Bún khô gà on Old Market Street | Lunch Walks #2

Back for round two! I'm heading out from the Saigon Podcast Studio again, this time down Thôn Đất Đàm — the market street I'm honestly surprised is still standing given how much prime real estate around here has been redeveloped.

Along the way I point out some old Chinese signage on the buildings, a newly renovated coffee spot that went from empty nightclub to permanently packed in a few months, and a 70-year-old coffee roaster where I stock up on my usual mix. Then it's on to “Bếp Võ” for my go-to order — dry noodles with chicken — before a coffee run and the walk back before the rain hits.

Key Takeaways

• Some things in Vietnam just work immediately: The corner coffee shop that used to be a nightclub sat empty for a while, then reopened completely redone — and it's been packed non-stop ever since. No slow build, just instant success.
• History hides in plain sight: Old Cantonese/Chinese signage on the market buildings is a reminder of how long this street has been here — probably 50 years or more — even as everyone assumes it'll eventually be torn down for redevelopment.
• The best lunch spots are the ones you never have to think about: Same order every time at Bếp Võ— dry noodles with chicken, no menu needed — and it still comes out to under $5.
• Rainy season rules everything: No umbrella, two blocks from the studio, and still a real risk of getting stuck in a downpour — planning your day (and your route) around the rain is just part of living in Saigon.

Chapters and Timestamps

• 00:00 – Back for Lunch Walks #2, heading out from the studio
• 03:00 – The market street and its Chinese-lettered buildings
• 04:00 – The coffee shop that went from nightclub to instant hit
• 08:00 – Arriving at Bếp Võ for dry noodles with chicken
• 11:00 – The bill, the walk to coffee, and beating the rain back to the studio

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:37

I am back for another Vietnam lunch walk. This is number two. I'm staling off as always here at the Tragon Podcast Studio. I'm Neil McKay, the host of Discover Vietnam. And as of more recently, Vietnam explained on VTV, but we can talk more about that later. So in every one of these episodes, I'm gonna go for a walk through the neighborhood, go for one of my local lunch spots, and share with you. And I'm gonna do minimal editing with this video as well, which is a little bit different for a VM podcast. It's basically the videos. So these are video based. If you are listening, remember, as of just recently, we now upload videos to US Pro, which is our host website, and now videos available and audio on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and then of course YouTube as well. So if you are listening to this on your preferred platform, then don't forget you can also click the video button and watch as well, or you can just listen. Old school podcasting, which if you know me, uh I I kind of prefer. Oh prefer love as well. Everything's video now. So today I'm going for uh one of my favourite spots, which if you're a Saigonier, if you live here, you might know it's based in Taurin originally, it's still there, it's called Bip Va. And then they created another location here in District 1 just near near the studio. But uh I'm gonna show you partly as well. Well, food's really good, that's why. And but it's in a really cool street, which I looked up the name of the street earlier now. Of course, I've forgotten it already, so I'll get the street in a second. But uh, it's in the street where all the markets are, which is a bit of a tourist attraction as well. It's uh yeah, it's like where all the markets are. It's a street. I'm surprised it's still here. I remember years ago somebody told me that they were gonna get rid of all those markets. It's like prime real estate right in the middle of Saigon, but it's still there, still going, which is really cool. I remember someone pointed out to me years ago as well. You can see some Chinese characters, which I'll try and point out to you when we get there on some of the buildings, which is really cool. I'm walking along the side of the the bank, which I mentioned in the last videos where all the photo shoots are, and then there's one right away. So people come like I drove around here this morning, and already there was people doing wedding photo shoots. There were three this morning I saw there was uh there's people around here at night always filming, always doing stuff. Uh it's pretty cool. Alright, so this is the the street dam is the name of the street and I know I'm saying it wrong. But Wung Kong Chu is the main street and then we're gonna go along Hong Tat Dam and this is where the Market Street is, so just on the other side of Ham Ni. There's also a really amazing coffee shop I want to point out here on the corner. So when we moved into the studio a year ago, this was like a nightclub or something like that, and it I never saw it because I never went in night, but it did not look anything like this at all. What TC this and they completely redid it and you wondered what it was gonna be, and it's weird because in Vietnam some things just work and they work immediately. And this is one of them sometimes a restaurant just doesn't work, it's empty and it never really recovers. But this place changed and then it's just been packed ever since. I've still not been need to go, but it just looks amazing, it looks like it's been here forever, it's not, it's been here like about four months, maybe six months, and it's always packed, completely changed inside and out, which is pretty cool. Yeah, it's been busy immediately. We're gonna go on the other side of Ham Yi now and go to Tondet Tam. I'm gonna pick up some coffee as well. That's pretty cool. That's Chinese characters as well. So there's a coffee place here that's I think I remember we went before with the team and I asked him how long it's been there. He said like 70 years, I think, which seems like a long time, but maybe. Um waiting to try and get safely across the road here. I love this. This is designed for uh people, and then this guy's decided to just drive right through it, block away, little smile. Another thing you gotta love about Saigon in Vietnam. But yeah, the coffee place has been there forever. I remember when we went to the States from Vietnam like eight years ago, nine years ago. We went there and we bought some coffee and some fins and took them to the States with us and had coffee every morning with every family that we stayed with. So I'll come here later, get some coffee beans they'll grind up in front of me. It's so cheap as well, it's insane, it's ridiculous. Just checking out pressed record there because I've done it before where I can just see myself on the screen and I'm talking away, and I haven't even pressed record, but I have press record, thank god. There's a coffee spot we'll come back to later. So just behind us is Fung Ha, which is all the foreign shops. You see here, you can buy all the these a lot of these stores just sell lots of foreign stuff. All this beer from all over the world, which I was trying to get some beer from the World Cup when I was here about a lot of countries not in the World Cup, like Russia and stuff like that. Some Russian beers. They got some uh Guinness there which I worked out at 75k a can of Guinness, so I'm gonna get some Guinness one day. More booze. And sleeping with his dog. So this is to me a lovely street. I'm so surprised it's still here. Oh wait, there's a one of the Chinese. Yeah, so it used to be lots of I think Chinese again. I need to do more research on this, but you can see here look administration canton, regional canton side home. Must have been here forever. I mean forever, I mean like 50 years or something, but still that's a long time. I remember like eight years ago we got this building we talked talked about the street maybe being taken away. But it's all still here, which is really cool. Traditional houses still, or houses, apartments. And then yeah, this is the other building here, so you can see all these markets, real working markets right in the middle of the city. There's a kindergarten or a school there. And you can't really see, but behind this market there's more Chinese lettering on the building. And this is what I love about Saigon, you got Anan here, which is like one of the top restaurants in all of Asia. In the middle of this market with a guy sleeping with his dog, and then you can see there like the Chinese characters on the building and the Batex Hotel in the background. So yeah, this street is super cool. I can feel the rain coming on already. It is still rainy season. I wonder how strong, how hard it's gonna be. But today we're going to Bep Ba for lunch. Which I think means like it's a name and then kitchen, if I remember rightly, I'm so terrible at that. But uh the food here is really really good. So let's get some uh we're gonna get some dry fur with some chicken. Just me. Yeah, thank you. Don't even know why I need the menu. I get the same thing every time. Can I get the dry noodles with chicken features? Dry noodles with chicken. Yeah. No, I'm okay. Alright, thank you. I've been here so many times before. I've never once been given this. I don't know if it's just because of the camera, maybe though like we gotta get it on the camera, but not given this welcome drink, right? Well, like if she said there's no alcohol in it. Because you know what foreigners are gonna think is alcohol in it. And the other thing is. Man, I don't know, I've probably nearly done it. How many people think you can eat this? Because it looks just like a mint. I think that's magic. So cool. Never once had that, so it's either a new thing or just giving it for the camera. Alright, that took like no time at all. Let me show you how good this is. So it's like it's called bumkar. It's like dry noodles in here. Little crispy bits in here that can pick up all of a sudden. The chicken is so good as well. It's tasty. I've asked before it's like a hundred grams of chicken. Hmm. Oh no. Could eat it on its own. And then the best part you just dump the sauce all over it. Give it a good meat. Well, I think in the menu, I think it's like a hundred K. Alright, that was amazing. Let's go get some coffee. Come on! So good. So cool. So to confirm the final price was $106,000. And then you gotta play, I don't even know if it's plus tax or just plus tip, but plus something. So the final was $113,400. $4.50. Crazy. Man, so good. I'm so full now. So you got a little bit of feedback on the last video, that was nice. Remember, if you want to send me a message, let me know. Always good to hear from you. Whether it's in the comments or you send a message. Always good to hear people appreciate this nonsense. Rain didn't start, that's pretty good. Anyone who's been to Saigon knows rain can come at any time and can be heavy. It's the number one question we get asked by people who want to visit is when's the best time to come. My friend is planning a visit for like two years' time, but it's gonna coincide with his thought of finishing high school. And he's already asking me when's the best time of year to come, how much does it rain? When does it rain? We kind of like just tell people when it rains, it rains, it rains for like an hour or so. It doesn't really mess up your day much. I mean if it rains right now, it's gonna mess up my day. I'm gonna be stuck out here, which has happened before. I was actually right here and I got stuck because it pulled with rain at the end of an umbrella, even though the studio is like two blocks away. But for most of the time you're either indoors or you just don't go out or you're on a bike or something. But let's get some coffee. Sinchiao. No, batcham gram arabica. Ba cham Mop Cham Gram Robusta and then mix Yeah, yeah, yeah, these ones. Mop Cham Grammar, the channel. If you can hear that in the background, when you scan it, it instantly says the price and then it's being paid. QR's nuts these days. So it's a hundred and fifty-eight thousand. Heat sealed. Done, ready to go. That's okay, I don't need a bike. Come on, bite. Heat sealed, ready to go. 158,000 dong, what's that? A living six dollars or something like that. 260,000 dong is ten dollars, so yeah, about six dollars. Not 400 grams of coffee, 300 grams of arabical, 100 grams of robusta. It's my normal go-to mix for my morning coffee. Now we'll head back to the studio. I got so many ideas of where to show you for lunch obviously, because I go out quite often. If you have any suggestions around this neighborhood around Ham Ni, let me know. Can you hear the wind picking up there? I can feel it. Gonna pick up the pace a little bit before we get caught in the rain. Alright, time to go back to the studio. Hope you enjoyed this episode of Vietnam Lunch Walks number two. Let me know if you get any ideas where to go. Don't forget, give me a shout. And then obviously, like I said last time, don't forget to follow, subscribe, turn on the notifications. It actually does make a massive difference. Because you'll get a little pop-up every time we post a new episode, which right now we're doing these. See, we I'm doing these lunch walks, and then we post an old episode every week as well because we've got so many cool old episodes to share with you. Then also don't forget to check out other podcasts that I do, the Smarter Podcasting, how to create a podcast for your business. We've just launched Vietnam Content Marketing where I interview people in Saigon in the studio about how to do content marketing in Vietnam. And then, if you didn't know, like I mentioned right in the beginning, I'm crazily now hosting a TV show on VTV, the national television channel, called Vietnam Explained. Comes out twice a week, two new episodes a week. Go check them out on just Google it, VTV. Vietnam Explained, you'll be able to find all the episodes there, and you'll be able to see me uh talking more about Vietnam. It's a really cool TV show. One last thing, don't forget, if you want to record the podcast in Saigon, come visit me here. Come see me at Saigon Podcast Studio, book a tour, we'll show you around. Come and check it all out. And then record your podcast right in Saigon Podcast Studio. I believe it's Vietnam's only was when we started only dedicated podcast studio. Alright, cheers.