HCMC Restaurant List Updates: December 2024

A beast of a post with lots of Hải Phòng notes, some newbies, and my year in a short review

Welcome back to an intended monthly and unintentionally lengthy* overview of my dining adventures here in Saigon. These regular updates are for paid subscribers and include places I’ve newly added to my HCMC Restaurant List, mentions of ones I’ve returned to recently, and anything notable from places I visit regularly enough to consider my Steady Dates. They all reflect my tastes, interests, and preferences and shouldn’t be thought of as an essential guide to city eats. Food is my passion, and I’m happy to write and share these memories, however unwieldy they end up being.

*These overviews are longer than will appear in your email, so if you’re a paid subscriber, please do click out to read the full post on the web and view all the photos.

I hope adding colour to the list each month makes it both more useful and more interesting. I’m happy that I’ve moved the bulk of the who/what/where/why of my eating adventures from Instagram to the newsletter. Having these posts be paid is not about gatekeeping. It is a small nod to the effort I might put into reading about and finding places and a fun thank you to paid subscribers given the more emotional nature of my other paid content.

At the end of every month, I post photos on Instagram of what you can read about below. If you don’t follow me there, here are the monthly visuals from Saigon:

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A post shared by @onehollowleg

Last week’s A tale of two…had me trying hot and iced versions of trà cúc (chrysanthemum tea) on a recent, super short trip to Hải Phòng.

60: A tale of two trà cúc

My desire to go to the Northern port city was quite random in that it was really only because I wanted to see Vietnam’s third largest city (city travel is my true love) and to try some of their famous dishes. Info on the tea spots is at the end of the post where I mention the other specialty dishes I tried on my trip. But if you want just the visuals, here is the Instagram post for the trip eats:

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A post shared by @onehollowleg

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Of course, of course, happy new year. Chúc mừng năm mới! I am not someone who has ever had much affection for celebrating a calendar date in the middle of winter, but it can be interesting to reflect on the past twelve months. Mine were the best of times and the worst of times. Let’s do worst first.

I entered 2024 still in recovery mode from a pneumonia infection I was hospitalized for in mid-December 2023. At that time and for the next few months, I would be at the clinic regularly, dealing with the stress and frustration of doctors wondering if I had HIV, TB, or another autoimmune disease because I was not getting better as fast as they thought I should have. Even after it was determined I had none of those illnesses, a cough lingered until I was given an inhaler in June. I have weaned myself off its use for the most part, but my lungs are still not themselves. Histamine in what I consume seems to get the coughing going if it’s present in high amounts, and right now I seem to react mostly to beer and kimchi. Sometimes red wine, sometimes something else I’m not sure of. Last week I started coughing while drinking green tea. I cough up a wad of yellow mucus much less frequently now, but when I do, it’s still a little disconcerting. But hey, I don’t have TB, right?

33: The highs and lows of my sickness cocoon

This summer I began to struggle more acutely with my current employment as an English centre teacher. I’m still struggling, but I think I’m more resigned to accepting the negative. A centre colleague (expat) recently quit to start a 9-5 office job in a field that was more aligned with their career goals. I asked myself if I wanted to do something similar and dig back into my old skills to find a better paying, more prestigious, 5-day-workweek-only job here. I don’t. As down as I may be sometimes about English centre teaching, I have no interest in going back to a job anything like my previous few. It was good for Rhianna then but not for Rhianna now.

45: You're not an expat, you're an English Teacher

Those things aside, in addition to all the good food I eat here in Saigon every month, I had some large doses of happiness while on vacation in Đà Lạt, Seoul, Taipei, and Hanoi (and Hải Phòng!). All trips except Đà Lạt had me connecting with good friends and that was fantastic given 2024 had me also reflecting on my difficulty at forming strong friendships at this stage of my life.

46: Dropping the baton

Oooff. I’m a bit of a Debbie Downer, aren’t I? Indeed. Take it or leave it. But the best of times really were those moments when I got to be my favourite self, #vacationrhianna, around people I could be around endlessly. Those moments are what made 2024 memorable for me, and I am very grateful for them.

On to the eats!