I am adding this review more to showcase an interesting business than to praise the food. The food in this restaurant is pretty mediocre. Yet, it is an extremely popular restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City (and now also in Hanoi and even Berlin and Phnom Penh).
The idea is very simple: a restaurant serving traditional Vietnamese street food in a sanitized environment, with the possibility to see how the food is prepared. Tourists love it. This is the basic concept behind Nha Hang Ngon.
The visit
The restaurant is located in a colonial style villa with high ceilings on a very busy street (Pasteur). This review is based on a visit during Tet 2019 (at the beginning of February).
The menu is now amazingly extensive. They also have Korean, Thai, Japanese food (and I am probably forgetting a few cuisines).
Around the perimeter of the restaurant you can observer various “stations” where the dishes are prepared. However the order is taken at the table and many people do not even notice this feature of the restaurant.
I had a canh bun, a type of noodle soup with pork and shrimp paste, fried tofu puffs, and congealed blood (huyet). It comes with rice vermicelli. It was ok.
A friend of mine had a bowl of pho with beef.
Another friend had rice with chicken and a version of the canh chua, a soup with vegetables and fish originally from the Mekong region.
The check
The final check was around 500,000 VND (or 22 USD). For three people including iced teas and a juice, that’s a good price. Still three or four times the cost of these dishes from a bona fide street vendor.
I guess the price point is what keeps everyone happy: the owners have a large margin and the customers still feel that they have made a bargain. The food is mediocre, but not bad by any means. They know what they are doing. Up to you if this is the place for you.
Where in Ho Chi Minh City:
160 Pasteur Street, District 1