Eating by Taxi in Ho Chi Minh City

Since then, I’ve returned to Vietnam a half dozen times, and have continued to test my system: I flag down a taxi or a xe ôm, ask for the city’s best whatever, and see what happens. Often, especially in proper taxis, the drivers get really into it. They’ll hop on the radio with dispatch and excitedly debate the possibilities (usually in Vietnamese too sophisticated for me to understand). Then I’ll go where they take me, fielding the usual questions along the way: Where am I from? Am I married? How many kids? What’s my job? How much money do I make? All but the last are easy to answer.

And then they’ll deposit me somewhere I’d never been before. When I asked to eat bún thịt nướng, a cherished bowl of cold rice noodles with grilled pork, a driver took me to a fluorescent-lit restaurant off a major intersection—I’d passed it by who knows how many times. And the dish really was the best I’d had: moist, supple noodles; freshly cooked pork with crushed peanuts; lots of shredded lettuce, cucumbers, and pickled daikon; and, most important, copious amounts of the herbs that make southern Vietnamese cuisine so distinct—shiso-like tía tô, cilantro-esque rau răm, very sharp mint.

Not every interaction was inspired, of course. One rail-thin driver was dumbfounded by my request, and seemed not to know anywhere to eat in Saigon at all. Once, I asked a driver to take me to the best bánh xèo, a rice-flour crêpe filled with pork, shrimp, and bean sprouts. I thought he’d lead me to a place I’d been once before, a rowdy, famous courtyard where they make nothing but bánh xèo, but even though I described it carefully (“Everybody knows it!”), he took me elsewhere, to a far-flung row of gas-fired iron skillets where turmeric-yellow crêpes bubbled ferociously. They were good enough, I suppose, but not great—just like my Vietnamese language skills.

The most challenging request I ever made was also the most rewarding. “I want to eat the best phở in the city,” I told the driver, a man in his late 20s just starting to put on weight. “Do you know where to go?” Normally, this might not seem like a challenge: phở, an aromatic beef noodle soup, is considered Vietnam’s national dish, and is eaten almost every day. But phở is also primarily a breakfast food, and it was now mid-afternoon. Still, the driver was psyched—a foreigner wants to eat the best phở in the city! As we drove southwest, towards Saigon’s Chinatown, he explained how tricky this was. If only it were morning, he said, we could go to District 10—near where he lived, of course—that absolutely had the best phở in town. Alas, traffic was bad, and they were probably closed. But still— phở!—he ate it every day, he was happy I liked it, and he’d bring me somewhere good anyway.

Whether because his diction was simple or because his enthusiasm spoke louder than words, I could actually understand everything he was saying, and I was inspired to attempt a bit of eloquence. “He who likes phở,” I said in grandiose tones, “is my friend!” (It sounds better in Vietnamese.) He laughed—he understood!—and then we arrived at Pho Le, another restaurant I’d always ignored. I invited him to join me for a bowl, but no, he had to work. And anyway, it was long past breakfast.

And so I ate my phở —a marvelous beefy broth, sweet with onions and hints of anise and clove—and wished I’d gotten the driver’s business card. Morning was a mere 15 hours away, and I’d surely be hungry again, for the best breakfast in the city, wherever that might be.