Lunch was supposed to be an orgy of cheap seafood and beer. I pre-scouted a restaurant. 3 years ago, Hai Sang Song was frequented by locals for its great value. We took a cab there and settled on the table. Something was wrong. This place looked too nice to be serving cheap food. The waitresses were too attentive and circled around our table like vultures. Suspicious, I got up to inspect the seafood tanks. WTF! 1.5 million Dong per kilo for the local lobsters (cleverly written only in Vietnamese)? That’s like SGD$110. Screw that! Back at the table, my friends was hungry and wanted some soup. I wasn’t paying attention to them as I was still looking at the ridiculous price charts. That’s a fatal error. The waitress has slyly directed him from a prix fixe soup to a seasonally priced crab hotpot which I only discovered when the item was brought to us. When I revealed that we’ve been had, our appetites have all but dissolved. Avoid this place like the bubonic plague.
The day was rescued with a stroke of wild luck when we took a cab to Cholon (Chinatown). The driver spoke pretty good Mandarin and we got a relaxing guided tour of the district in air conditioned comfort. Towards the end we asked for a dining recommendation and were directed to a place for Lau Canh Chua – fish hotpot. Everything about the restaurant radiated of good things to come. From charcoals pits, not fanned, but blown by freaking air pumps to 3 fully occupied levels of dining space.
Fish hotpot is probably not the right term – it was chock full of ingredients: fish heads, fish fillets, fishballs, fishcakes, dried fish flakes, meatballs, pork liver, pork kidney, pork stomach, fried pork skin, squid, prawns, cabbage and preserved vegetables in chicken/fish broth all managed to find room in the snug hotpot. The flavours were pure Chinese but much more hearty than what we find in Singapore.
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