My favourite phở in Saigon | Lunch Walk #1

"This corner... I love seeing it every day. It kinda sums up Vietnam for me — an amazing juxtaposition of the old and the new."

Welcome to the very first Vietnam Lunch Walks; a new series where I take you along on my actual lunch breaks around the neighborhood I love most in Saigon. This one's been a while coming: it's the first new Discover Vietnam episode in six months, after a stretch of low motivation and a busy year setting up Saigon Podcast Studio.

In this episode, I walk you from the studio on Pasteur Street to my favourite halal phở spot near Bến Thành Market, order my usual (phở gà with extra chicken), and then take you on a loop through the neighborhood — past the old bank building, the stock exchange, and my favourite bridge in the world, with a few old Saigon stories along the way.

Key Takeaways

Consistency is hard, even for the host: Six months between episodes isn't unusual for Discover Vietnam — motivation for content creation comes and goes, and this episode is a reminder to just start again.

Old vs. new is the whole vibe: The view of the old bank building against the Bitexco Tower is a favourite spot precisely because it captures Saigon's mix of old and new.

Great phở comes down to small details: Good white breast meat over tough "walking chicken," a light hand with chili, and sawtooth basil are what make this order worth repeating weekly.

Documenting a neighborhood before it disappears: Older buildings nearby are quietly being replaced with modern glass developments, which is part of the motivation for filming these walks now.

Chapters and Timestamps
00:00 – Welcome to Lunch Walks: launching a new series after a 6-month break
02:00 – A favourite view: the old bank building against the Bitexco Tower
05:00 – Ordering phở gà at the halal spot near Bến Thành Market
13:00 – Walking tour: the canal, the favourite bridge, and a 2016 street story
17:00 – Watching old Saigon disappear, then back to the studio to wrap up

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:12

I'm just gonna record the live, we're gonna do not do any editing, just upload it to YouTube. Sag on the podcast studio. If you wanna come check it out, if you wanna record the podcast, come and do that. And this is the first episode of Discovery M that we published in six months. And partly because we've been really busy setting up the studio within a year now. Busy with seven million bikes podcasts, working with podcasts all around the world. And also I lost a bit of energy for creating new episodes, so it's actually pretty impressive with myself that I'm doing this. Because I've not really been in the mood for creating content lately. I guess it's called. I wouldn't have called it that. I'm a podcaster. I've not been in the mood to create podcasts. I don't know. Suddenly this week I was like, you know what? I feel like making some some content, some more for Discover Vietnam. If you've been following Discover Vietnam over the years, since I started in 2019, we've taken lots of long breaks. It's not always been consistent, and uh I lose my energy often to make new episodes, and then I decide to get started again. So I guess this is one of these ones I was just looking. Yeah, we haven't put out a new episode in six months, but been very busy in that time. But before I explain a bit about that, I want to share this with you. So you can see here, this is the central bank of Saigon or Vienna? I think it's Saigon. I love this building, people come do loads of photo shoots. One of the things I love about Vietnam and Saigon in general is it doesn't take much to kind of walk off the main street and suddenly you find all these cool spots. So like the hem or the lane where the studio is, is one of those. It's so quiet, nice, it's an awesome little community in there. I love all the people in there, gotten to know them not much, but I know them to say hello to and uh have a smile and sometimes have the odd laugh with. But this here right now I want to share with you. This is my favourite view in all of Saigon, maybe all of Vietnam. Maybe not all of Vietnam because there's some stunning views, but right here, this corner, and I love seeing it every day. It's like this distressed wall within the Batexco tower behind it, and then right next to that we got the bank building as well. Um, this kind of like sums up Vietnam for me. One thing I say a lot, and I know Adri hates it, is uh the world juxtaposition, but I think that sums up Saigon, it's like an um or Vietnam. Saigon, an amazing juxtaposition of the old and the new, and that sums it up right there for me. Uh that new right there, I love it. But so today I'm gonna go to one of my favourite spots for lunch, which was introduced to me by my friend Chelsea. Thank you for that. I actually was never a big pharaoh fan, which I know is weird because that's what Vietnam's known for. But she took me to this spot and I was blown away by it. Now I take everyone there, I probably go there at least once a week. Yeah, at least once a week. Um but the last time I went it was closed, so I actually don't know if it's gonna be open or not. Let's see, which was unusual because it's never closed. Um yeah, you know, so I'm here on Wing Kong Chu Street. I have to look up at the sign because terrible at remembering street names, which is just parallel to Ham Yi and uh right near Bintan Market. So we're right in the heart of Saigon. It's one of my favourite places here as well, Huncha Place. Gonna definitely be going there one day showing you a bit more about that. Took the team there recently, they loved it. Let's hope this place is open. So this is a halal fur place, it's right next to a mosque. I don't know how many mosques there are in Saigon, but I don't think there's many. So often see a lot of people from Indonesia here, can hear the accents and from Malaysia as well. Big Muslim populations here, so I guess they come here. But it's just the food is just so good. They have bunk uh what did I say? Fa obviously, par car, one of my favorites as well. Those are the two ones I get. The thing as well is the chicken is so good. So often, you know, if you have Vietnamese food, the chicken can be a bit tough. If it's like a walking chicken, I get ah, it's open today. Yes, it's not been open lately. Last twice I've gone back, it's been closed. That's the other thing in Vietnam I've noticed because a lot of these food places are run by the family, when they gotta go home and they want to take a break, the whole place shuts down. The Ni Kwang place near us is like that. You see a sign out and it's closed for a week, probably because yeah, they're going home. They don't have like other staff maybe to help run it. And I'm pretty excited about this. Sin ciao! I don't know. Got uh Fa and Montem, Montemga, and Chada. Yeah, alright. If you've been watching this podcast and you follow me, you know that this my V's is almost non-existent. And that was probably rubbish what I just said, but um She probably understood me because I come here a lot, but I got uh the chicken fur and I got extra chicken. So what's in here, one of the reasons that I love this place is the chicken, it's like white breast meat, and I get the extra chicken. For the extra protein, you know what it's all about getting your protein in these days, especially when I get to this age. You gotta get your protein in. So I get extra chicken, but it's like really good white meat, which is what you want. It's not like the tough uh walking chicken, and then the little bits as well, where uh you get like the tiny bits of meat, and it's all bone and cartilage and stuff like that. So I guess uh that's one of the reasons I like it's just the flavour, which is so good. But yeah, no, I've lost a bit of energy for making Discover VM lately. And then we post old episodes every week just to kind of keep keep publishing stuff because we've got so many old episodes going back to 2019. The thing is, you keep listening, and I would love to hear from you if you're listening to this. We don't really get we say we I don't get many people sending messages every now and again I do, and it's honestly the best thing when someone sends a message, says they listen. I met someone recently, actually who was here, they're working for the US Embassy. Hey Misha, if you're uh listening or watching, but they said that they'd listened to Discover Vietnam while they were learning Vietnamese. Wait, wait, look at this. Hold on. Sinjiao. I hope this is not what's in my car. I was here last week and I like heard something at my feet and I looked down and there was a chicken in between my legs. I think this is what you would call like free-range chicken, gata, or maybe it's just a fighting chicken, I don't know. Maybe I won't say that too loud. But um anyway, yeah, she um was watching this podcast, listening to this podcast while she was in VM. While she was in the US or her parents come to VM. I hope this I think the microphone looks like it's been picked up. I hate talking to these, I hate talking to myself doing these videos. I'm not like a big YouTuber, so I'm talking really quiet under my voice right now. When someone's at me, I don't like doing this when someone's about. These are both a very good thing as well. He's got to be fighting chicken showing up for food. Good idea. Too hot out there, right? Yeah, yeah. Right next to the where they cook it, the big pot of food, so uh come on. A little bit of tongue hoist a little bit of hoisting sauce. But not too much. I often end up adding too much and it becomes too hot to eat. Everyone's different, but I wouldn't add too much. And this is the extra chicken that I get with it. Um how good the white meat is add a bit of lime. It comes with chilies, but I don't add any. It's gonna be way too hot. Then the best thing is this it's like sawtooth basil, because it's like a sawtooth. Just look that up, recently got the name. Alright. Alright, I destroyed that. I stopped filming because one I was eating, you don't really need to see me eat. I was gonna maybe talk to the camera, but then I get so paranoid. I'm not like a big YouTuber person. I like doing it. Oh sorry the microphone's not on. Let me turn the microphone on. Yeah, I'm not like a big YouTuber kind of person. Talk to the camera. I got this little Osmo, which is way nicer because it's less less big, I don't think that's right. English, but I used to use my phone on a gimbal and then it's so big and so obvious. This is really small, and then with the microphone, I talk kind of quietly. Not one of these big loud YouTubers like, hey here, follow me. Uh I'm kind of doing this for fun, but I definitely get self-conscious when uh someone else sits next to me. And then this guy ended up talking to him, he was really nice, he was German, speaks English. Lots of Vietnamese speak English, so it's not about uh being self-conscious of being understood because there's lots of people who can understand you. Uh more I just get super self-conscious. So I don't know how many of these videos I'll do, but this is number one lunch walk, the halal fa place. Let me show you the name of the street if this comes up. Well, it's on Namki Koinia in Wing Kong 2. So if you want to get some good food, go there. There's so much good food around here. I'm gonna try and share as many of my food spots as I can. I thought before I go back to the studio, I've got a meeting soon. I'll just give you a little bit of a tour of the neighborhood if you're still here, if you're still watching. As I said before, remember send me a message, let me know what you think. Should I do I keep doing more of these? Um I'm probably gonna do them whether you message me or not, but uh it's pretty cool. I'm really obsessed with this whole neighborhood right now. We're walking by the uh what do you call it? The stock exchange. Walking by the stock exchange right now, we're going right down to the canal, which I don't even know the name of that canal, but it's disgusting, it's black. I see people swimming in it sometimes, but it's a cool bridge that goes over to District 4. Somebody told me it was designed by Eiffel Pasteur. I was telling somebody that I was like, this bridge has been designed by Eiffel Pasteur. Then I put it into ChatGBT and they said it wasn't. I took a picture of it and it's like no. But then I saw an article come up recently, and again it said it was designed by Gustav Eiffel. I should do a little bit more research into that, but uh it's a pretty cool bridge. I'll show you in a second. I never thought my life I'd have a favorite bridge, but it's uh it is definitely my favorite bridge, and they've just redone it lately as well, they put new lights on it, and now they've repainted it, they've repainted the steps. It's uh crazy I've been here for so long, 10 years now. We've been here this long, and I remember there was I think what year was it 2000, probably 2016, going into 2017 when we lived in District 4. We were standing on these steps and we saw a fight between the coconut sellers. They pulled out the machetes, it looked like they were about to cut each other's arms off. I remember it so clearly. They literally we thought we were about to see blood and limbs, and then out of nowhere, some young buffalo came over on his bike, uh literally on this road over here, and uh pulled out a massive sword, yelled at them, they instantly put their machetes down, and I went back to selling coconuts, but there was like a crowd watching, it was crazy. Um yeah, it's always one of my early memories of Vietnam. But yeah, so this whole neighborhood around here, I'm gonna show part of the reason why I want to do this is to share more of this neighborhood before it disappears, it's already disappeared. I'll show you more in future videos. Some of these houses, these buildings are just I think they're really beautiful, and you can already see where they've been knocked down, where they used to be, but there's still little pockets left, and they're of course just change just replaced with like pretty ugly glass buildings that are completely nondescript. Um so I kind of want to document this before they all go. I mean, Saigon is changing so quickly, but also so slowly at the same time. There's whole pockets I don't think are gonna disappear anytime soon. But a lot of these places around here I think are so cool. I want to show them to you before they completely disappear. Doing the old uh cross the road thing. It's so funny, it's become such a tourist thing crossing the road now. I see it when I drive through District 1. I'm gonna show you, switch your camera and show you the start of this bridge. This all just been repainted like a few months ago. There's lights in the ground there, of course, people graffiti. Never understand graffiti, but um, yeah, you see tourists, I think it's like a TikTok thing. I know when we've had family come, they're like, We gotta cross the street, everyone's like, I gotta cross the street, and yeah, it's cool experience, and like that's crazy, it is crazy. But a lot of Saigon, especially, is pretty well managed now in terms of the road. Um there's stoplights, there's crosswalks, and then I'll drive through District 1 and I'll see these tourists like all really excited, you can tell pulling each other across, and you're like talking about Volvanquiet by the river if you know what I'm talking about. And I'm like, this is just a pretty much a highway now. There's there is stoplights, they're putting an overpass over it's gonna be there soon. Um so yeah, it's kind of funny to watch that, but I just did it there. It is a cool experience, you kind of you do get used to it. I'll just show you this bridge quickly. You should know the name by now, I don't want to. Yeah, this graffiti pisses me off. This was um like repainted and on almost immediately there was more graffiti there. It's a shame, but handle around the world, I do not understand why you would want to put your tag on this. It's a shame. I think it costs a lot of money to fix it or to do it in the first place and then fix it. Oh yeah. As I said, I never thought we'd have a favorite bridge, but this is my favorite bridge in the world. I don't have many bridges I even know of, but I do love this one. It's pretty cool. And yeah, the you can see the tide right now is pretty low. Kids jump off this bridge sometimes. I've seen uh I've seen people swim in it here. I know it obviously gets super hot inside gone. But you do not want to swim in this. This is not swimming water like at all. It's pretty pretty hideous. Um yeah, we can do that. Uh let me just quickly show you as well another one of my favorite views I showed you earlier, it's pretty similar, but this view right here coming up of the bank with the Patexco tower in the background. Around this spot, either you're on the bridge or even just standing here, which is one of my favorite spots. I don't know, something about this I just love. I thought this was brutalist architecture because somebody told me that was what it is, but it's not. I can't even remember what type of architecture it is. But there's a view right here of uh Botexco Tower, super modern, even though I think it's about 20 years old now, but still modern with this old bank building. I want to go inside one time. I think you can maybe get tools, I'm not sure. But I'd love to go inside and see what it looks like. Alright. Because people love it, probably chop this up, make a clip, and it's gonna go viral on TikTok, and then everyone's gonna want to do it as well. But this is how you cross the road, walk at a steady pace. Don't stop, don't start. Don't be a dick either, don't just walk out without looking. Uh you gotta you gotta time it as well. Uh I definitely was in a I remember in a taxi not long ago, well quite long ago, sometime in the last year, and there was this tourist up on uh what's it called, Tunduk Tang Street, and she uh clearly didn't really judge walking across properly. They walked in front of our taxi, and in the taxi was going at slow speed, and and she didn't like it for whatever reason. She slapped the taxi hood and kind of yelled at the taxi driver. I remember the taxi driver just laughed and we just laughed as well. Um, so yeah, just as always, like everything in life, just don't be a dick, right? Uh but just be careful, crossing the street, have fun if you do do it. Alright, I'm back here at Saigon Podcast Studio. Remember, this is the Discover Vietnam podcast. If you like this content, follow, subscribe. I know everyone says that, but I actually realized lately how important it is. Because I follow a bunch of podcasts, and if you subscribe, I I know for me I get the notification like, oh, I gotta watch it, I gotta listen to it. So it does actually make a big difference. The stats have shown that people are way more likely to listen to it. We got my friend Guy here. Looks after my bike. Um yeah. So make sure you follow and subscribe. Like all that stuff, and remember, send me a message. And if you wanna come check out the publication video, you can do it for redo as well.