Places to eat in Ho Chi Minh City

The ambiance of this restaurant is indeed rather formal yet inviting with a definite french colonial feel to it. Decorated in cool shades of white and silver. The large, elegant dining area on the ground floor is simplistic yet stylish, with a capacity of 280 diners. Above there are 4 private rooms named Sea-horse, Sea-dragon, Star-fish and Holothurian for private parties. There are also 2 larger dining rooms for groups of 30 to 80 diners.
Chef Charle Luk from Hong Kong prepares culinary masterpieces that appeal to every discerning epicurean. The menu offers traditional dishes of typical Chinese cuisine including a large variety of Dim Sum. I fyou want to experience upscale dining in an envirnment with a very formal feel to it, at most reasonable prices, this is an excellent choice. Service was fantastic, food excellent, presentation very good (we had Dim Sum, i think you can only do so much presentation-wise with Dim Sum.

Favorite Dish: Dim Sum! We enjoyed many great Dim Sum dishes here.

This is a great little cafe with a very private feel about. Open for breakfast and lunch with set menu offerings at 35,000 dong for breakfast and 45000 dong for lunch (less than $2 for breakfast and about $2.25 USD fo lunch, not including drinks. Lunch in Jan 2010 consists of a salad bar, soup, a piece of fruit for desert and your choice of 1 of 4 entrees, usually two fish dishes and 1 pork and 1 chicken dish. Entrees are served with rice and some vegetables.This cafe sets back a good distance from the street, located at the end of a private walkway. There is a rather large indoor dining room with air conditioning offering a very pleasant dining experience. If the weather is not too hot you may prefer to dine outside at one of about six shaded tables.Staff does not speak much English but are very gracious and helpful. Food is great, service is excellent and a most enjoyable relaxed feel to the setting. I have dined here a few times and have yet to encounter another westerner here.
a Vietnames iced coffee with milk (ca phe sua da) will set you back 29000 dong. a bit pricey but not for District 1 area. Ccheaper than most District 1 Trung Nguyen or Highland Coffee shops. Definitely a lot better coffee than Highlands.
Dinner is not served at this cafe. In the evenings it functions as a coffee house/lounge offering nightly pop music entertainment with no cover charge.

Favorite Dish: Any of the fish entrees. Great salad bar with different sauces/dressings.

This spot is off the beaten path, but worth the trip is you like Banh Xeo - crispy Vietnamese creaps filled with shrimp, pork and bean sprouts, served with fresh herbs and dipping sauce. Very authentic. Lots of locals. Inexpensive.

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All i can say is wow! after reading about it in the lonely planet we stopped and what a wonderful ambiance. We where greeted with lovely waitress's which my wife and must admit where attractive :).. This place is supposed to be a Ice Cream Shop but its way more than that its a cafe a restaurant and even has a bar if you feel like a beer. The building is wonderful renovated 100 years old french colonial style and even that is worth a look. The food was great, service great and we just keep coming back actually going there 4 days out of our 5 days we where in Saigon because its such a nice respite form the busy days in Ho Chi Minh. One wonderful thing about this place is that its frequented buy local Vietnamese more than tourists so you get a chance to mingle rather than just be in tourist place and this also means the prices are fair. They told us they have another one at 212 A2 Nguyen Trai District 1... we must try that next trip as they have a band on friday nights. I really enjoyed this place and can recommend it to anyone! Thanks Vietnam for a wonderful trip.

Favorite Dish: The Kiwi burger its the best burger in town for sure. Having said that though they have full selection of Vietnamese food as well as western and every dish we tried was good. This is real clean place so not trouble here.

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I love fusion restaurant; keep the local taste, while adding more elements that is welcomed by a larger audience.
This is one of the kinds; combined with Chinese and Western food, this is my very first experience with Vietnamese food. Furniture is good and delicate; most of visitors are foreigners, at least it was true for the night I went there.
Oh, they really made this place like an old Shanghai chic restaurant; a lot of old Shanghai girls poster and Chinese style furniture.

Favorite Dish: I did enjoy all of my food that night.
Shrimp Salad was impressive, a very typical South East Asian taste, sweet and sour... My main course was Five Spices Pork served with rice; I could felt complexity of pork since it was well seasoned.
The price was rather expensive if you consider local consumer index, but why not spoil yourself once in your trip to meet the nice food.

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There are many Pho 24 branches scattered all over the city of Ho Chi Minh. The branch we dined in was the one beside Ben Tanh Market (the left side of Ben Tanh if you're facing the market) near the area where the night market is regularly set up.

Favorite Dish: All of us enjoyed Pho 24's steamy, tasty noodles! i had chicken noodles and my friends had beef. They were all yummy! (and very affordable too!!)

The food was delicious! We had rice, spring rolls, noodles, and a pork dish (this was a bit too salty but I liked it just the same). The staff was fairly knowledgeable in english so she was able to take our orders and answer our inquiries without much trouble.

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They serve different types of coffee -- robusta, arabica, chon, moka, culi, etc. My friends tried the chon and culi coffee. One of them had to add ice to the drink because the flavor of the coffee was a bit too strong for her but they all agreed that both coffees tasted good.

For non-coffee drinkers, they also have fruit shakes and tea.

*The service was ok but when we were there, none of the staff can speak/understand English so even though the lady who took our orders was very accommodating, we had to ask help from one of the vietnamese customers to translate for us when we were settling the bill. (We had a question about the total charges and the exchange rate they used when they converted the VND prices to USD). Everything got sorted out in the end thanks to the helpful local. :)