Tokyo Deli Japanese Restaurant

One of the few Japanese restaurants in the Phu My Hung area, and probably the one with most variety of dishes at reasonable prices, especially the set lunches. The restaurant can get quite busy, especially on weekends and on the day of Saigon South International School's early dismissal day.

It has another outlet in District 1, Le Tanh Ton Street near the Ben Thanh Market.

Environment

In a predominantly white color setting, the restaurant gives a fresh and clean environment. There are few tables on the ground floor beside the open kitchen, it can be a bit warm with the warm and humid air through its automatic sliding door. So, we always prefer the upstairs seating. It has few elevated tables which can sit up to 8 people each. Customers sit on flat cushion on the wooden floor and can leave your legs comfortably down the hole underneath the table. There are few air conditioners which provide reasonable cool environment

Upstairs seating

Ranking on Environment: 7 out of 10

Foods
Appetizer: A different type of appetizer will be offered whenever we eat here, and it is always fresh and delicious.

Dynamite Salmon Roll

We order this roll almost every time. The spiciness of the sauce is just to our liking.

California Roll

WS's favorite sushi. There were two orders, and the rest of us tried some.

The outside layer is fish roe and the inside is crab meat and avocado.

My order, Sushi Combo 3. There was a piece of prawn sushi also, it went into my mouth before WS could take the picture. I like the freshness of the sushi.

SY's Grilled salmon set. She has had this dish a few times, sometime it is crispy and juicy, but sometime it has some fishy smell, i.e. inconsistent.

It looks a bit dry.

WH always orders this Steamed chicken and egg on rice. It is actually tasty, but I wonder why they leave the skin on the chicken. I will try to cook this dish at home one day, without the chicken skin.

The onion is well cooked and add a bit of sweetness.

WQ's mixed tempura is light and crispy, but they should give more sauce for dipping.

Stir fry mixed mushroom with butter. The button mushroom has a little bitter tasty and has not enough buttery taste.

Ranking on Foods: 7 out of 10

Service

It always has 3-4 waitresses during the busy time. Food always arrive at reasonable time, only once an order was forgotten and thus served much later. The staff can understand simple English and service efficiency can be improved with some training.

Ranking on Service: 6.5 out of 10

Price

The pricing here are reasonable and the set lunches are considered quite cheap, plus the food is quite delicious. In Vietnam, I feel it is more economical to have Western, Japanese and Korean food than Vietnamese food, very strange , right? You would think Vietnamese food would be cheaper here, it is probably true for the eatery where the locals go to, but not so for the Vietnamese restaurants that cater for both locals and foreigners.

Ranking on Price: 7.5 out of 10

Overall

Overall, the foods and pricing are reasonable and you could have a simple Japanese meal in a comfortable environment. We wish they could add more variety to the menu and the service can be improved.

Overall ranking: 7 out of 10

Yummy!

Cat Tuong Chinese Restaurant

One of the few Chinese restaurants in HCM, Vietnam, serving Cantonses dishes like dim sum and other dishes. We had only tried the dim sum here, probably because other dishes do not appeal to us.

Environment

Apparently its main branch is in District 5, Chinatown. Very traditional overseas Chinese restaurant setting.

Small setting with less than 10 tables. Like many restaurants in Vietnam, air is stuffy and with very old air conditioners that do not really work. It has couple of floor standing fans but could still be quite warm (by my standard) sometime.

Ranking on Environment: 5 out of 10

Foods



We ordered this Sui Cau Noodle every visit without fail. The "Sui Cau" is quite good but the soup can be a bit too oily and the wanton noodle is ok. We haven't found any decent wanton mee in Vietnam after almost 15 months here, so it is like "no fish, shrimp is also ok la" or something better than nothing.

WH's favourite "Siew Mai". He can finished the whole 4 pieces by himself, so we normally ordered 2 or no chance to eat.

Prawn Fun Cheong. Also the children's favourite, also normally 2 orders unless we ordered too much of other dishes. But the soy sauce can be too salty.

Ha Cau. The skin is too thick, not as tasty and fresh as expected.

Century Egg Porridge. A must order every visit. Quality of century egg not consistent and the yau cha koui that came together is normally cold and dry. Otherwise, the porridge itself is quite tasty. So, again it is "Begger cannot be choosy"

Chicken Feet. The children never touch this dish, probably because they never seen chicken stepping on their own bobo before, so less tasty?

Foo Chot Gueng. Quite tasty and one that we always ordered.

WH's favourite Lo Mai Kai, but I find it not as tasty as the Malaysian version.

Ranking on Foods: 6 out of 10

Service

As the foods are steamed when ordered, so it normally take 10-15 minutes for the foods to be served. The waiter/waitress normally could speak Cantonese but service efficiency can be improved.

Ranking on Service: 6.5 out of 10

Price

Each dish is between VND30000 to VND50000, or US$1.60 to VND2.80, reasonable by Vietnam restaurant standard, but expensive if compared to restaurants in Malaysia.

Ranking on Price: 6.5 out of 10

Overall

As the restaurant is in the neighborhood where we stay, we came here whenever we craze for dim sum, there is another Chinese restaurant that serves better dim sum but is half an hour drive away. So, do expect to see us there again when the hunger for Siew Mai and Century Egg Porrige rise agian.

Overall Ranking: 6 out of 10

Yummy!

Gourmet Restaurant

SY & children discovered this restaurant about 2-3 months ago and we have been regulars here since then...It serves Western foods and freshly baked French bread and a limited range of cakes.

Environment


Simple deco in upstair dining room, it is always clean & we always enjoyed the quiet environment. The other choice would be outdoor seating by the main road, which would be nice on a cool & breezy day, minus the bugs (WH's fear)



Ranking on environment: 7 out of 10



Beverage



WS's apple juice turned yellowish, testament that it was freshly squeezed

Choice of fresh fruit juices, can taste the freshness and no sugary taste. Coconut juice is not as fragrant as those from Thailand, but it is quite good also..

Ranking on Beverages: 8 out of 10

Foods

My favourite, fresh and warm French bread. I think this is the best in town I had so far. Sometime, I have this with butter and coffee for breakfast.

Spaghetti with vege & olive oil. Definitely one of the dishes we will order every visit.

WH's fried chicken with rice. The chicken was tasty but a bit too dry, would be nice if comes with some sauce. WH finished the rice and left the chicken for us, as always.

WS had spaghetti with dried tomato, garlic and olive oil. She didn't touch the tomato(not because it wasn't delicious but she doesn't eat tomatoes) and cleaned up the spaghetti.

WQ's spaghetti cabonara, the creamy taste is just right.

However, eating the whole plate is a little bit too heavy.

My pork chop with cream cheese sauce. The meat was too tough and the children liked the mashed potatoes. The mash potatoes had a fragrant buttery taste.

Ranking on Foods: 6 out of 10

The taste and quantity needs to be more consistent. The meat dishes definitely need more improvement. French bread is great.

Service

The restaurant is manned by 3-4 Vietnamese staff, including the chef. As the restaurant is not busy, the service is quite ok and our foods always arrive within reasonable time. The waitress is always friendly, understands simple English and service efficiency is quite ok by Vietnamese standards.

Ranking on Service: 7.5 out of 10

Price

The total bill was VND505,000, which is approximately US$28. In Vietnam, I find it cheaper to have Western, Korean or Japanese foods than Vietnamese foods. Very strange.

Ranking on Price: 8 out of 10

Overall

We have been here for breakfast, lunch and dinner and definitely will be back again, and again, and again........

We feel comfortable having our meals in the quiet environment, the service is reasonable good, I love the French bread, spaghetti is always something we love, price is reasonable, it is near where we stay (walking distance but we always drive and park right in front of the restaurant).

Overall Ranking: 7.5 out of 10

Yummy!

Lion City

New branch open in My Phuc, Phu My Hung, Dist 7

Had our dinner there on the 2nd day of opening. It was a busy Saturday night for the restaurant and we waited about 15 minutes to get a table as we insisted to sit inside to escape the hot and humid weather.

Back to the restaurant again the following morning for breakfast as we wanted to try the foods on the Breakfast Menu like Mee Siam, Toast with Kaya and Teh Tarik

Environment:

Unlike most restaurants in HCM, the air conditioning in this restaurant is blasting enough cool air and TT didn't sweat like a pig while having his dinner

Seating is not really comfortable and we could hear the noise from the kitchen and the yelling & screaming from the chef the whole time

The toilet is clean and you can't hear the chef screaming!!!

Rankingon environment: 4/10

Beverage:

Frosty Teh Tarik and we saw the kitchen staff really "tarik"

Frosty Kopi tarik not strong enough and still too sweet although we asked for "kurang manis"

Iced Peach Tea is too sweet according to WQ, but WH likes the taste

Ranking on beverage: 5/10

Food:

Toast with Kaya & Butter nothing compared to what we had back home

Curry chicken is ok but roti prata must be the frozen type

Fish Porridge - Disappointed because of fishy smell

There was also a lot of fish skin and tinny winny fish

The texture of the porridge wasn't very nice either,

it was a little gooey

Nasi Lemak big portion, can't imagine how small is the small portion. WS did not like the sunny side up fried egg as her prefers just normal fried egg;

otherwise, it is good.

Ordered Seafood Mee Goreng since Mee Siam was sold out.

Rated ***** on the menu but WS thought not enough seafood and mee, and too much vege(It's SEAFOOD mee goreng, of course it needs more seafood).

It was also a bit on the sweet side, probably too much sweet soy sauce.
Ranking on food: 5.5/10

Service:

On the Saturday dinner, we were lucky to get most of our foods within reasonable time frame, although it took about 15 minutes for them to bring one bowl of steam rice.

The customers sitting at both sides of our table were not as lucky,

one couple left after waiting for about half an hour when their chilli crabs probably still lying somewhere in the kitchen.

The other family waited about 20 minutes for their drinks and then decided to have their dinner somewhere else where they don't have to listen to the yelling from the chef.

Most of the staff need better training to handle the busy situation and no customers (and the staff) will enjoy listening to the chef's yelling at the top of his voice while having dinner.

Ranking on service: 3/10

Price:

The restaurant is having 50% discount on foods until 24th August. Overall, the prices here are higher as compared to other restaurants.

Ranking on price:4/10

Overall:

Can't compare to the foods back home but it is better than nothing and it is near where we stay. Hopefully service would improve with time and the chef is not stressed and in good mood when we go to dine there.

Ranking on Lion City: 4.5/10

YUCKY!