Saigon Street Food Guide: What You Need to Know

Saigon Street Food – this has become a household name even back home in Berlin. So a street food tour in Saigon* or Ho Chi Minh City seemed pretty obvious! Vietnamese cuisine is so diverse, so fresh, so full of new flavors, and within Southeast Asia, it’s a flavor all its own. In Saigon in particular, the choice of street food stalls, small snack restaurants and roadside food stalls is almost endless.

Vietnamese are sociable and love food, people are constantly chewing on something somewhere, (unfortunately disposable) bowls filled with goodies change hands and you really wonder how the majority of the population here can still be so slim. Because Vietnamese cuisine is not always easy! In Vietnam, too, people fry for all they’re worth, and sugar is consumed just as excessively.

Street Food in Vietnam – a culinary adventure

One thing in advance: you might not want to try many dishes served in the streets of Saigon in general. Unless you’re really into experimenting. Vietnamese cuisine is often praised for its French influences and thus exciting combinations – and at the Vietnamese at home in Germany it is always delicious. But what is often overlooked: In Vietnam, people really do eat everything.

Vietnamese love meat, so much so that vegetarians sometimes have a hard time finding a vegetarian dish. Vegans even more so. And on the one hand very commendable, but for the European (or at least my) palate quite unusual, here really everything is eaten from beef, pork, chicken, fish, seafood, and even frog or snake: From fillet to the most bizarre offal.

At the really authentic stalls you don’t get far with English, there is no map even in Vietnamese. Often you don’t dare to try something – you never know… For this reason and because I still really wanted to try some (but not quite so) exotic street food in Saigon, I went on a street food tour in Saigon*– and it was great! Sam, who was traveling with me, showed me the wackiest corners of Saigon and let me sample fantastic food (with no unpleasant surprises).

What is the difference between summer rolls and spring rolls?

While in this country spring rolls are deep-fried rolls and called summer rolls rolled in soft, light rice paper, for Vietnamese everything is simply spring rolls! Summer rolls seem probably rather an invention of the West. So we started off with one of the freshest spring summer rolls to roll yourself that I have ever eaten. Fresh herbs and lettuce that it just cracked.

Bánh Tráng Nướng: Vietnamese pizza

Vietnamese have invented their very own version of pizza. It doesn’t really have anything to do with an Italian pizza except for the shape, but it’s still a popular snack. Rice paper, a cream that is supposed to represent cheese, various sauces and mayonnaises, sliced sausages – somehow all sorts of things end up on the Bánh Tráng Nướng Pizza. Which amazingly then even tastes! In addition, there was then Nem nướng, grilled sausages – garnished with the obligatory fresh herbs, which must not be missing anywhere.

Trứng Cút Nướng Phô Mai: Grilled quail eggs with cheese

Why quail eggs are so popular in Vietnam is for a very simple reason, Sam revealed to me. A whole hen’s egg would be far too much as a portion for a small cupcake like the ones in the mini bowls – and would be too filling. Slowly, I discovered the secret of the Vietnamese diet, which seemed to eat all the time: Always small portions instead of huge dishes.

In the pale glow of streetlights, we were now sitting somewhere in the middle of Saigon on the side of the road on our kindergarten stools, like those used in abundance at street food stalls in Vietnam, eating our quail egg muffins called Trứng Cút Nướng Phô Mai and Bánh Xèo, stuffed pancakes. And here again lots of fresh herbs, which Sam explained to me individually (and whose names I also immediately forgot again, because I was only busy with amazement).

Chè Bưởi: Dessert in Vietnamese

I have no idea what Sam was handing me – it was called Chè Bưởi and she translated it as “sweet grapefruit soup.” Somehow it was sweet, creamy, fruity and fresh at the same time; just the right thing at night 30 degrees air temperature.

Book Street Food Tour in Saigon

Street food tours like this take you to very remote corners of the city that I probably never would have gotten to see without Sam. They are usually advertised as “Students show you street food in Saigon” and in fact Sam was a student who knows a lot about street food mainly because she only lives in a small room and actually eats out all the time – just like many students in Ho Chi Minh City.