HCMC Restaurant List Updates: November 2023

Welcome back to an intended monthly and often unintentionally lengthy* overview of my dining adventures here in Saigon. The regular updates 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 call my steady dates.

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

My HCMC Restaurant List and these updates are for paid subscribers, and I hope adding colour to the list each month will make it both more useful and more interesting. I’m happy that I’ve moved the bulk of my who/what/where/why of my eating adventures from Instagram to the newsletter. This is like my monthly dining diary, and I get good use of them to remember where and what I’ve already tried.

Maybe it was the buzz of an eventful October, maybe it was feeling comfy in my one-year-in-Saigon status, or maybe it was decision fatigue when facing my always-growing spreadsheet of restaurants I want to try. Whatever the reason, I started off the month telling myself I would only go to a new place if I was dining with someone who suggested somewhere new. Otherwise, I wanted to only go or order from places I know are sure bets or that I’ve said I wanted to return to.

A short vacation to Hong Kong made this easier (less Saigon time) and made it possible for me to still have plenty of new eats. I knew I would win the month regardless. Because of the more plentiful vacation eating, it was another month of frequently wanting plant-based meals as balance, and I’ve yet to be disappointed by any Vietnamese-focused vegan or vegetarian spot. A recent article in The New York Times about newly published evidence on the benefits of plant-based eating has me thinking I’ll just stay in this mode?

I’ve always been a person who tends to only eat meat on the weekends when dining out or eating at someone’s house. But now that I eat from restaurants much more often, whether delivery or out, I’m faced with the choice of eating meat more regularly. And I don’t really want to? For different reasons at different times. I guess this is a heads up that the veg content probably won’t be slowing down anytime soon.

My MVP meal of the month was not one I had while in Hong Kong.