Sunday, 7 September 2014

Com Ga Dong Nguyen / Dong Nguyen Chicken Rice Restaurant- Ho Chi Minh City - South Vietnam, Vietnam.

Com Ga Dong Nguyen / Dong Nguyen Chicken Rice Restaurant

Food is relatively cheap in Vietnam. Most main meals are priced between VND 20,000  - VND 60,000 in a standard restaurant which is about $1 to $3 AUD, but prices can go way beyond this range if you are keen on going to more fancier restaurants. A bargain in comparison to what you would pay in Australia but the portion sizes are much smaller than what we would get here. You may need to have two or three servings to get full if you have a bigger appetite.

On the day we flew into South Vietnam from Singapore, it was already late into the day, so by the time we got into the City and checked into our hotel it was dinner time.

Our first dinner was at 'Com Ga Dong Nguyen'. It's a famous restaurant having been established since 1945. From its name, 'Com Ga' in Vietnamese means chicken rice . Back 12 years ago when we first had chicken rice in Vietnam it was absolutely delicious. 12 years later we wanted to see whether it tasted as good as it did back then. Though my re-collections of what I ate were rather faint, as I was only in primary school back then and wasn't exposed much to the good food.

The restaurant is popular with the locals even though the prices are a bit towards the steeper end. In addition to the chicken dishes, they also serve a variety of other dishes such as pork chop, BBQ pork, roast pork and a variety of soups.


The restaurant interior is minimal and casual. The wait staff are dressed nicely in a  uniform and orders are taken promptly once you are seated.



Each table has a menu and it's all in Vietnamese. Not sure if there's an English menu but I'm assuming there is one as it's located in central Saigon with a lot of tourists around. Food arrives at the table very quickly after ordering.



'Com Ga Dong Nguyen - Chicken Rice (VND 50,000)' is what we're here for. The chicken used is free range chicken as the Vietnamese prefer chicken meat with more of a bite. Unfortunately, we forgot to request for the drumstick part of the chicken and ended up with dry and bland meat. The bones are left intact so do be careful when eating as there are small bones. They use broken rice instead of the normal Jasmine rice which has a much drier texture. It would have been better if they served a side soup as other restaurants would with chicken rice.


The mandatory chilli sauce is placed on the table and self-serve. It contained a mix of chilli, ginger and garlic. Similar to a run down version of the sweet chilli sauce. It was sweet and not very spicy but went well with the chicken rice.


'Canh Cu Sen - Lotus Root Soup (VND 50,000)' was refreshing and cooked well. It had the right balance of flavours. Though, it didn't go very well with the chicken rice. The chicken soup would have otherwise been the perfect accompaniment. Soup is good for the body as it is loaded with minerals and nutrients.


A fresh 'Coconut' to cool down in the heat.

If you're not too adventurous with your food then this eatery may be a good choice as the options on offer do not deviate to the norm. The food is decent but I wouldn't rate it as superb. It's in an easy to find location and the taxi would most likely know where it is.

Where?
801 Nguyễn Trãi Phường 14,
Quận 5,
Hồ Chí Minh, 
Vietnam

Phone no: +84 38592846

Opening Hours
NA

Website
NA

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