FoodieChat

My belly is looking a little preggers lately given our trip in Vietnam and today’s two buffets! One for lunch and one for dinner! You may have gathered that ribs and buffet are my two favourite meals – definitely not for dates though , and if you’re ever in Ho Chi Minh City, there is one that I highly recommend.  We stayed at the Ramana Saigon Hotel (yes, that’s Ramana, not Ramada), a 4 star hotel not really that well located (then again, what is?  HCM city is so big!).  With crossing the street equating to a death wish, we copped out at ate at the “American” buffet.  It was rip off prices by Vietnam standards, but a steal in any other currency 0 at US$18.50 per person.  We inspected – usual salads and bain marie stuff but our eyes lit up when we saw this boat!!

It was filled with ice and then displayed an array of fresh raw seafood for you to heap up onto a plate and ask the chef to cook for you as you wished – grilled, sambal, ginger and shallots, steamed….  That definitely made us pick the buffet over a la carte (in Vietnam you have no idea how long things coudl have been sitting around for).  We had scallops in the shell, huge prawns (which look like yabbies) and normal tiger prawns… yuummm…..

How about a bit of all you can peking/roast duck, chicken and mantou buns?

Mandatory sushi plate.  I didn’t try this – the purple is pretty but not quite authentic?? hehe

Then there’s the fresh green vege section – have you ever been on holidays and felt vege deprived and let’s say – been a bit irregular?   Well here you could also pick a plate of your preferred veges and the chefs will also cook it fresh for you!!

This isn’t an ordinary buffet, it’s more like an all you can eat cooked to order!!

There wasn’t much else we wanted to fill the remaining nooks in our stomach with, so we just nibbled on some of the other stuff which included these yummy rice rolls with herbs and duck in them, and some roast duck and pesto roasted veges.

The fruit platter also caught our eye.

I have no idea what those little lolly like balls are but they tasted of star fruit and had 3 little cardamom shaped seeds in them.  Anyone have an idea?

Fresh fruit and vege are your best friends on a holiday diet, and I can never get enough of the tropical stuff.

So there you g0, come here if you’re in HCM city!  It was a real shame that for the time we were there (Saturday night, 6:30 – 8:15pm), there were only 2 other tables. And there was also a band playing just for us at one stage as we had the whole restaurant to ourselves for much of this time!  I hope that yummy food dosen’t all go to waste.   It would be such a shame, with so many hungry people out here.

Ramana Saigon Hotel – 323 Le Van Sy St, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam www.ramanasaigon.com.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 8th, 2011 at 7:46 pm and is filed under Asian, Eating out in Asia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.