Ngu Pho - Serving Hanoi's Cha Ca Lang (Grilled Fish) @ Da Nang in Vietnam

Wandering aimlessly on our first day in Da Nang, we were unsure what to have for dinner until a picture of a familiar dish on a glass panel of a restaurant caught our attention and reminded me how good it was when I first had it in Hanoi. 

Ngu Pho, a restaurant originating from the last dynastic capital of Hue, serves Cha Ca Lang, which was a grilled fish dish from Hanoi. While it might not sound authentic, it's Google Maps review rating score of 4.3 was assuring. And seeing the picture actually made me crave for a bite! 

Interior of the restaurant on both levels one and two; for level two, it appeared to be fully reserved and we found out it was for a birthday party later. It might seem that business was bad but you have to understand that my family always prefers early dinners and the crowd started streaming in when we were about to leave.

Table layout with a free box of tissues at the side. 

Watermelon Juice - this was for Alex as I am a believer of eating fruits, instead of drinking juice, which was literally laden with sugar without much fiber. In addition, sugar syrup would likely be added. Whatever the case, Alex said it was thirst-quenching! 

Cha Ca Lang (Grilled Fish) - before we start with the signature dish for Ngu Pho, here's a short introduction on Cha Ca Lang, including a paragraph on how to enjoy the dish! p.s. Korean was included as Da Nang is extremely popular with Koreans! 

Preparation for our grilled fish, which was said to be sufficient for two persons. Pricing was 155,000 dong which was cheaper than the famous restaurant in Hanoi, Cha Ca Thang Long; that was priced 179,000 dong per person.

In addition to the mud-colored, foul smelling prawn paste, a separate small bowl of fish sauce with pickled vegetables was placed on our table. Frankly, service at Ngu Pho was much better than Cha Ca Thang Long. Back at the latter, we had to request the prawn paste from the waiter, who made it seemed like we were troubling him.

Despite the instructions I shared earlier on how to enjoy the grilled fish, please wait for the service staff to stir fry the fish for you first as you wouldn't know where to start, and what to do! Leave the cooking to the professionals! 

Final product; ready to dig in! 

Although there were just six pieces of grilled fish, each portion was chunky and despite its size, the meat remained soft, tender and delicious, bringing me back to the memorable time we had at Cha Ca Thang Long. 

Best way to eat isn't to eat the meat on it own; do mix in with the repertoire of the side ingredients for that orgasmic experience! An essential ingredient for me, would be the pungent prawn paste, which unfortunately, wasn't well liked by some, like Alex.

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Personally, I think this could give the Michelin-awarded Cha Ca Thang Long a run for their money, especially after considering the great service and the cheaper pricing. I will definitely bring my mom here when I revisit Da Nang in May next year! 

p.s. complimentary sour plum sweet to conclude the meal. 

Address

219 Trần Phú, Phước Ninh, 

Hải Châu, Đà Nẵng 55000, Vietnam

Map

As above.

Website

https://ngupho.vn/

Menu

As above

Pricing

Cha Ca Lang (Grilled Fish) - 155,000 dong

Watermelon Juice - 30,000 dong

(NETT)

Click here for my 8 Days' Itinerary to Danang (The City of Bridges) & Hoi An (The City of Lanterns) in Vietnam

White Rose Restaurant - Hoi An Specialty: The White Rose Dumplings @ Hoi An in Vietnam

The specialty of Hoi An, when it comes to food, is supposed to be a noodle dish known as Cao Lau which doesn't appear appetizing to me! For me, the specialty should be the white rose dumplings! 

So unique were the dumplings that you can't find them outside of this UNESCO World Heritage site! Recipe was said to be secret; to the extent that any eateries serving them had to procure them from only one source in Hoi An; the white rose restaurant.

I was expecting a large crowd but maybe because it was still early at only 9.45 am, the usual tourists on day tours had yet to arrive, giving us plenty of tables to choose from.

Step further in and you would see an army of ladies working on moulding the white rose dumplings. They seemed accustomed to my DSLR and continued to concentrate in preparing the signature dish.

Frankly, the dumplings might look like flowers but not in the form and shape of the roses that I remember. Nevertheless, it's still the taste that matters most! Strangely for a restaurant, there were only two food dishes on the menu!

Complimentary glass of Vietnamese iced tea (known as tra da) although you do have choices of other beverages like soft drinks, juices, and even beer. p.s. there were more selections for drinks as compared to food.

White Rose Dumplings - the star of the restaurant! Just to manage your expectations, there were two types of steamed dumplings on the same plate; the signature rose dumpling which was smaller. The larger, plumper ones had the appearance of conventional dumplings, and were stuffed with more ingredients.

Attacking the white rose dumplings first! Please don't discount the small piece of meat (said to be made from prawns but I suspected pork was added) in the middle. It managed to pack a punch of sweet savoriness with the white translucent dough creating a necessary buffer to perfectly balance the flavor. 

Eating it with fried crispy shallots was just pure bliss!

p.s. especially for a person who loves shallots.

The "other" dumplings had fillings like black fungus, carrots and beansprouts. Overall taste was peppery and I would suggest dipping them into the accompanying lime-sweet, fish sauce, for a better flavor. 

Fried Wonton -  I was honestly surprised when this was placed on our table.

Each fried wonton was larger than my fist and this was just incomparable to my other friend wontons I have in my entire life. From far, I actually thought this was a pizza! 

Well, I ate it like a pizza slice too! Tomato sauce and prawn on top a piece of wonton skin, I would say this was akin to having sweet and sour pork, with crunchy wonton skin! Very interesting and definitely excited my taste buds. 

Meat filling in the wonton was quite pathetic though. Most importantly, it didn't a useful role; similar to wanton noodles, where the noodles count a lot more than the wantons. 

Unlike the white rose dumplings, I found the fried wonton cloying after a while even though the blame must be attributed to Alex, who was trying to cut down on fried stuff and literally stopped after just one "slice" of fried wonton! 

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Would be back for both food dishes! My next trip would be with my mom and compared to Alex, she would likely help me to finish the food as she doesn't like to waste food! 

Short video showing how the white dumplings were moulded. 

Address

533 Đ. Hai Bà Trưng, Phường Cẩm Phổ, 

Hội An, Quảng Nam, Vietnam

Map

As above.

Menu

As above.

Pricing

White Rose Dumplings - 70,000 dong

Fried Wonton -  100,000 Dong

Click here for my 8 Days' Itinerary to Danang (The City of Bridges) & Hoi An (The City of Lanterns) in Vietnam

Dehappy Seafood Restaurant @ Penang in Malaysia

The tummy was rumbling after we checked in to our hotel in Penang, St Giles Wembley and since it's our official first meal; let's have seafood! My last-minute research brought me to the nearby Dehappy Seafood Restaurant, that had the view of the towering Komtar at the back!

Commanding a decent review score of 4.1 from over 1,000 reviewers on Google Maps, we found a spacious non-air-conditioned restaurant. With its high ceiling, and ceiling fans, ventilation was good and I don't remember feeling hot and humid when I was dining there.

Live seafood tanks with their prices clearly marked out; crabs were RM200 per kilogram, Australian lobster was RM680 per kilogram etc. I am unsure about the prices for seafood, except for crabs where it would cost about S$100-S$120 per kilogram reputable seafood restaurants in Singapore. 

Loving the free tissue dispenser and the plastic gloves! In Singapore, the restaurants would have charged us for wet tissue, although some would provide us with a large bowl of lime water to wash our hands. Speaking of that, I think they stopped providing the lime water after COVID-19; guess for hygiene reasons. 

Mom would have nodded her head in agreement to see the cut green chilli. For me, I actually fell in love with the coarsely chopped garlic; more about it later. 

Pu-er Tea - knowing the amount of seafood we would be ordering for just two persons, a pot of tea would be the most suitable beverage to make us feel less sinful about our meal. 

Seaweed Seafood Soup - while I love seaweed and was looking forward to having a nice, steaming hot bowl of seafood soup to placate my tummy before the rest of the seafood were served. 

Although it also contained prawns, squids, mushrooms, crabsticks and baby corns, the flavor was more seaweed than seafood. Seafood was generally tasteless with the exception of crab sticks, which are actually processed than real seafood. Disappointing.

Singapore Chilli Crab - first thing I do when it comes to chilli crab was to have a spoonful of their gravy, to determine if it meets the cut! And this gravy was nice; not watery, with cut chilli spiciness and loads of appetising garlic to whet my appetite! 

Pity the crab was pretty small at just about 500 grams and the meat was just insufficient to make this chilli crab dish satisfying! The larger Sri Lankan crabs would have been much better. 

Crispy Mantou Buns - only starch for us that night.

Thin, crisp shell with soft, sweet insides; the optimal combination for a fried bun that was perfect with the thick, delicious chilli crab gravy! Shiok max! 

Salted Egg Yolk Crab - despite the light salted egg batter, the flavor was weak and the meat was stuck to the crab shells, making the dining experience very frustrating! 

Shell was soft enough to be chewed through and ingested but I needed a conduit to up the flavor; here comes the chilli crab gravy to the rescue!  

Boiled Live Tiger Prawns - at just RM45 for seven plump tiger prawns, these tasted so fresh, with the crunchiness and sweetness much sought after by prawns lovers! 

Prawn lovers like Alex! 

What better way to taste the freshness of seafood than to boil / steam them! And to enhance the flavor, you would need the coarsely chopped garlic. I never knew it could make boiled prawns taste so unforgettable amazing! 

So unforgettable we returned the next day for the prawns again.

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Even though I wasn't happy with the seaweed seafood soup and the salted egg crab (this was a surprise as it was recommended by a few reviewers), just the prawns alone would make us return if we ever go back to Penang!

Address

58, Jalan Macalister, 

10400 George Town, 

Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

Map

As above.

Menu

As above.

Pricing

Pu-er Tea - RM 8.00

Seaweed Seafood Soup - RM 12.00

Boiled Live Tiger Prawns (S) - RM 45.00

Singapore Chilli Crab - RM 100.00

Crispy Mantou Buns (S) - RM 6.00

Salted Egg Yolk Crab - RM 100.00

(Subject to Service Charge and Tax)

Click here for my Five Days 

Itinerary to Penang in 2024