Restuarant 13, Ho Chi Minh

Living up to the 'award' presented to me as 'almost a Vietnamese blogger 2007' during the food blogger Christmas party, I guess it's time for me to resume my posts on Vietnam? :p

Jeffrey said that the Vietnamese had their version of 'ngai choi sek farn' ( order dishes, eat with rice) and I wondered if there was a claypot fish served in sweet sauce as my brother was raving about it when he tried it in HCM... Luckily for me, there was and Jeffrey met us at Restaurant 13 for lunch..

We had some Yong Chow fried rice. Quite good, but not as good as those in Malaysia as I find the rice a tad wet..

The Pork with duck eggs cooked in coconut sauce looks rather..erm, unappetizing..Jeffrey insisted we try it despite the thick chunk of fat..We took a bite of the meat and OMG! This is so delicious! The meat was so fragrant and had fully absorbed the coconut flavours. No doubt it's sweet, but it's sinfully scrumptious sweet. I love it. I took a bite of the fat..didn't fancy it as it was not melt in mouth, but the springy fatty type. Duck egg was normal.

A sizzling claypot was placed on our table.. Sure it's fish? I looked at the dish suspiciously..We took a piece each..and...it was tofu. Yummy sauce though. We told the manager that we ordered fish, not tofu. He changed the dish for us..

Jeffrey ordered sour soup fish...We didn't really like the taste of the soup; yes, it's sour and it had this weird taste that reminded us of some funky soup we had in Cambodia before..The fish pieces were scooped out and placed on another bowl of soy sauce and sliced chillies..I think the fish served was river fish as the mud smell was very strong. Avoid this if you cant stand eating fish.

We had some stir fry flower buds vegetables.. This was very good, the flower buds were very sweet and fresh; had a tiny crunch to it and the light stir fry of garlic enhances the flavour of the flower buds..

And yes, the long awaited claypot fish with sweet soy sauce Looks amazing, the sauce seems to be oozing from the claypot..Did a quick stir and tried the dish almost immediately. Well, guess my burnt tongue was worth it and this dish was so flavourful. The sauce was thick; main sauce seems to taste like sweet soy sauce; plus lots of herbs and black peppers. Other than the smooth fish pieces, there were generous amount of sliced bacon and garlic cloves. Lip smacking dish.

Restaurant 13 is located at 15 Ngo Duc Ke, Q.1, Ho Chi Minh City. Tel: 8239314.