Wanderlust of smileybrows: December 2014

I know it has been a long hiatus and I am going to get down to this post before another trip (read DAY 1 here). On our day 2 in HCM, we explored the cafes in this city, known for its good coffee. There are a lot of cafes around, however, we have to alter the definition slightly. Unlike cafes in Singapore selling coffee to mains and impressive desserts. Here in HCMC mainly offers great coffee. The first cafe we visited was a garden theme in district one- Thoai Vien Cafe

Beautiful place, serenity and a good escape from the bustling streets. But food here wasn't fantastic. Not exactly a fan of coffee so I opted for hot chocolate but this tasted different, diluted, overly sweet, like syrup sweet and not chocolate sweet. Not so much to my liking.

We had slight communication challenge and had to order via a google translate app. Simple pork chop rice with fried eggs and rice. Basically it was really disappointing.

Thoai Vien Cafe

159 Nguyen Van Thu, Dist. 1

Such coffee bars all along the street that probably serve impressive coffee at a fraction of what we pay in Singapore.

Second lunch sessionto fill the hungry pangs since we did not have much at the previous cafe. Ranked on trip advisor, one of the popular Pho shop, we went there for some good pho.

All these appetizers were layed on the table for us to try(well you do get charged if you eat them), we tried a couple and Bahn Xu Xue was interesting, known as the husband and wife cake sweet chewy jelly.

Chicken Pho, just used google translate and Pho means street. The soup was light, tasted like fish ball soup, with generous amount of pho and chicken.7

Beef Pho:

Goi Cuon- Vietnamnese spring roll, the matching sauce was weird and tasted a little like meds. Chewy, rubbery skin with lots of vermicelli, not so much to my liking.

Cha Lua- wrapped in banana leaf, looks like Otah and usually used for Bahn Mih.

Pho Hoa

260C Pasteur Street

Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

+84-8-829-7943

About 20 minutes walk from Pho Hoa, we arrived at the War Remnants Museum. Kindly take note of the operating hours as they are closed during lunch hour, 12pm to 130pm.

We had a glance into the country's war history. It was heart wrenching, disturbing and made us question our faith in humanity. Results of war are often catastrophe that has effect till date. I must say, I have learnt more about the history, even though it was some how disturbing, it was still pretty insightful. The museum is made up of three levels of exhibit, categorize by time and event. You will need to pay a 15,000 dong entrance fee (less than 1SGD), totally worth if for such detailed history class.

In the middle of our visit, it started storming and the roof top cover on the 3rd level was blown away, it started flooding the museum.

The rain causes a black out but that did not hinder us, shortly after the light came back and we continued on the journey -Orange Agent operation which is devastating to read, even till today we see people being affected, born with abnormality.

A good place to visit when you are in Ho Chi Minh, just note that it might be a little content heavy.

War Remnants Museum

28 Võ Văn Tần, phường 6, Quận 3,

Hồ Chí Minh, Vietnam

After a long day out, we head back to the mall beside our hotel to get some snacks.

Cone ice cream: Chocolate soft serve on one end and vanilla on the other!

My favourite food this trip is these savory salsa chicken crepe! I went back to get another on outlast day before we left for the airport.

The luxury of having the mall right beside the hotel, we can just head back for a rest and go next door to grab something to eat.

Suppose to be my breakie but we kept it for tea break. Cream puff with vanilla cream, do you call it French Choux Chantilly? This is deeeeelicious!

Went for a evening swim and came back to a sweet note from the staff and token of chocolates. Sweet little gesture that make us so at ease during our stay.

And a lovely cake from their staff to celebrate my birthday:)

Visited the central area of Ho Chi Minh, Dong Khoi, one of the oldest and most central road in saigon where you will see the big brands boutiques. It was of walking distance from the Ben Than Market that we went to on Day one evening but we went back to the hipster area for cafes.

Brunch for dinner. We visited L'usine, a concept store that sells merchandise and even furnitures on level 1. The cafe is situated on level 2 serving all day breakfast at a quarter of the price in Singapore.

Pretty spacious, clean and vintage set up.

Mixed pressed juice 60,000 Dong(S$3.70S):

Filo Pie Mushroom 130,000 Dong (S$8)

Pork & Fennel sausage 115,000 Dong (S$7)

Croque Madame 130,000 Dong (S$8)

Lúsine
70B le Loi St., District 1,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

+84 8 6674 9565

Street food: Hot dessert that tasted mocked shark fin soup! Love coconut juice, thirst quenching and refreshing!

Ben Than Market
Intersection of Le Loi, Ham Nghi, Tran Hung Dao Avenues and Le Lai Street,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Waffle street snack biscuit!

And then I doze off after a day of walking and exploring, but...

Just when the clock strikes twelve, I was woken up with a lighted birthday cake! I kept harping on the fact that he did not buy me a cake last year since my family and friend gotten me cakes on my actual bday. And this year he made up for it by giving me 2 cakes! I don't remember the flavour of this cake but this was DELICIOUS that I insisted flying it back to Singapore. I was thinking it could be Chocolate moose with pistachio cream but it was really heavenly.

On our last day, we decided to try their buffet breakfast as we were lazy to go out. Did I mention before I love buffet for breakfast. I hate to skip breakfast, I believe is the first thing to set your day right. And I get excited with a huge spread of food, makes me just want to try a little of EVERYTHING.