6AM Vietnamese Alley Breakfast Noodles & Hidden STREET FOOD Tour in Saigon Vietnam

Good morning, Vietnam. It's about six in the morning. Look how busy that restaurant is. Let's find the nearest noodle stall that's open. Pork noodles. Oh, these pork noodles look good. You know what they say here in Asia, best foods are in alleys. Okay, probably no one said that, but I think it's true. Probably true. I thought it'd be less sticky at six o'clock in the morning. It is not. So this is a very common breakfast noodle here in Vietnam called bôn bò. And it's typically a rice noodle soup made with pork and shiitake mushroom. And I see this dish all the time in Vietnam. This looks awesome, by the way. Thick rice noodles, thin slices of meat, some onions, some herbs. Of course, you get your tray of more herbs. Basil, banana flowers, sprouts. Squeeze a lime. You know what they say, eat noodles in the alley, you're gonna be happy. Well, that's what I say. Very porky broth. You can taste the fish sauce here, but add more chilies. Definitely more citrus to brighten it up. This is what I want to eat at six o'clock in the morning. Oh man, that's the stuff. Chewy noodles. Some of the tastiest soup you'll find in Asia. Sitting and semi-squatting on a little kids table. This is how you experience Asia. The soup, the noodles, everything. 10 out of 10. Oh my gosh, it's so good. I don't even care that it's so spicy. It's heating me up on the inside. If this is not a short bowl of happiness, I really don't know what is. The great thing about this, wherever you are, this hotel, walk outside, half a block away, you find noodles like this. There's just tasty stuff everywhere. All for about one US dollar. Yeah, seriously, if you're in Vietnam, find yourself an alley that serves noodles, not just like a random alley. The hotel I'm staying at, the buffet is included for breakfast. I thought I'd just check it out and see if it's good or not. It looks incredible. So there's sushi for breakfast, Japanese sushi, fried rice, noodles, omelet bar, of course, bunch of stir-fry dishes. There's dim sum. There's a bami station. They literally make you a fresh bami. How cool is that? Oh, there's a noodle station too. So they make you pho in the morning. That's cool too. This is awesome. Like freshly made bami and pho. And there's an Indian food station as well. So there's fresh paratha in the morning too. Breakfast noodle number two. You know what, obviously not as good as alley noodle, but hotel pho in Vietnam, it's legit. They made this. Like this is not powder. This tastes like real pho from a real pho restaurant. It's delicious. Freshly made bami. Nice and toasty too. They put a whole little toaster oven there just for the bami. It's good. Again, it doesn't compare to what you get on the streets, but man for a hotel buffet, that's pretty ridiculous. I'm really glad I stopped by to check this buffet out. It's a pretty nice buffet. Samosa is not great. Stick with the fun bami. Also, fresh coconut juice. Like I haven't been in this country that long, but I know everybody's kind of flooding to Thailand right now. I feel like Vietnam might be better. And the main reason is it's so much more affordable. I mean the food is about the same, right? Prices for a bowl of noodles. But I think living in Thailand, getting a house, everything is pretty expensive. But here I think it's still pretty affordable. Hotel prices is dramatically cheaper in Vietnam than in Thailand. Food is amazing. The people are nice. I don't know. I think maybe Saigon over Bangkok. Even the noodles in this bowl of pho, you could tell this is like freshly made rice noodles. I mean, I'm sure they didn't make it at the hotel, but this is freshly made rice noodles. This is not packaged stuff. I mean, it probably came in a package, but you know what I mean. It's fresh. They also have steamed rice noodles and spring rolls. And I got a salted egg and fried rice. That's just personal preference, by the way. Steamed rice rolls. Awesome. That's what I'm talking about. Breakfast buffets in Asia. It's a whole different thing. A little spring roll. I've said this before, but if you've never tried salted eggs before, get some salted egg, put it into your fried rice, or put it into your regular rice. This was like a meal of mine. White rice and salted eggs. That's it. It's so good. This is a really good breakfast buffet. So today I'm leaving Saigon to go to Nha Trang, another very big city. And it's on the coast, so a lot of good seafood will be had there. But that's not until later today. So I'll see you at lunch. And lunch is gonna be a super popular Hanoi street food, Bun Cha. And this place is supposed to be one of the best places to do it. It is absolutely packed in here. This is lunchtime right now. So all the local office workers are here eating this dish. My food is here. There's a bowl of really hot broth that smells like fish sauce. There's garlic and chilies here. What I'm seeing people do is toss the garlic and chilies in and they're putting the herbs directly in here. Oh, so my coffee is ready. So what I see people are doing is that I'm gonna put a little too much herbs in my soup. You take some of the rice noodles, some of the pork, dunk it into the broth, grab some of the herbs on the way up. Excuse me, I am a noob at this. And then sip the broth for some additional flavor. That is so nice. Each bite is both smoky, fatty, and refreshing. So obviously this broth, there's fish sauce in here, but of course it's not concentrated. It's much much lighter. A little vinegary as well. And of course so much umami. It goes perfectly with a smoky, fatty pork. My god, fatness. Seriously, every bite, you taste so much of that nice smokiness from the pork. And that is balanced out beautifully by the refreshing herbs. It's my first time having this. There's slices of grilled pork. You can see the grill marks on the meat. The pork shoulder is incredible. Like I said, fatty, smoky, perfectly grilled, nice and juicy. Every time you chew, it's just releasing so much sweet, savory, fatty, umami. And mixing in with the umami from the broth as well. Let's try this. Try the pork patty. Incredible. The patty is way more tender than the pork. Look how juicy this thing is. All that juice is sealed into this patty. So delicate and juicy. Can't believe I've never had this before. It's so so good. The herbs go so well in this dish. Like every bite is just both comforting and refreshing at the same time. And then also spring roll. What you could do also is wrap the spring roll in the veg and dip it into the sauce too. This has got to be one of my favorite Vietnamese dishes ever. That spring roll is 10 out of 10 crispy. Inside there's pork that tastes like mushrooms. Just that melody of flavors. It's so good on its own already. And then you add the umami from the broth. I know what's so good about this. It's all about balance. I mean this dish eats like a symphony. There's so many different elements. It all comes together so harmoniously. So deliciously. With a fatty pork and that broth is so good. Just pure liquid umami. After eating everything you don't even feel full. One of the best things I've had in this country. It's starting to rain now. There's another restaurant I wanted to go to right next to this one. Yeah, it's a duck place. So apparently this is also a Hanoi specialty. I really gotta go to Hanoi. Lots of different ways duck is prepared. So I've got a couple different dishes. This is soft rice paper wrapped either duck or beef. I guess we'll see in a bit, but I'm waiting for the other dish to come out. I think I should eat it together. The other dish is supposed to be incredible. Wow. Thank you. This might be one of the best smelling dishes to ever appear in front of me. Oh my gosh, smells so good. The aroma is so strong. Kid you not. Made my eyes water. Not just my mouth. My eyes were watering. I think this is fried duck with tons and I mean a ton of crispy garlic on top. So this looks like a whole section of duck. There's the wing. I see some pieces with nice amounts of skin and fat and on the side they give you a bowl for all your sauces. So there's vinegar, there's chilies, there's fresh basil. I love the herbs in this country. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just adding some soy sauce, some calamansi, some basil, some chilies. I mean it's pretty much however you want to eat your duck. Let me try this, this rice wrap first. That's so good. This is beef and this is delicious. Eat it with some fresh basil. I think it's gonna pair really well with my fried duck. This is awesome. Can you see? Delicious fatty pieces of duck. It goes so well with these rice rolls. This is such a great pairing. You gotta just kind of get hands-on with this. That's why there's so much napkins nearby. Duck dunked in a little soy sauce with basil and chilies. I feel like it's really no bad way to eat this. Try this with some hot sauce. I think I like soy sauce the best. This is such a winner though. So the duck meat, some pieces are more lean, some pieces are more fatty. You get a bunch of different textures in here. That was a really fatty piece. The rice rolls paired with some fresh basil. Unbelievable. I'm so sad Hanoi is not on my itinerary this time. Apparently so much good food comes from that city. Oh, man, they really give you all parts of the duck. Here's some of that duck neck. This is gonna be one of the most flavorful pieces. It's all skin and meats attached to the bone. This one, it's amazing with some hot sauce. You can also gnaw on the duck wing. It's just all skin. All skin, all flavor. Yeah, I would highly recommend getting these two dishes. And if you do come here by yourself like me, don't be intimidated. Even though this is like a two-person portion, it tastes so good. You'll be glad you got both. All right, actually I have to hurry up and get back and pack for my flight. See you in a bit. Just got to Nha Trang and if you are coming here, one thing I just learned is, and I didn't really look this up when I should have, there's no Grab. Grab can't come into this airport. So if you're going somewhere, you gotta book a ride and all the hotels are about an hour away. I'm in a shuttle bus. I'll let you know how much this cost afterwards. So many seafood restaurants, which makes sense because it's right by the coast, but wow, so many seafood restaurants. This is like Monday night masquerading as a Saturday night. Whoa, I just saw something I've never seen before in terms of street food. I've never seen this. We passed it already. I'm gonna have to show you. Once I check into the hotel, we'll go grab some dinner. I bet you there's more stalls like that, like the one I just saw. Wow, super nice room. Oh, can't see it, but that's the water right there. So fruits and rice cakes. Wow, this is such a nice room. Got a balcony too. Whoa, sweet. Wow, that's beautiful. A little closet. Oh my gosh. This is a ginormous shower and bathtub. All right, I gotta head out because as as nightlife-y as the city looked on the way in, it's actually not at all. All the restaurants closes at like nine or ten o'clock. The latest one closes at eleven. It's already about ten o'clock. So if I want dinner, I gotta leave right now. Let's go. This can be deceiving, right? I mean just looking at the festivities outside, you think everybody out eating and walking around till two, three, four, five in the morning. There are only a few restaurants that are open till eleven. We're going to one of them right now. And the reception person at the hotel told me that this is actually more of a morning city. So people get up really early in the morning. I thought it was like the second coming of Vegas. I see smoke. Let's see what they're cooking. Oh, smells good. Whatever that is. Ah, skewers. Smells good. I smell that cumin from halfway down the block. Wow. This area looks like it's still hopping. There's stalls selling food and merchandise. Well, mainly merchandise, a little bit of food and a ton of fruit stalls. They slice the fruit right there for you. They can either make it into a smoothie or they chop it up. I see some of the seafood restaurants I've been passing by. Their tanks are getting a little empty. So I think what they're doing is just they're selling really just the catch of the day. Whatever they're bringing in fresh in the morning. Oh my gosh. There it is. There's the food stall I saw. Have you ever seen a food stall like this? Look at how big these lobsters are. Ginormous spiny lobsters. All the lobsters are just being roasted over charcoal. That's incredible. That was awesome. She grills the lobster, cooks up the scallions, onions, adds chili sauce to the lobster as well, puts it on the lobster. That looks amazing. I have to get to this restaurant before it closes, but tomorrow I found out what time she opens. So I'm grabbing one of those tomorrow. This looks so good. There it is. JJ Seafood. Oh my gosh, look at all these tanks of seafood. See what I'm talking about? Most of these are empty right now. Most of these are pretty empty looking. I mean, I'll take what I can get. Yeah, look at this. Completely empty. Wow. All right, nothing left. So they're out of pretty much everything. I got some clams. I got one lobster. I just want to try their lobster. I got one lobster. This is going to be a small lobster. There's my fan clam that he's fishing out of the tank right now. I can choose the lobster. Okay. Well, I mean they all look kind of small. What's the biggest one? So this is uh, oh half a kilo? Okay, so a little over a pound. Nice. Do you fill these tanks up tomorrow? About 5 p.m. Oh, so these are the big size lobsters. Yeah. It's too late. I know. I know. I wanted to come earlier. I did. I should have just got the grilled lobster from the lady over there. But I did in this because it's kind of late now. The lobster's been sitting on the charcoal for a while. I think it might be dry. I don't know. I don't want to risk it. Tomorrow's gonna be the main seafood feast. Today, just a seafood preview. This might be the seafood heaven of Vietnam. I don't know. You see? They are right on the water. All I see are seafood restaurants like this. All I see. There's so many. All right, morning glory is here. The fan clam is here. Okay, so this thing is cooked in some scallions and nuts and look at chicharron too. Oh, the clam is good. That is a fresh snappy clam. They really don't season it too much. I think they give you dipping sauce if you want to season it more. But clams and stuff like that, you really don't need too much seasoning. This fried rice looks bomb. There's shrimp, squid. Oh, that squid is so tender. Wow. This fried rice is good. Seafood fried rice. Normally, I wouldn't get that but it's a very limited menu right now. This might be the cheesiest lobster I've ever seen. Wow, nice. Nice, thank you. Thank you. That's pretty good lobster. It's hard not to be good when it's this fresh. Cheese sauce, a little sweet, really creamy. This is kind of a weird cheese concoction. I think maybe it's like a mix of mayonnaise and cheese. Yeah. It's good. It's really nice. This lobster actually gives you a lot of meat. Yeah, you really got to get all the meat out of the lobster. Don't forget the head. And the antenna right here. A lot of good meat in there. Real squid. Delicious. You definitely taste all that smoke from the charcoal. Slight bitterness too. One thing you gotta watch out for though, just remove this. I'm like a squid expert at this point. I catch this stuff. Remove it and the rest of the squid is good to eat. I mean you can remove the beak too. The beak is like right here. Don't have to. You can eat the whole thing. Pop it in your mouth. Yeah, here in Vietnam, they just grill the whole squid for you. Back in the US, this is cleaned a lot. But you know what they say, the less you clean, the more the umami. At least when it comes to squid. That's probably not true for the fish. But tomorrow I'm gonna stay here. Real seafood feast. I'm gonna really dive into the seafood here tomorrow because I think that and noodles. They're also known for noodles. I feel like everywhere in Vietnam, there's gonna be a specialty local noodle. Anyway, all the places I went to today is listed down below for you guys. Thank you all so much for watching. Until we eat again.