HCMC Restaurant List Updates: September 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. The length and importance of photos are why I will not be doing audio voiceovers for these posts.

The 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 eating adventures from Instagram to the newsletter.

There was only one soupless noodle adventure in September, but it was significant as I loved the style more than almost any other local version I’ve tried. But if there was a theme to September eats, it was realizing just how much I love dipping. Or it might be more correct to say how much I have come to love dipping. I have never seen myself as someone who is a big proponent of dips or its associated act, but meal after meal this past month, I was all over it.

I can lean towards eating fast, so I think that’s why I like long, coursed-out dinners—anything to slow me down is welcome. A dish that involves dipping can lean towards slow, especially if you have to arrange or alter to make appropriate morsels. Dipping dishes sometimes have many little parts. Those are my favourite because the arranging or altering is even more time consuming. Vietnamese cuisine has many sauces and dips, and I got a good fill the past few weeks at new- and not-so-new-to-me places.

And, I realized I forgot to do an MVP meal of the month for August.