Tien Giang.

If you plan to visit the Mekong Delta, make sure you include Hong Thuy restaurant in your schedule. The various dishes that they offer say something about the culinary history of Southern Vietnam.

Although a little strange to a foreign tastebud, their famous 'goi gia' (eating-with-chopsticks broth salad) is a must eat item. Probably, this dish is a variation from a more popular dish: 'goi' (salad). Goi itself has always been the very first item on any big meal menu whether it's a wedding, anniversry, etc.. Similar to its western counterpart, goi is a combination of minced vegetable either green papaya, cabbage, green mango, cucumber and minced pork, chicken, fish, sliced shrimp doused with a fish sauce mix that contains lime juice, garlic paste, vinegar, sugar, water, and garnished with fine chopped fresh herbs and crushed roasted peanuts. Goi gia is a portion of goi without the fish sauce mix put in a bowl of broth previousy cooked with tamarind paste that gives its dark color and the lightly sour taste. It is a bowl of soup, so goi gia is eaten just like any other soup dishes as the minced vegetable is substituted with soft rice noodle.

Another good dish to try is 'chao ca' (fish porridge). This is a pleaser and it should be fine with everybody. Chao ca is rice porridge added with chunks of cooked fish completed with a bit of soft rice noodle, bean sprout, hoisin sauce and sprinkled with crushed roasted peanuts. The local people eat this dish with bitter herb. I don't think it's a good idea for any stranger to go that far since that bitter herb might mess up the appetite.

The restaurant started long ago by a woman after she moved from a My Tho market place foodstand. She has seven daughters and all of them help her operating this place. Four of the girls got married, three now remain as the backbone of the crew that still has the help of the married sisters. Presently, the mother retires to the kitchen and let her daughters run the front area. Don't let their glacial attitude offends you. I guess it's just natural because they are all female against the world. Whatever they act like, they are honest and serve fine quality food for a very good price.

Some notes about My Tho, the gateway city to the Mekong Delta:

- The city is located 70 kilometers South West of Saigon at the big Mekong river. Somehow, this quiet city sets itself apart from others. It has a quasi 10 pm business curfew: no shopping, no eating out, etc.. The police here is known to be very strict. Virtually, there is no night life here, but in return, it's quite safe and the cost of living is very low.

- If you have read Neil Sheehan's book 'A Bright Shining Lie', which is a very good book and I strongly recommend, lieutenant colonel John Paul Vann was first assigned here back in 1962 as a military advisor when he planned the battle Ap Bac that went so wrong due to poor execution. Ap Bac is now the name of the street where Hong Thuy restaurant is located.

- Personally, My Tho brings me emotional memories. I was born and raised in Tan An, a city just 25 kilometers up north. When I was nine, my parents decided to put me in a boarder school here run by the Catholic Christian Brothers. I missed my family so much that I cried almost the whole night but after that, the world was my home. Many, many years later, during the Vietnam War, as a corporal in the South Vietnamese Army, I dated a woman first lieutenant, she was from My Tho.

Hong Thuy restaurant
10 Ap Bac Street
My Tho
Phone: (073) 870-462