Bien Nho
District 7
592 Le Van Luong, Tan Phong Ward, District 7 (Nguyen Huu Tho)
Ho Chi Minh City
37762236
Hours
16:00 - 24:00
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| Food |   |
| Service | |
| Ambiance | |
| Overall | |
Features
English language menu
private room
private parties
kid friendly
large groups ok
outdoor/patio dining
nice view
Accepts
cash
Smoking
permitted
Dress
casual
Alcohol
wine / beer
Parking
own parking lot
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Top: Vietnam:
Ho Chi Minh City: District 7
Description
Toward Saigon South, along a major road that runs south from the city, past - and ultimately to - Phu My Hung, and intersecting with a road from the other part of District 7, that is, Le Van Luong, sits a wedge shaped corner block where this restaurant is located.
Bien Nho - the sea remembered - or, the sea missed - is a specialty seafood eatery.
A big open ground floor, seating perhaps 60 or more people outdoors and indoors, with tanks containing live sea creatures, barbecues, etc.; an upstairs floor that seats, on an open but covered deck, up to 120 people; with an additional couple of air-conditioned rooms for private parties or family occasions.
This is one of THE places to eat seafood in Saigon South. However, in accord with its reputation and popularity, the food prices are not cheap.
The place is swarming with waitstaff.
The ambience is of a place open to breezes and the evening air, with good views of the juxtaposed locale thereabouts: the Phu My Hung apartment blocks, the busy roads, the countryside.
Reviews
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Ambience for seafood
I have eaten at this place maybe 10 or a dozen times over the past 3 years or so.
Every time I have been impressed by the quality of the fresh seafood. They make superb shrimp, molluscs, crab dishes. I go there when I'm missing barbecue molluscs like cockles, or fresh ones (ie live oysters like we eat in Australia), or barbecue shrimp. Or to eat special VNese dishes like crab roasted with tamarind sauce.
Beers are cheap, even though the food is not. Heinekens 15,000 VND.
However, for example, my VNese friend and I ate there the other night for 500,000 VND: an oyster apiece; a big VNese cockle variety apiece; 2 big bbq shrimp - the size of Aussie King prawns; a kilo of crabs with tamarind sauce; her soft drink and my 3 beers.
Not cheap. But delicious.
Ambience superb. Lovely breeze. Open air. On the deck upstairs.
Waitstaff unobtrusive but attentive. Well disciplined and trained.
Drunk, I fancy I could throw a cricket ball from the deck and hit Sky Garden apartments at Phu My Hung. I couldn't of course, not even in my younger days. But metaphorically. Yet in all my visits, I have yet to see another Caucasian foreigner eating here.
Most times I've been, I've seen Taiwanese, Koreans or Japanese, often with VNese wives or girlfriends. Now presumably they are most likely from PMH, yet many Caucs live there too. I raised this with my friend. Why? It's because, she replied in VNese, you Tay (Westerners) don't like seafood. No, I said. That's not so. Then she began to make me list my friends, the ones who say they don't like to play with their food, who like to eat things they can use implements to eat with, not get their hands sticky and dirty, etc.
True, maybe; I had to admit she had a point. I thought for a while about the seafood eating habits of my fellow Australians: filleted fish (with chips), prawns on the barbie, half a dozen oysters for entree once a year when you go to a flash place. Finito. In VN, that selection does not, a seafood lover make. Point taken.
A new lesson for me to learn about VN, foreigners, and the particularities of people's eating habits.
Update 26 August 2008: the current world food prices issue which is hitting VN has taken its toll here too. A similar meal to my above review, oysters, BBQ shrimp, 2 BBQ crabs, cost 600,000 VND, up by about 20% from the price quoted above, from nearly a year ago. Also custom was down, with a place packed to the rafters in the past only about 25% occupied. Maybe VNese really are feeling the current economic pinch. I know I am. But hell, I haven't eaten here for 6 months, and it was so good to be back. Meal of the month. Never eaten better BBQ shrimp anywhere or anytime. Crabs great too. I've upped the star rating on food and overall. [31 Oct 2007 10:50:30]
Food: Service: Ambiance: Overall:
Recommended Dishes: seafood - you choose; bbq shrimp; bbq crab
ian
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