Return to Saigon

 25 August 2023

 

SAIGON

Kloof Street, Cape Town

 

At the outset, I humbly apologise for the lack of visual impact to these notes but I hadn’t originally intended writing about this dinner at Saigon because I’ve praised the restaurant so often before but, with the wife’s gentle persuasion, here I am.

 

We took the in-laws to Saigon’s new, temporary premises below the mothership that’s being renovated and improved, and it was yet again, regardless of the space/time continuum, a superlative culinary encounter.

 

The downstairs space has hosted many eateries over the quarter of a century that Saigon has lorded it over Kloof Street; I remember one of the Keg franchises and Da Vinci’s. The sign over the front door says Loco but it’s anything but crazy inside.

 

The interior is divided into corners and different levels which, to me, makes it cosier than upstairs Saigon was, and bare brick “feature” walls and heavy curtains add to the effect. The slight downside is that the tables seem to be closer together than what we’ve been used to (those Covid days of vast spaces between tables are long gone) and this can make one’s table conversation a tad trying.

 

The menu has changed, i.e., it’s in a different physical shape, but I think the crown pleasers are still present and correct.

 

Tonight, I came for the pho bo, the Vietnamese take on Japanese ramen, and not the extraordinarily excellent belly pork dish.  My starter was a small plate with four tasty mushroom pot stickers (looking like the fossilised skeletons of some ancient insectoid creature)

and the main was the (large) “Asian” version of the pho bo.

The wife had the (small) “Western” size

, and her starter was the crystal prawn rolls.

 

The pho had lots of shreds of beef, some vegetable matter, thin noodles and a supremely flavourful broth and though comparisons are odorous, the pho both seems to have greater depth of flavour than ramen broth, though the latter possibly overcomes that deficiency with its pork content. Anyhow, the pho bo was delicious to the max and  quite filling.

 

The father-in-law’s starter was crispy fried duck spring rolls and his main was sweet and sour pork with noodles. The mother-in-law’s starter was either a lamb or pork dumpling and her main was the won ton prawn soup, also in “Western” portion size, and she added some surplus noodles from her husband’s dish to bulk up the soup.

 

The four of us shared a bottle of Leopard’s Leap bubbly, the other three shared another one and I switched to Singha beer.

 

The desserts didn’t speak to us tonight.

 

The bill came to R1750,00 inclusive of tip.

 

I could’ve summarised our experience as “Wow! Just wow!” or something as simplistic as that, though I could hardly praise Saigon as hidden gem too. Saigon provides consistent quality and we’ve never been disappointed.