What to Eat in Ho Chi Minh City: Banh Mi, Com Tam and Street Food

Fuelled by the fertile Mekong Delta to the south and centuries of Chinese, Khmer and French culinary exchange, Ho Chi Minh City is one of Asia's great street-food capitals. Compared with Hanoi, southern Saigonese cooking is bolder, slightly sweeter, and served alongside overflowing baskets of basil, sawtooth herb, perilla, bean sprouts and fiery bird's-eye chillies. Follow the city's appetite from early-morning broken-rice grills in District 1 and District 3 to late-night seafood alleys in District 4.

Five signature Saigonese dishes to seek out

• Com Tam (Saigonese broken rice): the quintessential local comfort dish, originally made from the fractured rice grains left over from milling in the Mekong Delta. Order com tam suon bi cha to get a steaming mound of tender broken rice topped with a smoky, lemongrass-and-honey-marinated pork chop grilled over charcoal right on the pavement, shredded pork skin (bi), steamed egg-and-pork meatloaf (cha trung), scallion oil and sweet-garlicky fish sauce.
• Banh Mi Sai Gon: unlike heavier European baguettes, a Saigonese banh mi uses rice-and-wheat flour for an airy crumb and paper-thin, shattering crust. Split warm from the oven, it is slathered with rich liver pate and butter mayo, then packed with char siu roast pork, Vietnamese cold cuts (cha lua), cucumber, fresh coriander, chillies and sweet-sour pickled daikon and carrot (do chua).
• Banh Xeo and Banh Khot (crispy turmeric crepes): sizzling golden rice-flour and coconut-milk crepes studded with whole prawns, pork belly and mung beans, fried to lacy crispness in cast-iron pans on places like Dinh Cong Trang Street; tear off a piece, wrap it in mustard leaf or lettuce with fresh herbs, and dip into citrusy fish sauce.
• Hu Tieu Nam Vang and Southern Pho: clear pork-and-dried-squid noodle soup (hu tieu, served either in broth or dry-tossed with sauce on the side) and rich southern beef pho accompanied by a jungle of fresh herbs, lime and hoisin sauce on Pasteur Street.
• Oc (District 4 street-side snails and shellfish): along Vinh Khanh Street in District 4 after dark, plastic tables fill with plates of sea snails, clams and scallops wok-tossed with salted egg yolk, garlic butter, lemongrass or tamarind.

Ca phe sua da, apartment cafes and tropical fruit

Saigon runs on ca phe sua da: dark roasted robusta coffee brewed slowly through a metal phin filter over thick sweetened condensed milk and poured over cracked ice (or ordered with a splash of coffee in a tall glass of milk as bac xiu). Try traditional cloth-filter stocking coffee (ca phe vot) in a District 3 alleyway or climb the 42 Nguyen Hue Cafe Apartments during our three-day Ho Chi Minh City itinerary.