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Eating Chinatown
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With the sunrise, Cho Binh Tay, the great market in Ho Chi Minh City’s Chinese quarter is summoned to life once more, swelling with its crowds as it breathes them through its central gates, sending them circulating off again into the frenetic pathways of Chinatown.

One of the largest wholesale trading venues in southern Vietnam, Binh Tay is the icon of the prosperous old Chinese districts. As one of the city’s best examples of Franco-Chinese architecture that remain, it’s also a symbol of the willingness of the ethnic Chinese to blend in wherever they may be.

Centuries into the Chinese presence in this region, elements of the old culture remains; while the emerging generations speak Vietnamese far more fluently than the Sinitic languages of their grandparents, the Hoa people of Cholon still identify themselves as a distinct community with their own customs and practices — and their own cuisine.

They’re not always forthcoming about these points of difference, however — visitors to Cholon expecting to find the streets packed with Chinese restaurants are often disappointed, as genuine Hoa dining tends to take place in the shadows of Cholon’s labyrinthine back alleys. The countless traditions of Chinese cooking, comprising one of the world’s most tempting cuisines, remain somewhat hidden away.

Dim Sum Yum

While the early risers at the market are starting up another day’s trading, other Hoa nearby with a slightly more leisurely schedule are preparing for the family breakfast. As the descendants of southern Chinese people, traditional dim sum is an important heritage cuisine, and it can still be found in Cholon if you know where to look: one local favourite is Tien Phat (18 Ky Hoa, Q5), in the back streets across from Parkson at Huong Vuong Plaza.

Tien Phat’s prominent, bright red signage advertises its speciality — genuine Hong Kong-style breakfasts with their colourful assortments of morsel-sized delicacies. Inside, small groups of diners clack their chopsticks at steaming wicker baskets of dumplings and rice rolls (VND21,000), stuffed crab’s claws (VND35,000) and spicy chicken’s feet (VND30,000), slurping up doll-sized cups of hot green tea (VND35,000/pot). If they’re indulging, they’ll order egg buns (VND38,000) — steamed rolls oozing with an addictive sweet Chinese custard.

The restaurant’s noodle breakfasts are a compromise to Vietnamese tastes, but feature classic Chinese elements such as wonton (VND29,000/VND34,000), braised trotters (VND29,000) and fish balls (VND27,000). The Hoa aren’t here for those, however — they’ll choose the Steamed Pork Chinese Cabbage Buns (VND30,000), which are really Shanghai xiaolongbao (“little dragon” dumplings) filled with spoonfuls of thick meaty broth and sealed off at the top with a twist of the dough. One bite and the warm soup cascades pleasantly over the tongue.

Those looking for a more ceremonious dim sum might be tempted to visit the dusty and largely vacant Thuan Kieu Plaza over on the other side of Parkson. Hai San (1st floor, Thuan Kieu Plaza, 190 Dai Lo Hong Bang, Q5) looks its age at 12 years old — but over the years it has acquired a reputation for serving fine Cantonese breakfasts, as well as for its dinner menus that feature impressive seafood dishes from various Chinese provinces.

Hai San serves classic dim sum, with most baskets and plates priced evenly at VND38,000 each. Large Chinese families dining together keep the waiters busy — they can sometimes be difficult to summon — but this is all part of the atmosphere; the cheerful boisterousness, the ever-present steam and smell of traditional Chinese ingredients, and the thudding reverberations of karaoke performers who leap up to the stage to deliver old-style Chinese ballads. With all this theatre, this is a meal to be taken slow — the restaurant serves dim sum through to 2pm — so there’s plenty of time.

The deep-fried dim sum are Hai San’s best — hunks of crispy-shelled taro in salty and sweet varieties, and shrimp dumplings similar to the deep-fried wontons of Western Chinese fast food. On Sundays, the steamed barbeque pork pie (VND20,000), a flaky pastry sandwich, is worth making the trip for. For a surprise treat at the end of it all, the pan-fried bread (VND20,000) is a crispy sphere studded with sesame seeds and filled with a divine sweet lotus paste.

Eat Drink Man Woman

By early evening, Seven Wonders (7 Ky Quan, So 12 Duong 26, Q6) out behind the District 6 Metro is gearing up for its own symphony of Chinese delicacies. This is one of Cholon’s most curious restaurant designs, representing the Parthenon, the Taj Mahal and the Pyramids as well as other World Heritage sites. Those of the old Motherland prefer to sit on the restaurant’s terrace, nicely styled after the Great Wall of China.

Dishes from the architect/owner’s ancestral home of Chaozhou are among the most authentic on the menu, including some fine braised dishes — the braised bacon (VND140,000/VND280,000/VND420,000) is chunky and tender, while the braised sea cucumber with Chinese mushrooms (VND280,000/VND520,000/VND780,000) is believed to be a traditional aphrodisiac. Fried spring rolls Trieu Chau style (VND140,000/VND280,000/VND420,000) are an interesting Chinese analogue of the Vietnamese national dish.

The crowning item on the menu is the Beijing roast duck (VND460,000). Crisp and fragrant, this centuries-old imperial recipe uses the whole bird, carved in a surgical manner and divided into distinct courses. Soup and crunchy slices of roasted meat accompany the main course — brittle layers of duck skin that diners fold into pancakes with short stems of spring onion.

Another Cholon dinner restaurant prized for its Chinese culinary rarities is one of the hardest to find. Gia Phu (513/28-30 Duong Gia Phu, Q6), secreted away at the end of an unassuming hem beside the tiny To Cong Temple, is run by 29-year-old master chef A-Sheng, a genius in the Fujian style and one of the best-regarded chefs in the area.

Gia Phu’s entire menu is a poetry of Fujian’s finest recipes, but the dishes that regularly reel in the local Chinese are its signature preparations of shark fin soup — in particular, “Buddha Leaps the Wall”. Named here Phat Nhay Tuong (1.2/4.8m), the dish recalls a 1,300-year-old folk tale in which a Tang Dynasty monk was so tempted by the soup’s smell that he leapt over the wall between the temple and the diner, abandoning his vegetarianism. It’s a deeply aromatic soup with a number of rare ingredients, the scallops in particular giving the dish an uncommon richness.

Less expensive Fujianese delicacies are also listed on the menu’s front page — bo bia Phuc Kien is a spring roll with a pancake shell rather than a rice paper wrapping, and is eaten without dipping sauce — a steal at only VND12,000 each.

Getting Your Just Desserts

Like the rest of Ho Chi Minh City, Cholon never sleeps. Cruising around the warm, darkened streets at night, many young Hoa stop at the Tran Hung Dao/Phung Hung roundabout to sit for a while at Tiem Che Lam Thanh (cnr Tran Hung Dao & Phung Hung, Q5), a Cantonese sweet soup stall. Their unusual drinks and desserts are derived from old medicinal formulas, foremost among them being qingbuliang, said to be a powerful detoxicant.

The late-night diners sit at their streetside metal tables clutching beer mugs that look like miniature aquariums with their assortments of plants swimming in clear, sweetened, ice-cold broth — lotus seeds and chunky lotus roots, seaweed, dates, dried longan, white fungus, soaked grains and slices of a herbal root similar to ginseng. Spooned into the mouth, the concoction is surprisingly mild; a thin syrup floating with pleasantly chewy hunks of sugary roots and seeds. Refreshed, the diners leap back onto their bikes and head out again past the great Chinese market, standing in wait of another dawn.
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