Cơm Gà Mắm Tỏi | Lunch Walks #3

Lunch Walks continues, and this time I've got company — Te from Saigon Podcast Studio joins me, since Carrie had to duck out after we wrapped a Vietnam Content Marketing episode together. It's pouring rain in Nguyễn Thái Bình, but we push on anyway to a fried chicken and rice spot I only found a couple of weeks ago, tucked down a back alley I hadn't explored before. Along the way we talk about the neighborhood getting recognized by Time Out as one of the coolest in the world (or Vietnam — details are fuzzy), the nonstop construction that's part of daily life here, and why Vietnamese people always seem thrilled to end up on camera. Then the rain really sets in, and getting back to the studio turns into its own adventure.

Key Takeaways

• This neighborhood has fans beyond just me: Nguyễn Thái Bình has apparently been named one of the coolest neighborhoods around by Time Out — and between the mix of old buildings, cocktail bars, and hidden local spots, it's easy to see why.
• The best finds are the ones you almost walked past: This fried chicken and rice place had been on this street the whole time, but it took a few passes before it actually got noticed and tried.
• Not all rice is created equal: The rice here isn't broken rice (cơm tấm) — it's fried separately, which gives it a different color, texture, and flavor that's worth asking about if you don't recognize it.
• "Developing country" hits different when you live it: Watching construction happen in real time — new buildings going up constantly, the sound of drilling as a daily backdrop — makes the textbook definition of a developing economy feel a lot more real.
• Rainy season doesn't wait for you to finish lunch: What starts as a light rain can flood a street within minutes, turning a short walk back to the studio into a full production — sandals over sneakers, camera tucked away, and a lot of patience.

Chapters and Timestamps

• 00:00 – Heading out with Tay after wrapping Vietnam Content Marketing, rain already falling
• 02:00 – Nguyễn Thái Bình's reputation, and the neighborhood's mix of old and new
• 04:00 – Arriving at the fried chicken and rice spot, ordering fish sauce and garlic chicken
• 08:00 – Talking construction, development, and life as a foreigner watching Vietnam grow
• 11:00 – The bill, and Vietnamese love of being on camera
• 13:00 – Flash flooding on the walk back and sheltering from the rain
• 16:00 – Back at the studio, wrapping up the episode

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:37

I'm back with another lunch walk on this cover VMVM podcast. I'm here with Carrie from VPW. We just found an episode of VM content marketing. Here with K from Zygon Podcast Studio. So Carrie can join us for lunch today, but today I'm gonna take him somewhere. I only found this place a couple weeks ago. So hopefully it's still open. I don't know. You even thought to bring the umbrella. I didn't even think about that. Yeah, so this is what I was saying with the hem. Like it looks like it's pouring with rain right now. And then there was a few months ago, I like spent ages getting my jacket on, getting everything ready to go out in the rain. And then I pulled out through here into the street and it was bone dry. I was like, are you kidding me on? And I think just because everything's coming off all the rain, all the roofs and the pipes and everything, yeah, it looks pretty dry. Yeah, bone dry. Doesn't it feel so wet in there?

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Okay, I'll say so.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

I've started doing these videos because one I want to like show this neighborhood because I I'm in love with it. I was telling T, it's amazing. Some of the cool buildings, and it is iconic. Do you know? So this neighborhood is Win Taibin, right? Right, T and apparently Time Out magazine, I think it was last year or earlier this year, put it as one of the like top neighborhoods in the world or something like that, maybe Vietnam, I can't remember the exact designation, but yeah, I mean it's been listed as a cool neighborhood. There's obviously there's like oh jeez, yeah, slippery. There's uh Quince, which is a really nice restaurant nearby. There's like some nice cocktail bars, snuff box, and the iron bank around the other side of the bank. But then there's also like loads of cool local places still, which is what I love about Vietnam. It's got a mix of old and new. I put it on the last video, this is my favorite view in Vietnam, I think, or in Saigon.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Oh, yeah, I saw that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

The stressed building, and then it's a mix of the old and the new combined. Yeah. This go this way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Perfect.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

I'm just headed up like 700 meters this way. You're gonna Eddie's, right? Eddie's first, HOD then sonatus. Nice, we're gonna go this way. Alright, thanks for being on VM Content Marketing. Stay tuned. See you soon. Next time you're here, we'll do a lunch walk. We'll go for our next place. I apologize for not doing anything. No worries. Stay soon. Alright, so I got a new place for you. Yeah. I only found this a few weeks ago. Fried chicken. Fried chicken and rice. And maybe you can tell me what's the the type of rice. Cause it so there's a fried chicken place near us, and the rice is like shorter and thicker. It's kind of yellow. Is it broken? No, no, it's not broken rice, it's not cum dam. It's yeah, definitely like a diff totally different type of rice. I don't know how you what it's called. And this place is also a fried chicken place, so I'm assuming it's like the kind of rice you have with fried chicken. I don't know, but it's up here. Which I'd come up this way before and I hadn't really found anything to eat. So I was like, I came up again recently. I need to stop saying like, I can hear myself. This is why when you edit your own stuff, when you podcast, you hear yourself speak, and I heard myself on the last episode, and I I was saying like too much, I was umming too much. You learn you gotta stop. But yeah, I'd been up here before and I hadn't really found anything to eat, and then I came up recently, oh I think is it up here or is it Korean fried chicken? I think that's new. Oh this one, yes. Do you want to eat here? So tell me what is all the difference so kom g obviously I know kom gaz chicken, chicken and rice. What's Zoy mo? Zoy mo?

SPEAKER_02 5:18

So they shower the chicken in oil.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

It's really fried right?

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Chicken crispy. Yeah, it's so good. And then this one?

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Uh I think it's the same as this one with uh milk mummy with garlic.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Ah, okay, that sounds good. And then we got I know Bunti Sal. All of these, but let's get this one. That's the only difference is this is fish sauce and garlic. Yeah. I want that one. Let's go.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Hello. Hello.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Mm-hmm. Yeah, some job here.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Right, so we got so what is this race? Do you know what it do you know what I'm talking about? It's a normal rice. It's a different color, taste it, it tastes different as well. It's like thicker, fluffier. And I've only ever had this race with this type of chip. Just try. That's the only thing that's good range. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

It doesn't it it doesn't stick in there.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

It's carbon, right? Yeah, it's gone. I don't know how to describe it. This looks so good. So tasty. I really want to try the garlic and uh fish sauce.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

To be honest, oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

You do. Yeah. Yeah, you're gonna have them.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

I've only been here once before. That Korean chicken blaze actually looks like it's uh brand new. What is brand new? The Korean chicken blaze if you want. Always construction. So as a foreign arrival You hear of the phrase developing country, you you kind of understand what it means. But being in Vietnam or the youth I I understand like what that means with my own eyes. Like this country is developing. Because when you're learning about it in school of developed countries and developing countries, talking about economy and all that kind of stuff, numbers, right? But here it's like you just point out that construction, like it is like the is developing in front of your eyes. Crazy how often would you eat this? This fried chicken? Like fried chicken, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

I think maybe once or twice a minute.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Yeah, not often, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Yeah, too too much oil.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Alright, wait, what do you think of that?

SPEAKER_02 10:32

I had enough.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Enough for a month, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

We made it enough of the chicken.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Enough of the chicken, yeah. This is just fried rice.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

It's fried rice.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

I think it's something different. It's lighter, it's fluffier, it's a different color.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Because it's fry with I think it's the oil that is the oil. And and uh the fish sauce, I think.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Maybe oil is uh 100 and 25 mop jam bam.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

Mop jam hai moy lam.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Just uh we walk outside Yeah these poor guys gotta they do they keep working or do they stop?

SPEAKER_02 11:35

I think they stop.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Stop Hop jump high.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Yeah yeah, I got it, I got it.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

I think this one. Come on. I know numbers, that's my one thing. I can do numbers most most of the time, not all the time. It's $125,000 on Long Lamb Long Lamb. That's my other small bit of BB. Oh my goodness. We have two long rainy season now. Hold on, you think the camera is not waterproof, so we're gonna wait a minute, I think we just wait.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

I think we gotta wait to wait to be on camera.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Oh my god, maybe people want to be on the camera. You guys love it? I I was uh there was one time I was on the back of my bike and I was over V1 to V7, I was running over the bridge to be four, and I had my camera and I was going on my gimbal, so it was my phone and it was like really game. And I was on the bike and I'm just talking the camera, and then all my hand behind me was like and I come with these people on the back of the bike like waving and like these guys just didn't have everyone wants to be on camera. Why is that? What about this one in the right? Yeah, just inviting us to sit back down. Love and bad timing. That's hilarious. Let's go for it. We're gonna walk. Let's calm down a little bit. What's up?

SPEAKER_02 14:52

Good thing we have the sandals.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Yeah, I know. Yeah, I was gonna come in my sneakers and Tay was wearing the sandals that we only wear in the studio. And uh I'm pretty glad we've we changed into the sandals. We're gonna have to wash them though before we they're gonna be indoor sandals, alright?

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

So this is the building here. You can hear the construction app behind the studio. See the like how much construction they're doing. I think the studio is right behind that. Yeah, I think that one. Yeah, so when I'm working in the office in the studio, ooh, nearly split again these days. Um there's often construction right out the back. The sound of Saigon as I call it. Even uh yesterday I had a video call with Tay and there was grill it, drilling at Yules, angle grinding at Yules, drilling at mine. It's just the sound of Saigon, but right now, yeah. So we're lucky that inside the studio you can't hear the noise, which is amazing. So you could be recalling, and there's no problem. But if you're in the office like I am all day, nearly every day, uh I just have to listen to the drilling all day. Look at this flooding like crazy already. I did not take long. It was like dry every day, it was like oh now it's rainy season's not that bad this year. Then it started again. And then it started again and it's been crazy ever since. Alright, we're back in the studio now. I hope you enjoyed this lunch walk. Shoot me a message if you want to know exactly where we went to down a back alley there. Amazing fried chicken, got garlic and fish sauce. Thanks to Tim. It was amazing, go check it out. And then remember if you want to come to Sagrun Podcast Studio, send me a message. Thanks for listening to Discover Vietnam or watching us. Remember you can watch on all the major platforms as well. Now don't forget follow, subscribe, like, all that good stuff. Alright, let's go. Oh my goodness.