- It's Mark Wiens.
I am in Saigon, Ho CHi Minh City, Vietnam.
One of the most common meals that you'll see
walking around the city
is the combination of broken rice with pork chop,
a grilled pork chop on top of it.
So I have just arrived at a restaurant called
Com Tam Ba Ghien.
I think, I believe that's how you pronounce it,
and this is one of the most well-known restaurants in Saigon
for the combination of broken rice
with a grilled pork chop on top.
I can actually smell the pork from down the street.
(eastern music)
(city commotion)
So they are just grilling up
a mind-blowing amount of pork.
It's like a giant bucket full of pork, and they
are just continuously grilling.
It's not quite lunchtime, it's just before lunch
so I think they are preparing for the lunch-rush.
But it looks like a lot of people just drop by
on their motorbikes for take-away,
as is the case with a lot of street food here in Vietnam.
But they also have a pretty big dining room,
sizable dinning room that you can sit and eat.
I am just in a sauna of
grilled pork smoke right now.
Okay, so I ordered up the works here.
The giant grilled pork chop is on the bottom here,
and then I got a fried egg.
These are like pickles.
And then, moving, revolving over to this side,
it looks just like some other pork,
and then I think this is pork skin.
And then this is some kind of Vietnamese meatloaf.
It's like meatloaf or something,
and I don't know what the yellow stuff is,
I have no idea.
Is that it?
There might be some other things hiding in the bottom, too,
I don't even know.
And then the sauce, of course, is like a fish sauce chili.
And I'm gonna set that on the side.
Actually, I think I might need
to wash my hands for this one.
Let me grab one of these little towelettes.
At nearly every single restaurant they serve you these,
but they do cost a little bit of money,
so you don't have to use them
but I think I need it for this.
Yeah.
This definitely looks like a meal I need a napkin for.
I'm gonna go for that pork chop first.
Just look at the size,
just look at the size of that pork chop.
That's pretty good size for sure.
And the fried egg,
I'm gonna scoot the fried egg over to the side first.
I'm gonna dig straight in for
a piece of the pork chop first.
Oh man, this looks amazing.
And maybe a little bit of that sauce.
And all their green onions down there too,
the rice, all that just looks wonderful.
Okay, oh that looks beautiful.
Oh yes.
Oh, that's good.
That pork is so tender and so...
It's a little bit sweet,
but it's so tender,
and it's so smokey, so flavorful.
Broken rice is very common in Saigon,
but it has really kind of a nice texture to it.
It's soft, but at the same time,
the grains of rice really retain their kinda crunchiness,
so it's not like a fluffy rice, but it's more of a solid,
more of a dense rice,
and it goes really good with meat.
This plate is truly the supreme combination.
Okay, I'm gonna try some of this meatloaf,
and again, add some more,
drizzle some more sauce in there,
and this looks like it definitely
could use a chili with this bite.
Luckily, there are some chilies there as well.
Get that chili on there.
I don't know what that is,
but it's so soft,
and I think there are,
among the noodles,
stuff in that, that's like a mild meatloaf sausage.
It's good, and with that chili
that gave it a beautiful sour chili flavor as well.
Then I'll go in for some of the skin
and all that goodness.
Bit of the sauce.
(restaurant employees preparing food)
That is good!
Really good!
If things could not get better, a fried egg...
Oh! (laughs)
If things could not get better, a fried egg
with a runny yoke.
Oh my goodness.
Wow!
This is just the ultimate, supreme, fatty,
and glorious,
protein combination.
Look at that pool of yoke, wow!
Okay, grab pork, grab pork...
There's a little trough of egg yoke in there.
This is getting messy and beautiful.
Chase it with a chili.
Or two.
That is unbelievably good.
This is sort of starting to look
like an abstract painting of food.
Let me take the bite, yeah.
Looks like I gotta hanging piece of pig skin.
Oh man.
I'm not sure if you're suppose to
just cut it off the bone with your fork,
but I see a lot of people picking it up,
and then just gnawing on it,
so that is what I'm about to do.
That's very tasty!
Very tasty indeed.
It's sweet and salty,
and tender,
it has some good texture as well.
That was an awesome meal.
The combination of all those meats,
and the grilled pork, and the rice,
definitely a protein pork-lovers dream come true.
This whole restaurant is very impressive.
They are grilling up some serious quantities of pork here,
and now the restaurant is full.
There are plenty of people that come
just for take-away boxes, as well.
There's smoke pouring from the pork chop grilling station.
If you could smell me, I probably smell
like a giant pork chop, myself.
But that was delicious.
This is a great restaurant to come to when you're in Saigon.
As we were eating, I met up with Khan, right?
- Yes, my name is Khan.
- His name is Khan.
Are you from Saigon?
- Yes. I am from Saigon, District Three.
- From District Three.
So he's from Saigon. Are you also eating here?
- No, I'm...
- Or are you just driving...
- Yes I'm just walking through here.
- Oh, okay. Thank you, man.
So he was just driving past
and very cool to meet Khan.
Thank you.
Yes, man.
- Great to meet you.
- Great to meet you, man.
- I love all of your videos.
- Thank you.
Thank you, man.
- Hope to see you again.
- Thank you.
Huge thank you to all of you for recommending me
this restaurant, this was a restaurant that many of
you recommended, so thank you.
Very, very cool restaurant and great food,
and lovely environment as well.
Just an impressive amount of pork being grilled here,
so thank you for watching, hope you enjoyed it.
Please remember to give this video a thumbs up,
leave a comment below, and I'll see you on the next video.