After almost 30 hours of travel via San Francisco and Hong Kong, we arrived at Hotel Majestic Saigon

After almost 30 hours of travel via San Francisco and Hong Kong, we arrived at Hotel Majestic Saigon around midnight.  Cracked a couple cheap car rentals in fort lauderdale of 333 beers, ordered Nasigoreng (shrimp and pork fried rice with a fried egg on top) to our room, and went directly to sleep.
Awoke to an ridiculously sugary and strong Vietnamese coffee and the promise of an adventurous day exploring the city.  We headed straight towards Ben Thang Market to pick up some essentials, shop, and most importantly, check the open air food market.  The market was hot, huge, and full of women butchering sides of beef, deconstructing pigs, cleaning weird seafood, and arranging gigantic piles of herbs and veggies.  Very cool.
Next up was our first lunch.  The map our hotel gave us was definitely not to scale.  Pretty sure we got heat exhaustion with a dash of carbon monoxide poisoning from dodging thousands of motorbikes on our gigantic hike to an out of the way, but highly touted cheap car rentals in fort lauderdale Bahn Xeo joint Bahn Xeo 46A.
By the by, Bahn Xeo is a big fried rice flour crepe filled with shrimp, pork, and bean sprouts.  It s served with a sweet/sour fish sauce, mustard leaves, lettuce, super hot chili paste (think scotch bonnet sambal), mint and thai basil.  You just break it apart and wrap it in lettuce.
We went back to the hotel, tired, full and sweaty and got massages.  They weren t the most relaxing ones in the world the little Asian gals came at us like Spider Monkeys twisting and hammering away at our knotted muscles.  Still a bit sore from that, but we needed it.
Next up dinner.    Nestled in the red light district is a 6 table French bistro called La Cuisine.  It featured an interesting mix of modern French/japanese seafood and very traditional French country fare.
Starters were Scallop Carpaccio cheap car rentals in fort lauderdale with olive oil, salt, lemon, lime and crumbled croutons and Tuna Tartare with Cornichon, Onion, Wasabi, and Cashews with Mint Yogurt Dressing and Balsamic Frisee.  Both were excellent.
Entrees were Filet Au Poivre with Potato Galette and Mushrooms and I had the Duck Confit with Fried Polenta and Green Olives.  Again, these were both very good.  A nice Bordeaux complimented everything very well.  We finished with a trio of Creme Brulee Pate aux Choux, Pistachio, and Frangelico.  That was off the charts good, and about 50% cheaper than a comparable meal in the States (or even France).
We were both pretty whipped at this point.  Caki battled some pretty severe jet lag but managed to make it back to the hotel and get a good 8 hours of sleep before heading to the beach.  Pretty sure I forgot what sleep was.  We ll be back in Saigon to wrap our trip, but for now, on to the beach!
Recent Comments Claris Mennen on Thank you, cockroach. Sandy Cook on chợ Đà Lạt ryan cook on The Beach to the Highlands Carolyn Kortge on The Beach to the Highlands Jonie Gravel on Asia, you beast! Archives