Bánh Xèo 46A, why not?
Although we travel with a guidebook, it is often used to decide where not to eat, where to go to get away from the touristy hoards. So it is a bit of a shock that we searched out Bánh Xèo 46A for lunch yesterday. It is listed in the lonely planet, but has had tremendous reviews all over the internet. So why not?
Bánh Xèo is a crispy pancake filled with bean shoots, prawns and fatty slivers of flavourful pork (and in this case, weird mung beany things), and it is delicious. Crunchy, shot through with tasty treats, perfect with the dipping sauce spiked with a little chilli.
We wondered if there was some sort of fancy technique for eating these unweildy beasts with chopsticks, but picking the locals out of the crowd proved that everyone messed about with them a little, before wrapping them in some of the generous greenery, dipping and eating.
The spring rolls were delicious too, but the pancakes are the winner here, so much so that we ordered another, lingered, and watched the crowd.
This outdoor eatery is down a little alley off Hai Ba Trung, opposite a cavernous, empty competitor. It has an english menu and is frequented by tourists, so is easy to handle. Ignore the write up in the lonely planet, come here anyway.
46A Dinh Cong Trang Street
District 1, Ho Chi Minh City
(we had 2xsmall pancake, 1xcha gio, 2xwater = 118,000d / $9.50AU).
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