Le Tonkin @ Mohammed Sultan

Le Tonkin is a small restaurant along the Mohammed Sultan stretch, which serves elegant french vietnamese cuisine.


Our fried spring roll starter came in this impressive display. It was quite nice too. Not too oily, with a crispy crunchy skin and fresh filling of meat and veg.

I didnt have a good impression of this spring roll; but I can't remember why. I think it may be because it was full of vegetables, and was rather tasteless. The dip wasn't tangy enough so it didnt help.

My main of crab claws with glutinous rice. It was tasty. The sauce had a bit of vinegar in it so it helped to cut through the richness. The glutinous rice was not a mound of stuff, it was a delicate little cake. So classy.

All in all, the prices were not exorbitant, and it was quite a nice cosy place for a meal.

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Part 2

airport lounge food!

On the way back to Singapore, I ended up at the business lounge. There was an interesting array of food, and I chose the guo cuon (spring rolls), made with rice sheets. The one on top contained prawn, a spring of spring onion, rice vermicelli, and lots of bean sprouts and basil. It tasted... very green. Even the fish sauce couldn't spice it up enough for me. The other one contained grilled beef, which is much better, but was a little too chewy for my liking.

Ho Chih Minh City, Vietnam

I was in Ho Chi Minh City for a very short sojourn.



As almost all my meals were catered (and very good meals they were too!), I didn't have a chance to wander and try the street foods that my friend D (of Dancing Blue Seal) recommended.



I managed to take in some sights... visited Ben Thanh Market and bought some snacks home for the family (passionfruit at SGD1 per kg, and roasted lotus seeds at SGD1.80 per kg).










At the corner of Ben Thanh Market, my friends and I ended up having afternoon tea at Pho 2000, the beef pho place where Bill Clinton famously had a meal.



Pho bo dac biet (230,000 VND, roughly SGD2.30). The soft and smooth kway teow (sorry, pho) was slurpilicious. This pho bo contained beef slices, chewy tendon, brisket (beef with some fat and some hard muscly bits) and beef balls sliced in half. Much better than anything I've ever had in Singapore. The broth was so sweet and flavoursome, infused with beefy and herby aroma.

Cha Gio / Prawn Spring Rolls (roughly SGD2.80). 2 whole prawns in each roll, with some other things like vermicelli and vegetables. This was crispy and well-fried. I was too full to eat more than 1 piece though.

The can of coke we had was relatively more expensive, at SGD1.80 each.

So the 3 of us had a very decent meal for SGD4 each.

The Orange Lantern @ #01-98 HarbourFront Centre

I used to come here quite frequently before megamall Vivocity opened up and lured me over with its extensive array of shops and restaurants.

I was in the mood for a vietnamese pho dac biet (beef rice flat noodles soup with everything - tendon, beef balls and brisket) and as there isn't a vietnamese restaurant in Vivocity, I came over for a quick bite.

However, I was enticed by the grilled beef with rice vermicelli (SGD8.50) and decided to order this one instead.

It was a good choice.

The slices of beef were fragrant, slightly smoky-sweet and a little chewy. The rice vermicelli was somewhere in between thin bee hoon and laksa bee hoon, and went quite well with the tangy dressing and generous crushed peanuts that were provided. I created my own special dressing by adding lots of sliced chili padi to the dressing, so it was spicy and tart at the same time. Ooh, added oomph!

In this set, one has a choice between prawn paste on sugar cane (as above) or a fried spring roll. I chose this one as I like gnawing on the sugar cane, but the spring roll isn't too bad either.

Quite an enjoyable quick lunch.