Jongrak currently owns the YouTube channel HanQuocBros, which he and his Korean brothers built when they moved to Vietnam. This YouTube channel with nearly 1 million followers is a unique Korean perspective on Vietnamese culture, cuisine, and life, especially in Ho Chi Minh City. Jongrak often looks for long-standing, affordable, but popular eateries to experience and recommend.
Ho Chi Minh City has many delicious banh canh restaurants, but this time Jongrak wants to explore a special place that locals often call "waiting" banh canh and strangely enough, in the middle of Ho Chi Minh City, it still costs 10,000 VND/bowl.
The restaurant is located in a small alley on Bui Minh Truc Street (District 8). It opens every day from 10am or 10:30am to 3pm, but before that, there are already many customers waiting. A small table can accommodate 4-5 customers, and there are always people stopping their vehicles to buy take-out. The restaurant doesn't have a name, but customers always have to wait about 30 minutes to 1 hour for the noodles to be served, so the restaurant is known by word of mouth as "waiting banh canh".
In fact, the banh canh here is served right on the side of the alley, customers sit next to the tree and the traffic is quite narrow. The restaurant has no indoor space, customers mainly come to eat at the rows of plastic tables and chairs along the alley and buy take-out.
A bowl of banh canh usually costs 35,000 VND. The owner said he has been selling this dish for 41 years since he was 16 and has not changed his address. The restaurant sells out 5 large pots of banh canh a day.
Jongrak ordered a 35,000 VND and 10,000 VND bowl to enjoy and compare the restaurant's most expensive and cheapest bowls. The most expensive bowl will have noodles, pig's blood, pig's feet, spring rolls, pork and pork skin. The cheapest bowl has a smaller portion and does not have spring rolls or pig's feet.
Not only did he sip other ingredients like ham, blood, meat, pork skin... he also greedily chewed and slurped the broth.
Jongrak found that 10,000 VND can still buy him a bowl of quality noodle soup. He was especially impressed by the fresh ingredients and the rich, clean broth.
"Either I was very hungry or the noodle soup was too delicious. Of all the banh canh restaurants I've been to, this one is the best," he said.
