Those who love seafood go to Song Ngu
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In the know: Many of the restaurant's patrons are Japanese, who are seafood aficionados. - VNS Photos Sunny Rose
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Flying fish : Grouper with tomato sauce.
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Song Ngu Restaurant
Add: 70-72 Suong Nguyet Anh, District 1, HCM City
Tel: +84 8 3832 5017
Hours: 10am to 10pm
Comment: A seafood delight, price ranging from VND55,000 to VND2,300,000
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by Vo Le Hong
The signs were good as we walked into the Song Ngu Restaurant. A beautiful woman in a beautiful ao dai welcomed us, the laps of her dress flitting like butterflies. Since I was going to have dinner with friends from Singapore, I felt proud of our national dress, which never fails to make an impression on visitors.
A waitress apologised profusely. There was no table available for us immediately, because too many guests had made reservations. We noticed that most of the diners were Japanese, people who know their seafood. That was another good sign. We did not need the heavy rain outside as an excuse to wait.
The wait was worth it. On offer as appetisers was a tantalizing array of dishes including grilled shrimp paste on sugar cane; Song Ngu's special scallop salad served in scallop shells; abalone soup with crab meat; and delicious and crunchy seafood spring rolls.
The light entres were even more tempting, especially for shellfish fans. They range from lobster sashimi to Song Ngu drunken tiger prawns, where luscious fresh prawns are cooked at your table on a flame created by lighting a plate of alcohol.
Then there is a Vietnamese favorite "Cua rang me": sauteed crab in pungent tamarind sauce. There are also crispy fried grouper sauteed in orange juice, and fresh clams steamed in coconut milk or lemongrass. Song Ngu takes pride in their double shell crabs, a special delicacy that very few restaurants have, cooked to the customer's liking – steamed in beer, grilled or fried.
A fried grouper was brought to our table as though it was still swimming in red tomato sauce. The shape of the fish made me think about the bounty that the oceans offer us.
There is so much about seafood to enjoy, from the most common fish to fancy lobsters, crabs and so on. But there is something unique and special about the red grouper, its mild flavour that makes it a gourmet's delight.
According to fishermen, black groupers can be raised but red ones are "wild", found in places with coral reefs like Nha Trang and Con Son.
Then we had cuttlefish dried for a day with a dip of fish sauce, a mixture of garlic, red hot pepper and a lit bit of sugar. It was delicious and matched well with the mouthfuls of white wine we were imbibing from time to time.
My Singapore friends remarked with more than a hint of envy that Vietnamese are so lucky to have such rich marine sources while they imported most of their food.
Indeed, the long coastline gives seafood a strong place or in any Vietnamese menu, but owners of Song Ngu are determined to make their fare extra special with an innovative menu featuring the best variety from different Vietnamese coastal regions.
The restaurant is very particular about where its ingredients come from. "While we could choose crabs from Ba Ria because it is easier and cheaper, we only source them from Soc Trang, which yields the best crabs in Viet Nam. Our oysters, meanwhile, must come from Long Son, Ba Ria – Vung Tau where the water nurtures the plumpest, juiciest oysters to be savored raw with a dash of lime and fiery green wasabi," said Le Tuan Khai, owner of the restaurant.
"We ensure that even the most discerning gourmands will be pleased with the quality of our seafood, which is as much about texture and freshness as about flavors."
The hotpots or steamboats that the restaurant serves – Thai style steamboat, raw seafood steamboat, or steamboat with the best king prawns from the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta – should be tried one at a time.
And all the food can be accompanied with selections from by a carefully chosen wine list, from fresh, excellent William Fever chardonnay, full-flavored Luis Felipe Reserve sauvignon blanc, to different types of red wine for those who prefer a glass of red wine with seafood.
"The seafood is superb, delicious! The food and service here gets five stars but the tea is a "no star", not good enough," one of my friends commented at the end of our dinner.
Fair enough, I thought. - VNS