Jaspas Wine & Grill @ Dong Khoi, Ho Chi Minh

Located downtown of Ho Chi Minh, this place is located at a cluster popular with Caucasians. Traffic was quite bad when heading towards downtown but that's understandable since it was Friday night when we headed out there.

this is the entrance towards the restaurants cluster

front of the restaurant

menu

The only item during Happy Hour on the day of our visit, was the 1-for-1 Tiger draught beer, from 5 to 7pm.

Tiger beer

For food, we started off with french fries.

shoestring french fries

It was quite addictive, eating those french fries. Served piping hot, right off from the fryer. Goes well with the ketchup dip.

My friends had Heineken mostly, since they don't fancy Tiger beer. Tried a local beer too; Saigon Red.

Saigon Red

Found the taste acceptable but my beer drinking friends thought otherwise. Some say it was quite tasteless.  The crowd started to trickle in after 9pm, and soon the place was quite crowded with expats and some locals. There's free wifi too. So, you're well connected even when out dining in this area.

Felt hungry, so decided to order a mixed platter to share.

mixed platter

tuna tataki

chicken skewer

minced lamb meat

duck springroll

The platter has deep fried calamari, duck springroll, chicken skewers, tuna tataki and lamb tacos, and costs about SGD20+ and good to be shared amongst 3-4 pax.

Liked everything on the platter. Unless if you're not a lamb person because the minced lamb meat in the lamb tacos has quite a strong taste. There are various dipping sauces provided and it was fun guessing which sauce is for which. There were wasabi mayo, peanut sauce similar to satay taste (for the chicken skewer?), hoisin sauce (for springroll) and the rest, kinda forgotten how they tasted like. But, we'd just mixed it around and dipped it in more than one sauce just to get a combi of flavours. Somehow, that worked. Hehe.

We stayed for quite a while, had somemore beer, and re-ordered the french fries to munch. Then we saw other tables ordered dessert, and so we followed suit. The menu had just about 3 types of dessert, so we chose chocolate sundae.

chocolate sundae

We enjoyed the cold sundae very much, although it was overdosed with sweetness of the sticky brownie like thingy that no one else wanted to eat.

Our service staff for the night was pretty realistic. She had on a not so pleasant expression on her face when we ordered just beer and french fries. Once when our beer was not arriving after a long while, and we enquired about it, she just barked at us saying that she had already placed the order and it's coming! But when we ordered the mixed platter, and somemore beer, she treated us to a small smile. Hahaa!

In total, we had 7 beers, 2 french fries, 1 mix platter and a chocolate sundae shared amongst the 4 of us. Paid about SGD25 per pax.

Pho Hing Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup @ District 1, Ho Chi Minh

Our second pho stop in Ho Chi Minh. Were there for lunch.

chopstick

Vietnamese chili sauce

Wanted to eat beef brisket noodles but they ran out of it or not available during the time of our visit. So had to settle for beef balls noodles instead. Once the order is placed, they'll bring a large plate of greens out.

greens and more greens; sweet basil/thai basil, mint, spring onions

beef balls noodles

closer view

The soup was light and tasty. I preferred the noodles here, because it is like 粗米粉 (thick rice vermicelli). The beef balls were quite hard though. For the herbs, just pick the leaves and throw it into the soup to eat together with the noodles. My friend hilariously dumped the whole stalk into her bowl. -_-'''

noodles with grilled pork and shrimps (dry)

spring roll

We shared a bowl of cold dried noodles with grilled pork and spring rolls. The dried noodles came with sauce (that looked like watery chili sauce) in a separate small bowl. The dipping sauce for the spring roll was dark like hoisin sauce.

Liked the cold noodles, tasted refreshing! For drinks, we ordered juices and ice coffee.

pennywort with coconut

apple juice

ice coffee with milk

The Pennywort with coconut tasted mild and refreshing, and the apple juice was quite sweet.

Restaurant @ near Lush, Ho Chi Minh

Located within walking distance near Lush, the nightspot that we wanted to go but was closed for renovations. It's next to a place called 'Vixen', and the dining area is at Level 2. Level 1 is a carpark basement. Looked like a seafood restaurant.

beer never tasted better after a hot day full of walking...

our table overlooking the street

We ordered rice and some dishes. Unfortunately, they ran out of pork. So we ordered grilled honey shrimps, a plate of sweet cabbage (which is our xiao bai cai), springrolls and beef cubes with potatoes.

vegetable and beef cubes with potatoes (french fries)

yummy beef cubes

The food was good and tasty. I remembered that the price was decent, though can't remember exactly how much we paid for. Reasonably priced and beer was cheap. But the chicken meat were priced higher. Not sure why too.

grilled shrimps

hahaa, the shrimps were quite ok in size

salt and lime for shrimp

The white rice came in a large plate, so you're free to share amongst the group on your own accordingly. No refill though.

springroll

meaty and yummy

Adored the samosas looking 'springroll'. Categorized under seafood, so I guessed the filling is a mix of pork and shrimps. This is one dish that I'll recommend. One plate contained 6 good sized pieces.

The food and beer here is good. The service, well, we had two waiter who stood behind us most of the time glaring at us. Hahaa, not sure why too. We thought it was because we were holding up their closing time but we still had half an hour more to go. One of them actually look like Andrew Seow of Growing Up fame. Seriously, the waiter might be his Vietnamese twin! The hairstyle, the gaze.. wow, so 70s!

Creperie and Cafe @ Han Thuyen Street, Ho Chi Minh

Located very near the Notre Dame Cathedral. Touted as one with good view for alfresco dining, we came and saw the awesome view was just a park. Hmm.

view from our seats

seats

menu

yup, been trying coffee everywhere I go!

ice-coffee or ca phe da

I liked the ice coffee here. It came already with iced cubes, unlike the one where you have to wait for the drip to finish.

some fruity drink with soda

iced-tea or apple tea, can't remember

For tea-break, decided to order crepes since its the shop's specialty. Tried one sweet and one savoury.

tiramisu

it's melting!

The tiramisu crepes was good! All of us loved it. Sweet and soft, and the crepe skin was very eggy!

pizza crepes

cheesy goodness

The savoury pizza crepes was nice too. However, if you're particular about not having any frozen peas and corns in your food, then you won't like this.

The atmosphere is laid-back and we enjoyed the sunset with the setting sun casting soft lights over the trees. Lots of locals like to throng the park somehow. Slowly we saw street vendors coming out to hawk their food. And saw local 'saman' aunty coming by to chase cars away!

night view at the cafe

Notre Dame Cathedral evening view

Hana Mizuki @ Le Thanh Ton Street, Ho Chi Minh

Located at Le Thanh Ton Street, District 1 of Ho Chi Minh City. The street has many other Japanese eateries as well as pizza parlours. Hana Mizuki was one the restaurants that we stumbled upon and decided on impromptu basis.

dining area at level 2

The restaurant is actually quite small, and we were ushered upstairs where there are more seats available. We chose to have their set lunches, so we ordered the 2 beef sets and 2 sashimi sets. Each set comes with miso soup, rice, chawan mushi and an appetiser. Added extra order of gyoza to share. For drinks, they will ask if you'd like Vietnamese green tea or Japanese green tea. The bottled Heineken is actually quite cheap, at VND35,000, which is like SGD2+? Darn, should've drank beer instead. Hahaha!

The place actually feels abit worn down. Tell-tale signs included the dirty looking walls, and the overused menu. Not to worry though, overall, it was clean and comfortable to dine-in.

Japanese green tea

coca-cola

The appetiser was quite unique, being sliced bitter gourd served cold. You'll either like it or hate it. It was quite bitter, actually. Never had this in Singapore before, have you?

appetiser - cold cut sliced bitter gourd with egg and spring onions

chawan mushi

with prawns and fish cake slice

The chawan mushi was served just lukewarm. But the taste was alright.

gyoza

The gyoza already came doused in vinegar and ready to eat. Not bad, but could be even better if it has more vegetables in it.

beef set with stir-fried squid

sashimi for the sashimi set

close-up view of the tender beef

stir-fried squid with onions

Japanese rice

potato salad

miso soup

The sashimi looked so good, and I'd bet that it tasted good too. Well, my friends who had it can attest that it was fresh and nice. *sobs* Didn't order that because was apprehensive about eating raw fish in a place that is far from hotel...

Anyway, I liked the beef too. Nice and tender, and goes well with the sauce that has minced garlic in it for extra spiciness (but mind your breath thereafter though...). The squid was fresh and not overcooked. Yums. The rice in the bento was alot and combined with the potato salad, well..the stomach did feel heavier after lunch.

The set lunches prices that we had was about VND150,000 to VND180,000. So a budget of say about  SGD13 per pax, got us quite a good lunch.

Service was quite slow though because there was just only one waitress to serve the upper floor, which just consist of two tables, including ours.