It’s only our 3rd full day in Vietnam, but I think when the 16 days is over we will conclude that the Saigon Food Tour was the highlight of the trip. We had flown literally the entire day prior, and now, after a layover in Hong Kong, it was mid-afternoon and we were finally here.
Here I must give Michael credit for having done way more research than I did, and he found a blog which found a touring company, which had some fantastic guides and we decided to just jump right in!
Our guides came from a company called the Street Food Man. Here’s the concept, your guides arrive on motorbikes, hand you a helmet, you jump on the back and proceed to hit spots all over Ho Chi Minh City for the best examples of classic Vietnamese street food. I mean, that’s enough for most of us to sign up right there, right! But the adventure offered SO much more than that!
Our guides were NaNa and Huy, a pair of 20-somethings who met us at our hotel. The traffic in HCM is ca-razy! and I was mildly concerned about being on the back of a scooter driven by a young man I outweighed by 100 pounds! They both turned out to be very skillful drivers, and experiencing this city from the back of a scooter is an exhilarating thrill!
Saigon is divided into districts and each has a very distinct personality. When we would say to someone, “we had the greatest Bun Cha last night!” they would immediately say, “oh you were in District 5?”
Before the night was over, we would make 10 stops! By the end we were ready to burst, and dead on our feet, but if I’d had to go home the next morning it would have all been worth it!
I’ve decided to break the tour into multiple postings, because they all deserve their own post, and we crammed a lot of activity into an afternoon and evening.
I can’t say enough good about our guides and their enthusiasm for Vietnamese culture, their caring, doting, and catering to Michael and I and their deep determination to make sure we had the times of our lives. We did indeed! Throughout the entire time I was thinking, “Oh my God this is exactly what I wanted!”
So stay tuned, stop 1 is the Vietnamese stuffed pancake, banh xeo.
TT
ToneManblog 
Sounds like a memorable day and your tour guides look like a lot of fun. Looking forward to your future posts. Thanks for sharing your journey.
Thanks for following!
I feel so happy when getting connected with amazing food bloggers over the world and Tony who is our guest and also a chef reviewed very detailed about “HO CHI MINH CITY FOOD BY NIGHT – PRIVATE MOTORBIKE TOUR”. I’m so proud of my local guides for the great job. Thank you so much for the blog, Tony! We hope to meet you again one day!
Wish you all the best!
Best regards,
Vinny (Street Food Man)
Thank you Vinny! Nana & Huy unlocked the secrets of Saigon and made our trip like an Anthony Bourdain episode! I have many more postings about our stops on the tour.