SAI GON BREAKFAST

Studying about Sai Gon cuisine will give a surprise, it’s right even said that Sai Gon doesn’t have its own cuisine but it’s a diversity cuisine place is right also. Introducing to you 2 humble dishes that are very special in Sai Gon people’s breakfast

 The first one is dimsum from Chinese, it’s “diem tam” in Vietnamese. This is not a dish but includes many light dishes. It can be divided into some types such as: dumpling, meat bun, wrapped cake, sweet cake, meat balls, steam chicken leg and porridge. It can also be divided through the way it’s cooked such as steam, bake, fry, and grill. The sweet dishes are egg tart, mango jelly…

 “Diem tam” is not a dish only but many dishes

At the beginning, people just use dimsum in the breakfast, but nowadays dimsum is served until noon and in suppers also.  

In HCM city, finding dimsum is quite easy because most of Chinese here is immigrant from Guangdong. Besides some Chinese tea stores, there are many Chinese restaurant such as Tan Hao Phong, Ngan Dinh, Dai Thong, Hoang Long with the price accounted to the quantity of dish.
Having a right dimsum, must be served in the steaming bamboo basket, the fragrant of the food activate the taste of dinners. 

Hot cakes are served in bamboo basket

The special part of eating dimsum is drinking tea, because dimsum is just a word to express a collection of dishes, and “yam cha”, drinking tea, is a right word for a meal including dimsum and tea. It’s a right style to have daisy tea or O Long tea.

The fish sauce to eat with “com tam” (rice) is quite sweet with a bit of garlic

Sai Gon people have “Com tam” even in breakfast, lunch or dinner, but the most popular is eating “Com tam” in breakfast. In other cities, like Ha Noi, it is rare to have rice in the breakfast. But “Com Tam” Sai Gon is different. People can eat “com tam” whenever and wherever, from the street vendor to luxury restaurant.

“Com tam” is made from broken rice. Long ago, this type of rice is just for poor people or throw away, but now becoming a very popular dish. Fish sauce to eat with “com tam” also decide the goodness of the dish and must be quite sweet with a bit of chili garlic.

There are many side dishes to have with “com tam”

The dishes accompanying “com tam” are a lot, but there are dishes that cannot be missed in any stores are grill pork rib, “bi” (pig skin) and omelette. The store is good or not depends on the fragrant BBQ meat and soft omlette. To have good smell, meat should be grill on charcoal with regular heat.

The gourmet in Sai Gon usually have this dish in Ba Ghien on Dang Van Ngu street, 500 on An Duong Vuong, or the street vendor on Nguyen Kiem street.


*Taro**