconut milk! Its really filling and goes well in the hot weather. Very rick and creamy. Like!

And that ends the posting on Vietnamese related food places. The next few blogs will be about Japanese, yes Japanese food places, and one more French Restaurant. Stay tune! 

Biz Trip Vietnam - Quan

In my last post, I was saying about how beautiful some of the cafe and restaurants are in Vietnam. Well this was one of them. The place is call "Quan", and I just love the photo above cause it looks so artistic. This place is just down the road from our hotel, and we went there on our 2nd day of work for lunch.

The restaurant has two storeys, and we were seated at the 2nd storey. Look at the decoration, aren't they beautiful? Vietnam used to be govern by the French, so there are a lot of French influence in the country. For this restaurant, everything was rustic, classic and elegant. Flowers were also placed everywhere!

Look at how lovely the deco is! I felt very much at home here cause well, my home is also rustic, classic, and on good days, filled with beautiful flowers too! Very chic!

The food was more at the expensive side, mainly catering to expatriate by the likes of it. The portion was small. We all ordered different dishes served with rice. It was good, but nothing to rave about either. Peranakan people are hard to please! Lol.

I would however say the coffee was delicious here! Actually the coffee was great everywhere I went in Vietnam! (Except Bay Hotel for some reason.....). I love ice coffee without sugar, and they serve it really strong and thick here, yet smooth! Lovely! And I love the floor tiles so much! And the wooden chair! If I belong to an era, this would be. I love jazz looking tiles of black and white! I love deco that are so Agatha Christy and Black Swan and all that jazz. It's just so timeless! But again, the food here was just so so....