Luke Nguyen's Vietnam Food Tour: Day 9, Farewell Dinner
There were a lot of high points on the food tour. Memorable eating, fun fellow travelers, our amazing guide Binh, and Luke’s incredible passion for Vietnamese food, culture, and the people who make the country so special.
But the farewell dinner at Vietnam House may have topped them all.
Luke opened Vietnam House in 2017, and it’s been a hit ever since. The elegant restaurant is unlike any venue we’ve ever been to.
The three-story refurbished colonial French building originally housed the Café L’Imperial in the 1900s. At the corner of Đồng Khởi and Mạc Thị Bưởi streets, the pale-yellow exterior with light-green shutters stands out among the newly built high-rise shopping malls.
But refurbished is an understatement. Inside, the attention to detail is everywhere. It has a nostalgic art deco interior with vibrant blue colors, wood paneling, marble flooring, columns, and mosaic glass dividers evoking the historic charm of another era.
We walked up the elegant staircase (you can take the classic French-inspired elevator if you want) to a private dining room. We felt pretty special, particularly when someone said that there was a prime minister or someone important in the private room next door.
In any case, everybody was buzzing with anticipation. We knew this was going to be great.
We’ve been to the restaurant before, and can tell you this is not a fussy, foamy Michelin-style restaurant. Instead, it’s classic Vietnamese food that’s been taken to the next level. This is truly contemporary Vietnamese cuisine, with traditional dishes from the North and the South, fresh local ingredients, and modern culinary influences.
We got off to an amazing start with a three-part appetizer: char-grilled Iberico pork on angel hair noodles with pineapple sauce. Plus fried tiger shrimp spring rolls and a salmon salad with sprouts, centella, taro, and garlic fish sauce.
A delicious chicken soup with vegetables and caterpillar fungus followed.
And the main course was baked river shrimp with corn, asparagus, and mashed black garlic with a salted egg sauce. Followed by grilled wagyu beef with betel leaf, long pepper sauce, zucchini buds, and mashed potato.
Of course, nobody could resist the opera cake with berries to finish.
What a way to finish an extraordinary food tour through Vietnam.
I have to mention that Sue and I are not tour people. We are too unruly, and we like to wander around on our own rather than follow a schedule. But this was a rare treat to have such a good group, Binh as our guide, and Luke taking us to places and providing experiences we would never have discovered on our own.