Uncle Ho Tuckshop – Authentic Hanoi Cuisine

March 29, 2021March 31, 2021 MelsLeave a comment

Since I moved to Singapore, I’ve been looking for a place that serve authentic Vietnamese food. I love them! One of Vietnamese dishes that I like is Bun Cha. Yup, not Pho. I’m not a big fan of Pho. I prefer their Bun (vermicelli) dishes.

Bun Cha is a dish from North Vietnam. I tried it in Saigon and people said Saigon version is ‘sweeter’ than Hanoi version. Well, for me at least it’s already great lol. Maybe someday I will have a chance to try the real Hanoi’s Bun Cha. But hey, I’m in Singapore now so what is the chance of finding a Bun Cha (any version is okay!)? Quite big chance actually. There are a lot of Vietnamese here, so I’m sure there is a decent Vietnamese restaurant around (not those chain restaurants). And here it is, I found Uncle Ho Tuckshop! I don’t remember how did I find this place, but that doesn’t matter 😀

Uncle ho Tuckshop front door — Uncle Ho Tuckshop front door

Uncle Ho Tuckshop review — Uncle Ho Tuckshop interior

I decided to try this place out. The place is pretty easy to find. They have a big signage, you won’t miss it. The interior is simple. There are some Vietnam-themed decorations at one corner. You can sit in that area to feel the ambience. Other parts of the room are just like a normal restaurant. Or.. more like a canteen, with their big tables.

Looking at the menu, it seems authentic. And of course, my eyes are only looking at Bun Cha ❤ I didn’t really read other dishes. Just go straight to Bun Cha! 😀 I ordered at the cashier, paid them and waited for the food. Once it’s ready, they will call us out and we need to collect them.

I was so excited with my bowl of grilled pork and the vermicelli! Without delay (after taking photos), I dig in to try. It was sooo yummy! I’m happy with the meal. Grilled porks looks awesome. There are also pork belly. And, the soup contains young papayas as well. Authentic!

Do you know how to eat Bun Cha? A friend taught me like this : Take vermicelli, dip it in the soup, put it on top of lettuce, add in meat and other leaves, make a roll then enjoy! But since we’re not in Vietnam and they didn’t give many lettuces nor small bowl, this is what I did : Take the vermicelli with chopsticks, dunk them into the broth then enjoy it~ Eat it with the meat and vegetable as well. Yum! The soup can be too salty for some. If so, just dip the vermicelli a little so it won’t soak too much of the broth.

I would recommend this place to anyone who’s looking for great bun Cha. The only downside of this place is the location. It’s very far from the place I live and there is no nearby bus stop, so need to walk a bit. Unless you go there by taxi/grab.

Have you tried this place as well? Or do you have any recommendation of Vietnamese restaurant to try? Let me know in comment below.

Thanks for reading 🙂

Gyu-Shige – Japanese BBQ Restaurant

March 19, 2017March 19, 2017 MelsLeave a comment

If you like meat, especially grilled meat, and you are happened to be in Saigon Center Shopping Mall, you should try Gyu-Shige. We tried it out of curiousity when we were there. The place is crowded but we were only need to wait for 5 minutes and they got us a table.

I like how they have vast option of beer and other drinks. I was surprised they have Asahi beer as well. But since it was imported, the price is high for a beer! I ordered Sapporo instead.

Their option of meats are not that many, but it is enough for us. We ordered the usual dish we ate on Japanese or Korean BBQ restaurant. It’s kind of he standard for us to compare the quality of the meat and also the taste. Can you guess which are they? Yes! They are Karubi (Beef Ribs) and Samgyeopsal (Pork Belly). We always ordered this especially on new restaurant that we haven’t tried before.

My husband ordered a salad as well, because he didn’t order steamed rice. We never thought that the portion was quite big! And it was also a fresh salad.

Compare to Korean BBQ, Japanese BBQ didn’t have many side dish comes with the main course. This plate of vegetables and a plate of kimchi were the only thing for our side dish. We used lettuce a lot, to eat with the meat. Make a wrap and put the red sauce inside. And I must say, this red sauce is the best I’ve tried. It was really yummy. I couldn’t stop eating it.

The karubi was also good quality. It was juicy and no weird ‘beef’ smell. It tasted delicious as well. I like to grill it medium, so it would still juicy. Yum!

The other menu was Pork Belly. This was the first time I grilled pork belly by myself. Usually we had the servant to do it, or it came in small pieces. This one is more korean style. So I had to grilled it to half-cook then I cut them with scissors to smaller piece and grilled until well cooked. I LOVE their pork belly. It was not dry and it was marinated really well. Very recommended to order this.

Overall we were happy eating in Gyu Shige. The price also affordable for a restaurant inside a shopping mall, and comparable as well. The only thing that they should improve would be the grill. They let us use the same grill for beef and pork. It should have used different type of grill for different kind of meat. Pork has fat that easily burned on grill, and it also can cause the fire to raised up to the grill if we used the grill for beef.

Thanks for reading. Ciao!

Address : L5-16 Saigon Centre, 65 Le Loi street, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Food · Ho Chi Minh City · Vietnam

Mam Bac – Vietnamese Restaurant

August 30, 2016August 30, 2016 MelsLeave a comment

The other day I went to Bitexco Financial Tower to meet up with my husband, then we planned to have dinner. He brought me to a Vietnamese Restaurant near by. It is called Mam Bac. Located at 94 Ho Tung Mau street, very close from Bitexco.

He said the bun cha here is good, so we ordered one. Another dish we ordered was com tam suon nuong opla (broken rice with grilled ribs and fried egg). For the drink I ordered kumquat juice.

And he was right! Everything we ordered was delicious. The price also reasonable as well for prime location. Definitely a good choice to have lunch or dinner if you are in the area.

Food · Ho Chi Minh City · Vietnam

Ganh – Vietnamese Restaurant

July 26, 2016July 26, 2016 MelsLeave a comment

There are a lot of Vietnamese Restaurants in District 1 Ho Chi Minh City. From a very local place with cheap price to a fancy restaurant. Ganh is one of the medium level I think. It is located in 91 Hai Ba Trung, near the city center. Good location indeed. It is a Nha Trang food restaurant. So if you want to try the food from central Vietnam, you don’t need to go there (unless you have time to travel there of course). It’s not as good as the authentic food from Nha Trang but it’s already yummy enough!

I’ve been here one time and I love their Nem Nuong. It came with various items on a big bamboo plate (?) To eat this, you need to make a roll with lettuce leaf. Spread the lettuce and put the grilled pork, leaves, cucumber, mango, carrot, and crispy rice paper on top of it, then wrap it all together. Dip it in the sauce and enjoy! Very delicious~

Nem Nuong

This time we also ordered another dish (sorry I forgot the name! >.<) It consists of spring rolls (cha gio), rice noodle (the white thing on the center. I know.. it doesn’t look like noodle) and some veggies. This dish also yummy. You should try the rice noodle. It’s unique and it is delicious!

Last dish we ordered was disappointing. Oyster omelette. My husband couldn’t ate it because it was too fishy. Even me who like fishy food also couldn’t ate it. Another thing was this omelette so bland, no taste. Just fishy from egg and oyster. They came with soy sauce, but it couldn’t be helped. Tasted really bad. We didn’t finish this one.

Have you tried the food from central Vietnam? How do you find the food? Do you like it? Tell me in comment!

Ciao!

Food · Ho Chi Minh City · Snacks · Vietnam

Banh Mi Huynh Hoa – for meat lover!

January 25, 2016 MelsLeave a comment

Banh Mi is one of thing I would miss from Vietnam when I left. I like this bread very much, and especially they filled it with meat and vegetables inside. Banh Mi is a Vietnamese Sandwich. The bread looks like French Baguette but they are not the same. I like banh mi better than baguette, because of the crunchiness of the skin and the softness inside. If you are visiting Vietnam then banh mi is one of the food you have to try.

There are many banh mi sellers in Ho Chi Minh City. You can find it almost everywhere, on the side of the street or even in fancy restaurant where the price is very high of course. Last week I had visitor and they wanted to try banh mi. I brought them to Banh Mi Huynh Hoa in district 1. It is located at 26 Lê Thị Riêng street. We were just finished visiting the museum and we were hungry at that time, around 3.30 pm. I saw on google that this banh mi opened at 2.30 pm. Good chance to try it!

When we arrived there, there were several people in queue. But don’t give up by the sight! They were very fast in preparing and serving the banh mi. A guy asked me in Vietnamese how many banh mi I want to buy. I said two. Their price is higher than other banh mi seller. Usually the price ranges from 10.000 vnd to 17.000 vnd, but this one costs 32.000 vnd. I saw many kind of meat in their cart.

They don’t have space to dine-in. You have to take it elsewhere to eat it. In our case, we went back to our apartment. Once at home, I took a plate and a knife, cut the banh mi to several pieces because we would like to share. And of course didn’t forget to take picture 😀

I must say this is the best banh mi I’ve ever eaten in Saigon. It had a lot of meat, perfect seasoning, good amount of vegetables as well. Just perfect! I will buy this again (and of course will recommend it to my friends).

Most of the meat (or even all of the meat!) are pork meat. My husband didn’t like it though, because it had liver pate too inside. He doesn’t like pate, and inside the banh mi there was quite a lot of pate for his taste. That’s too bad 😦

Anyway… this banh mi is a must-try. The price is worth it for that much meat filling. They are open from 2.30 pm til 11.00 pm. Will go there again next time.

Tag: cuisine

Uncle Ho Tuckshop – Authentic Hanoi Cuisine

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