Breakfast here at Amanaki Saigon Boutique hotel is a culinary experience like no other.
It is the kind of breakfast done with as much heart as befits a boutique hotel in District 1, and which you probably wouldn't find in any of the upper-star hotels around the city.
I don't mean to say that those breakfasts aren't good.
Just that they might not be in the same style as how they do it here in Amanaki where guests get a harmonious blend of East and West, a heritage-rich offering that combines the produce of the agricultural, and the urban.
It's like there were huge croissants on one side of the buffet table with service of butter and jam.
There were bread slices on the other side where you could make your own toast and have it with marmalade, butter, margarine, honey and jam.
There was an egg station with all kinds of ingredients.
And then there was a noodle station where they could make you a mean bowl of beef pho if you wanted to.
In between all of this there were trays offering steamed stuff like steamed buns, steamed root vegetables and steamed glutinous rice, there was a DIY spring roll section where you could choose what vegetables you wanted and rolled it by yourself, and there was, I think, a three-tiered plate with sweet local desserts both colorful and charming.
I helped myself to a meat pau, which, can I just say, was huge, and not only was it huge, the ball of meat inside was moist, soft, and full of flavor.
The pau wasn't the fluffy fluffy kind but this one felt like a steamed solid ball of of flour. It's so seldom that I get to have a pau of this size and this taste that I finished the whole thing, even though sometimes I only have half of the bun.
On the same plate too I had a block of jackfruit glutinous rice and something else which I now cannot remember nor recognize.
The jackfruit glutinous rice was interesting.
Rice grains packed all solidly together before being steamed, the texture felt more like a rice cake than a rice kueh.
The taste of jackfruit was also light.
But I liked the color.
Very bright, very cheerful.
I went for an omelet and a couple of meatballs after this.
I don't know where the picture of the meatballs has gone to.
But here's the omelet.
Again, one solid strip of egg that was soft and moist and I think I'd chosen cheese and onion to be inside.
All along I'd thought that all Vietnamese food was of the light, clean type.
Noooo.
There're dishes that are more filling and heavier than what I thought they'd be.
Perhaps they don't share their jackfruit glutinous rice or their solid, meaty meat paus very much with the rest of the world.
Or perhaps they haven't.
This breakfast I appreciated very much the same way I appreciated having a cup of very, very strong Vietnamese coffee.
We did a bit of stuff after breakfast.
Can't remember exactly what it was I did, but very likely I took a rest because, for some reason, my tummy wasn't feeling the best and I was dazed and tired.
But I didn't come to Saigon to sleep the whole day, so out it was for lunch we went.
I'm not sure the name of the restaurant, so I've no idea just where it was we went.
All I know is that it was within walking distance of the hotel, close to the Old Quarter, and we had to walk past a couple buildings of colonial design before we got to the building where the restaurant was- on the second floor which to get there we had to climb a (steep) flight of steps that I was completely not accustomed to.
You know, until I came to the Indochina region, I had not realized just how steep some of their staircases could be.
I had thought the staircases in Thailand steep enough.
But Saigon's were even steeper.
There were times when I felt I was almost going vertical, and more than once I thought i was going to fall.
The food at the restaurant here, however, was good.
Might it be so that they had had some form of influence from the European and American counterparts, but they'd made it theirs.
I'd like to say that the portions were American-sized- they were huge- but, honestly, Vietnamese sizes in Vietnam aren't small either.
This afternoon our meal consisted of a Wagyu Burger, a plate of Chicken Tenders, and Fries that had slices of beef on top.
The food here was good.
First thing about the Chicken Tenders that surprised me was the size.
See, I've gotten so used to skinny-a** tenders the length and size of my little finger that I forget just how fat and large they're supposed to be.
And many of them are so stinge with their batter that I don't even know that they're not meant to be skinny sticks but thicc.
And the breaded batter was crunchy.
The wagyu burger too didn't disappoint.
Soft were the buns, tender was the patty and tasty was the beef.
We split the burger into half, my friend taking the top bun and half a patty, me taking the bottom and the remaining half.
For some reason I was feeling full by the time I finished my half of the burger- maybe because I had been alternating each bite of the burger with a couple of fries- so we decided we'd finish the beef slices on top of the fries, and pack the remainder back.
Lunch over we went around Saigon's historic Old Quarter a little bit.
I would love to be able to talk about this area a little bit, but I know zilch about this part of the city, I don't have knowledge about the colonial era of Saigon, and I don't know which building is which building which does what, save for the fact that this district has been around for at least over a century since the late 1800s.
A good hint of how long this area has been is at the Hotel Continental Saigon located one side the Square.
This hotel has been in operation since 1880.
Adjacent to this beautiful, glamourous looking hotel is the Opera House on Dong Khoi Street- the oldest street in town.
Further on, where the tall palm trees are, I believe, the Independence Palace, also known as the Reunification Palace and serves as a museum about the Vietnam War. Pity I didn't get to visit the museum- I would've loved to see the war rooms, the grand rooms, the underground bunker (especially) and the artefacts.
Perhaps one day I'll get to revisit this place again, and this time I definitely hope to see the bunker and the grand rooms.
From here we walked to Saigon Center where Takashimaya Department Store was, looked around a bit, then headed back to Amanaki where I rested my way all through dinner.
The Takashimaya Department Store here, by the way, is a somewhat compact-looking one. The brands are there, the counters are there, and it's all very bright, but interestingly the bright shiny eye-drawing lights are kept to the brands and the counters and the spots whilst the rest of the ambient lighting remains functional and practical.
Perhaps I've been too used to department stores that feature more of what we call atmospheric lighting that distinct contrasts like these surprise me more than I think they would.
There were a couple of eating places down in the basement, and also, if I'm not wrong, a sort of supermarket that carried a good selection of international produce as much as local. This was the kind of place where you could get chips from US and coffee from Japan. This was also the kind of place that carried cookies from Europe and teas from the UK.
One might think that there weren't any fresh produce, but at one corner of the supermarket there was fresh salmon being sliced and shrink wrapped according to the weight you wanted to buy.
My friend got a box of tea.
Me, I just looked around at the nuts and tried to decide whether I ought to get some.
Later that evening my friend and I went out for a hair spa at a salon not too far from our hotel.
It was an interesting experience, one which I had heard quite a bit about and had been keen to try.
We've all heard of hair spas; some of us might even go frequently to one, but what makes a Vietnamese one different is that you don't have to go to a specific salon to experience one. What's more they will do a facial wash and a bit of a facial massage for you after they've washed your hair.
Any hair salon (more or less) will do.
Of course, not every salon will have the female staff dressed in Vietnam's cultural outfit of the ao dai when they attend to you, so a lovely thing it was that this salon did.
The staff too were skilled.
A shampoo, a condition, a washing of the face.
I was very comfortable with the scalp massage when she washed my hair- you could feel the nerves on your scalp easing off the tension- I fell asleep- but got a bit nervous during the facial wash when I realized I didn't know how to tell her to avoid the area around my eyes.
So I shut my eyes tightly and prayed the soap wouldn't slide in.
It didn't, thank God, and the staff did a blow dry of my hair after it was finished.