HCMC Restaurant List Updates: March 2025
Breaking the burger seal; a little bánh xèo redemption; and falling for a coffee shop
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 often longer than will appear in your email (this month especially). 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, including polling others, 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:
March’s A tale of two… was about bánh xèo. If you missed it, you can catch up by following the link below. Details on the shops are in the List Newbies section.
Perhaps a little surprising is that also listed there is a third place I went to post-publication of #67. As I said, I know I am the problem. And note that I’m not anti-bánh xèo, I just am not in love with them like many people are. I decided to try a place I’ve known about for literally years to see how their version made me feel about my apathy.
This month is in stark contrast to last because I’m not sure I remember a month with so many newbies — and I forgot about my goal of “salient points only” so settle in for a long read1. To blame is not a change of heart about sure bets and comfort eats. My last trip outside of the city was in December and my next will be the first week of May. Despite an amazing do-nothing staycation during lunar new year, I wanted an in-between break that wasn’t just days off spent at home. So, I booked a hotel in D1 and had a short sojourn in the city exploring streets and places I never had before. It was wonderful. You might know by now that I never head far for a weekday lunch, and you should know I tend to want to sit and relax for an extended period during my night-off dinners. My exploration of popular, local eats in Districts 1, 5, and 10 has suffered. Staying right in the thick of things around there gave me the chance to rectify this a little while also giving me a chance to run errands without the pressure of a schedule.
Although I planned on eating mostly local during the minibreak, I couldn’t pass up going to Trần Pizza’s new location, literally a hop away from the old one. Although it’s a new place without the family home connection nor Hiếu’s parents about, it’s still Trần. Dare I say I prefer the new spot?
Seeing Hiếu back in action at a place that is solely his to oversee was pretty special, but I have to admit that my MVP meal of the month involved a burger. Because it had been at least six years since I last had one, and the one I had this month was so satisfying. It more than fulfilled its role of giving me the eating experience I had gone so long without. It’s MVP purely for the bliss I felt during the first few bites. Read more below.
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