Ho Thi Ky Food Street in Ho Chi Minh City [Vietnam]

Should I be travelling with only Alex, there's a high chance you wouldn't find me exploring any food streets as Alex has a small stomach (picky as hell too) and I always believe in sharing so that there's opportunity to try a greater variety of food.

Thankfully, there were four of us for my inaugural visit to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and the Great Kon penciled in a visit to Ho Thi Ky, said to be the most popular food street in the city! 

Do note that Ho Thi Ky is a flower market in the daytime and the street would only attract food connoisseurs past 5pm, when operators set up their makeshift stalls. You can still find some flower stores but the numbers were small enough for me to assume it could be just a few random florists. 

The real action began right inside. 

If in doubt, follow the crowd! 

I absolutely love how the Vietnamese love to photobomb my pictures! Natural, unpretentious and totally unexpected. They were not shy to be in the photographs and appeared to treat it as "fun". I shall behave more like them in the future, when people are taking photographs towards my direction! 

While we did intend to have dinner; our modus operandi would be to scan through the street first to see what's available and then get some food on our way back to the entrance. 

Be prepared for over 80 photographs! I tried to take as many as I could to give you a rough guide and reference to the type of foods you can get from the food street. Do note that signs were generally in Vietnamese.

Typical low tables and stools may be placed outside some stalls for ease of eating the food; please keep in mind that being seated that low along a busy street may not be that great, especially if you have someone who farts while walking past you! Anyway, I still prefer to sit, where possible.

The above would be what you should expect.

Loving the vibe, including the aroma of food surrounding us! 

Smell of grilled meat and food was so enticing! But knowing my declining stomach capacity, I knew I had to ration. Failing which, I would overindulge and may even be done with less than half of the food street before calling it a day. 

Steamed snails! 

I have tried snails before and don't particularly like it. However, I was seriously considering the above! Known more commonly as balut, it's called trứng vịt lộn and is essentially a "fertilized developing egg embryo that is boiled or steamed and eaten from the shell". Heard it had an exquisite yet delicious taste.

Dragon's breath; it was in the news recently due to some health hazards in Indonesia where the liquid nitrogen coating the candies resulted in "burns in the mouth and esophagus".

Is this tripe? Looks like coral.

Sugary drinks; these would have appealed to me when I was much younger. Now that I am no longer as young, the preferred options would be plain water or unsweetened drinks.  

Different types of marination / flavors / cooking for snails?  Eating snails are so popular that there are dedicated snail restaurants known as Quán Ốc. 

Store that sells bags of what appeared to be rice paper with lime, seasoning etc. Seemed like basic sets where customers can purchase and then add in other fresh ingredients like vegetables, and maybe meat.

View of food street again! 

Papaya salad from Thailand? When I am overseas, the one thing you don't see me having would be salad as I am quite particular with hygiene and anything that's raw increases the risk of diarrhea; a situation I want to avoid given my sensitive tummy.

Same goes for seafood and they were a lot more tempting than salad! I was just talking to a friend recently that I have never had an upset stomach in Thailand, and she mentioned she had a few friends who got sick after eating squid! So, I am now a lot more hesitant whenever I see squids on street stalls.

Meat skewers with cheese; as I am not that big a cheese fan, I would make do without the cheese and save a few pennies. 

Candies in bottles in the shape of BE@RBRICK.

Any copyright issues?  

Vietnamese 'pizzas'; I have been wanting to try this Vietnamese street food for quite some time. But let's just proceed along to check if there's any other food I wanted to try and maybe list them down in order of "want to eat", "maybe can eat" or "don't want to eat".

Are these mashed up green chilli?

Bet this would give me a fiery output the next day!

Tempting, tempting, tempting!

Grilled sea urchins; I was more curious about this than the lobsters but I didn't see many customers. For me, more customers would mean a high turnover for the food, and likely contribute to fresher food.

My favourite Thai moo ping in Vietnam! 

Why they did bastardize it by putting cheese?!  

10,000 dong for each was insanely cheap!

That's like only 60 Singapore cents. 

With such a narrow strip, it's impossible to have cars coming in. 

I don't remember seeing any motorbikes too.

Moo ping appeared to be quite popular in the food street! Even in Singapore, it's common nowadays to see moo ping in pasar malams. Pricing was obviously much higher in the little red dot.

Quail egg mini pancakes! 

From the display of chicken screamers, I am assuming this would be for chicken skewers although the side pot contained sticks of Korean fish cakes. Guess the chicken screamers were mere decorations.

Here's a store that sold toys that could have been around even when I was a kid! I always wonder how such toys can survive nowadays given the kids' addiction to tablets.

My mom would love to get her hands on some of these. I didn't buy as she could be picky and even if she were with me, high chance she would ask for samples, before making a purchase. 

Another Singapore ice cream! I think foreigners look at the bread and wafer biscuits as iconic and traditional for Singapore ice cream, although in my opinion, my favorite was the cone with the attap chee, sweet corn ice cream. 

Twister potatoes! Friends who know I don't like potato products with maybe French fries as the exception. I had to admit that I tried this once in Singapore and it was darn addictive! You never want to stop because it's one whole piece, and easier to just finish them rather than keep for later.

My favorite deep fried snacks! 

Control, control, control.

Meat with lemongrass; this would likely infuse the meat with the nice lemongrass aroma. Frankly, I have no idea what meat was used; google translate draws a blank too.

If rent is cheap, I would say the barriers for entry to set up a food stall might not be that difficult. From the above, the most expensive cost would be booth and the two sandwich toasters that cost like only S$60 each. Key thing is that the batter you concoct must be able to impress diners! 

The grilled bananas looked unappetizing! 

And these were drenched in caramel ! I am not sure about you but I would be more than happy to eat those ripe Cavendish bananas with no 'embellishment", rather than these utterly sinful ones. 

Look, see, look, see.

Vietnamese spring rolls! Aside from pho, the spring rolls were also one of the first few items to be brought into the food scene in Singapore. I tried numerous times, from different eateries, and my verdicts were "let's spend the calories on other food".

Piggy banks! I regretted not buying even though I didn't like their vibrant colors. Oh well, I shall keep a lookout for better designed piggy banks in my coming trip to Hanoi! 

Quails I guess.

To attract customers, you need eye-catching staff. Exaggerated makeup would bound to attract both male and female customers. Problem is; you might scare the kids! 

My friends found an empty tables and we decided to finally have some dinner! Issue was, what should we have? I might be tempted to have something I spotted earlier but were to lazy to walk all the way to the front. 

Let's proceed with food and I made a beeline for Vietnamese pizza! For the items we had at Ho Thi Ky Food Street, please click here; most impressed with the Avocado Ice Cream and this pig brain soup!

Continuing our journey back to the entrance, post-dinner. 

Chicken feet! To be honest, I am not your typical Chinese when it comes to food as there are quite a few things I don't eat. For example, internal organs, blood, snout, parson's nose, and chicken feet.

These appeared delicious! 

Sadly, I was too full! 

Playing carnival games seemed like a nice conclusion after a meal and this balloon game caught the attention of my friend, who decided to give it a go! 30,000 dong for seven darts! 

Don't play play; I remember he used to participate in dart competitions! 

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Address

107 a Đ. Hồ Thị Kỷ, Phường 1, Quận 10, 

Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, Vietnam

Map

As above.

Operating Hours

From 5pm till 10pm

Click here for my 6 Days Itinerary in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) - Pearl of the Far East @ Vietnam