It's estimated that about eleven percent
of the workforce in Ho Chi Minh City
are made up of informal street food vendors,
and this is what I found.
Hello!
Scooters on the right, cars on the left.
It seems to be true.
Woah look at all this fruit, guys.
Oh it looks so yummy!
You can smell that durian from here.
Okay, I found food stalls, now I just need to find
vegan options.
It's really good.
There are dozens of food stalls here but I chose this one
for a few reasons.
When I first walked by I saw this
which I believe means vegetarian,
and then I saw all of the tofu up here
and there was a bunch of tofu here as well
and then they were super nice and
they weren't pestering me to buy
anything which I appreciate because
that's a thing that happens here.
And then there was a very kind woman that spoke a bit
of English who helped, uh, helped me learn
that in fact it was fully vegan, at least
a couple of the options. And they were super
nice because I was short of money and I
had to go to an ATM, come back
and give them the rest of the money and
they were super cool with it, didn't give me a
problem, got the exact change back.
Highly recommend this place--
I don't know what it's called!
This is what it looks like.
I don't know what it exactly is called
but it's just mung bean with sticky rice
Uh-huh!
and it's really yummy.
Because like the soy bag has more of a corn and salty sweet thing
and the mung bean is really sweet and really yummy.
So would you want to try it?
Yeah! Let's try it.
Let's try it.
This is the mung bean?
The mung bean one, yeah.
And this is usually a breakfast thing?
Yeah, or like a snack or whatever.
Oh! It's not bad.
It's good, right? Yeah.
It's like, it's really basic, I mean.
Yeah.
It tastes good,
and you can really, can you imagine
getting full on that? Like, this is a
pretty nutritious snack and, you know, it's healthy.
So, yeah, you got the sticky rice with the
corn, some fried onions and then the
coconut right on top.
Okay.
Here, you get a little cute spoon with it.
What do you think?
It's kind of like, just like porridge, I guess.
This is like the stickier version of porridge, I guess.
Cool, and so you can get this at any...
Yeah normally it's like before nine, you can get it at little street stands and, like
women with baskets carry it around.
Okay, and a reasonable price, this is around
five thousand dong for each one.
Yeah, for each one separately.
If you get a bigger box, there's also like a bigger, a fuller box
it's 10,000 for one but normally your price is 5,000 for one.
Cool.
It's really good.
Yeah, right?
It's like a stick, they squeeze a stick and out comes
this amazing juice.
That's crazy!
Pomelos are super sweet and really
really really, really good, and then
my favorite is the pomegranate juice
Oh okay.
And you know how pomegranate is normally red? Inside?
Yeah.
This one's pink, like bright pink.
And it doesn't have the tartness and the
bitterness of the pomegranate.
Uh-huh.
It's really tasty.
But you want to get one of each?
Sure! Yeah.
One pomelo juice and one pomegranate.
Trying the fresh pomegranate juice that we just picked up.
Oh my god, that's so good, yeah.
Right? It's really refreshing and it's really really yummy.
Oh my gosh, okay so explain what we have here again.
So this is, um, like apple banana wrapped in
sticky rice and wrapped in a banana leaf
and then grilled, and then they take the
leaves off obviously
and they cut it in pieces and, um,
pour over some homemade coconut milk.
So in this coconut milk, I asked, it's just coconut milk and
rice flour to thicken it, and then on top
there's some sesame seeds, toasted.
Do you like it?
Oh my god, it's so good!
Right?
And it's hot as well, like I didn't get
it at first, but they serve most of the
dessert or snack food as they call it, hot.
There's a hot tofu dessert or a snack food or whatever.
One of the things that I've come to appreciate and
love about saigon is that the scooter
riders that just pull up and order
something from these little stands and
then keep going which we did with the
truth earlier, but we sat here when we
were having our unnamed goodies, and it's
really, it's really kind of cool,
I haven't seen that anywhere else.
So now we're stopping to get some fried banana
and those are fried sweet potatoes.
Yep, that's a fried banana (laughs)
It kind of reminds me of, you know those McDonald's
like pie like things, you know?
Oh my god, yeah, it totally does.
It's not the Apple one but
it's like a banana version of it, like the
crust really reminds me of that and then
like the greasiness of it.
Yeah.
Ooo, look at all those cashews. Wow.
They will soon be cheese.
They will turn into this, or that, or this one.
I'm here with Le Na, and Sarah, and they have
just, um, they're renting this space that
we're in now because Sarah makes vegan
cake, cakes, and Le Na makes vegan cheese,
and they've come together to create a
space that they can work together and
make their individual, amazing things.
Oh my gosh, that's the tofu?
Yeah, so that's the tofu, she scoops it in so she cuts it already for you.
So this is tapioca pearls,
Oh okay.
and this is the ginger and lemongrass syrup.
Oh, wow.
And that's her homemade coconut milk.
Oh my gosh, this looks amazing.
Yeah it's really good.
So this one's yours.
Should I get a bit of everything in one...
Yeah, try it, just don't mix it,
it's a crime when you completely mix, like, the dish
It's definitely different!
Yeah!
It's, it's okay.
It's not bad, I like the tapioca actually.
Yeah?
It costs anywhere from, from three to
six thousand, depends on the size.
Sometimes they're big, sometimes, this is
a smaller size you also get them super big.
Okay.
But, it's just a fried dough basically,
it's sweet, it has a lot of sesame seeds on it.
Uh-huh.
And it's really yummy, you should try it.
Oh, okay!
A Vietnamese doughnut that just happens to be vegan.
Yeah, happens to be vegan.
Oh yeah!
it's kind of like a doughnut, but like a fried, fried bread.
Yeah, fried bread.
But it's sweet, and, it's, it's tasty!
I just spent almost five, did we just say five hours?
Almost five, yeah.
Almost five hours
with this amazing woman, a local vegan in
Saigon who took me around some of the
like street vendors and things that you
might not otherwise think about stopping at
because you don't know if the options
are vegan or what's safe to eat or
whatever, so thank you so much for
spending your morning with me, it was so cool.