Halal food / restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City (Makanan Halal)

      When I travel, foods are never far from my mind. The first thing I do is to google halal food outlets at the place I'm going to. Look this up http://www.zabihah.com/  This web site really helps me a lot when I travel. Actually nowadays, Muslims are all around the world and to me, that means halal food is not a major issue. If you go to Bangkok, this friend's blog is very, very helpful. In one muslim community in the United States, they bought their chicken straight from the supermarket and they eat in certain fast food restaurants. It all boils down to our 'keyakinan', if we are in doubt, don't eat.

In HCMC, there are several halal food outlets that can cater to your palates from a few days to a few weeks :) stay in the city. Although I had a full list, I went only to the accessible few that were located within the vicinity that I stayed. The first time here, I stayed at Saigon Hotel on Dong Du Street which is across the Sheraton but not directly opposite. On these rows, there are the Saigon Halal, Penang Nyonya, and Bombay restaurants. If you are staying near the Ben Tanh market, which I did on my second visit, there is the Halal VN restaurant nearby. In fact, we just can walk from the Ben Tanh area to Dong Du street which is a good exercise for us. There is also the middle east restaurant, 'Warda' which served arab foods but the prices are expensive. The owner said their meat is halal. The Halal Saigon which is owned by a Malaysian female doctor, served a large variety of food that can last you more than three days, that is, if you stay that long in this city. I just got a new information that the ex-owner of Halal@Saigon has a restaurant in District 3 in the name of Banana Leaf which is the only halal buffet restaurant in Ho Chih Minh City. Read the latest comment from the blogreader.


As of January 2014, I came cross another blog giving a list of halal restaurants of his choices. According to him, Halal VN is no longer open.

BOMBAY RESTAURANT

This one is quite good.

                               

They also have roti canai or parata and the accompanying gravy was nice

PENANG NYONYA RESTAURANT

PNR is located just opposite Saigon Halal. That day we ate malay food like adam pedas and sayur kangkung with cendol and rojak. The cendol didn't taste that good. 

Of course they have more than these but we were almost finished before we remembered that we had not snapped any picture yet.

VN HALAL RESTAURANT

VN restaurant serves a combination of Malaysian, Vietnam and Thai dishes. Therefore, they have nasi goreng kampung, nasi ayam, nasi paprik and Vietnam soups below. Air kopi ais is their best drink, I think and I love it.

I forgot to ask what VN stands for. Anyone?

I love this Glass noodle salad. On the second visit, I didn't get to eat it again because I couldn't find it in the menu pamphlet.

The famous Pho Soup

Tasty fried noodles, the noodles are bigger than our mee kuning

'Condiments' for the Pho soup

Perhaps the famous iced coffee? I love it!                      

French Fries for the kids

Chicken rice at VN 

 HALAL SAIGON RESTAURANT 

Halal Saigon on Dong Du Street located a few doors away from Saigon Hotel and opposite D' Nyonya Restaurant.

I love this soup as it has this 'pineapple' flavor that lends to its sweet taste.

Prawns with young coconut shoot at Halal Saigon, my fav on the first visit.

A tofu soup

  

                                           Pumpkin flower buds

The flowers of the Tonkin creeps

                                               Rice pancake which I don't recommend because of its hardened texture.

The free warm sugar cane drink

All time favourite. It costs about rm5 in the restaurant but the street vendors will sell you double. Be ready to jual mahal. After several meters trying to catch up with your brisk walk, the price will surely go down. 

All the above are vietnamese dishes, quite unique in taste, and different from the Thai dishes, of course.

The oldest mosque in HCMC which is across the Halal Saigon Restaurant

WARDA MIDDLE EAST RESTAURANT

This one which provide a bar like atmosphere is quite tucked away in a place which we stumbled upon when attending the book fair during the new year holiday. At first, we hesitated to go in as it didn't have this family atmosphere and I had to ask if the meat is halal or not. (of course you might said to yourself, 'how do u know if he's telling the truth'? If you are was-was, then go away). 

We were careful not to eat snacks sold at the roadside except this 'kuih kapit' taste alike.

 

The lady, upon seeing us trying to snap a picture of her, quickly put on her hat which was lying nearby. I paid her almost RM10 for the few pieces of crunchy crepes. A tourist price.