Vegan Street Food in Vietnam_ Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon

It's estimated that about 11% of the workforce in Ho Chi Minh City are made up of informal street food vendors. And this is what I found. It's really good. There are dozens of food stalls here but I chose this one for a few reasons. When I first walked by I saw this, which I believe means vegetarian, and then I saw all of the tofu up here and there was a bunch of tofu here as well. And then they were super nice and they weren't pestering me to buy anything, which I appreciate because that's the thing that happens here. And then there was a very kind woman that spoke a bit of English who helped me learn that in fact it was fully vegan, at least a couple of the options. And they were super nice because I was short on money and I had to go to the ATM, come back, and give them the rest of the money and they were super cool with it. Didn't give me a problem. Got the exact change back. Highly recommend this place. I don't know what it's called. This is what it looks like. I don't know what exactly it's called but it's just mung bean with sticky rice. And it's really yummy. It's like the soy bath has more of a corn and salty sweet thing and the mung bean is really sweet and really yummy. So do you want to try it? Yeah, let's try it. Let's try. This is the mung bean. The mung bean one, yeah. And this is usually a breakfast thing? Yeah. Or like a snack or whatever. Oh, it's not a snack. It's really basic. Can you imagine getting full on that? This is a pretty nutritious snack and it's healthy. So you got the sticky rice with the corn, some fried onions, and then the coconut right on top. Get a little cute spoon with it. What do you think? This is like a stickier version of porridge I guess, yeah. Cool, and so you can get this at any... Yeah, normally it's like the 4.9. You can get it in like little street stands and like women with baskets carry it around. Okay, and a reasonable price is around 5,000 dong for each one. Yeah, for each one separately. If you get a bigger box, there's also like a bigger, a fuller box. It's 10,000 for one. But normally the price is 5,000. Cool. It's good, right? It's like a stick. They squeeze a stick and out comes this amazing juice. That's crazy. Pomelos are super sweet and really, really, really, really good. And then my favorite is the pomegranate juice. Oh, okay. And you know how pomegranate is normally red? Yeah. This one's pink, like light pink. And it doesn't have the tartness and the bitterness of the pomegranate. It's really tasty. So do you want to get one of each? Sure, yeah. One pomelo juice and one pomegranate. I'm trying the fresh pomegranate juice that we just picked up. It's refreshing and it's really, really good. Oh my gosh. Okay, so explain what we have here. So this is like apple banana wrapped in sticky rice and wrapped in a banana leaf and then grilled. And then they take the leaf off, obviously, and they cut it into pieces and pour over some homemade coconut milk. So in this coconut milk, I asked, it's just coconut milk and rice flour to thicken it. And then on top there's some sesame seeds, toasted sesame seeds. You like it? Oh my gosh, it's so good. And it's hot as well. Like, I didn't get it at first, but they serve most of the desserts or snacks. Who doesn't call it hot? So there's this hot tofu dessert or snack or whatever. The thing that I've come to appreciate and love about Saigon is that the scooter riders that just pull up and order something from these little stands and then keep going, which we did with the juice earlier, but we sat here when we were having our unnamed goodies. And it's really kind of cool. I haven't seen that anywhere else. So now we're stopping to get some fried banana and those are fried sweet potatoes. Yep, that's a fried banana. It kind of reminds me of, you know those McDonald's like pie tart things? Yeah, it totally does. It's not the apple one, but it's like a banana version of it. Like the crust really reminds me of that. And then like the greasiness of it. Ooh, look at all those cashews. Wow. They will turn into this. Or that. Or this one. I'm here with Laina, this is Sarah. And they've just, they're renting this space that we're in now because Sarah makes vegan cake, cakes, and Laina makes vegan cheese and they've come together to create a space that they can work together and make their individual amazing things. Oh my gosh, that's the tofu? Yeah. So that's the tofu. She scoops it in so that she cuts it already for you. So this is tapioca pearls. Oh, okay. And this is the ginger and lemongrass syrup. Oh, wow. And that's her homemade coconut milk. Oh my gosh, this looks amazing. It's really good. So this one's yours. Okay, I'm going to try this one. Let's see. Yeah, try it. Just don't mix it. It's a crime when you completely mix like the dish. It's definitely different. Yeah. It's okay. It's not bad. I like the tapioca, actually. Yeah? Yeah. It costs anywhere from $3,000 to $6,000. It depends on the size. Sometimes they're big. Sometimes they're... This is a smaller size. You also get them super big. Okay. But it's just a fried dough, basically. It's sweet. It has a lot of sesame seeds on it. And it's really yummy. Oh, okay. Yeah, I got mine. It means donut that just happens to be vegan. Yeah, it happens. Oh, yeah. It's kind of like a donut. It's like a fried bread. Yeah. But it's sweet. And it's tasty. Yeah. I just spent almost five... Did we just say five hours? Almost five, yeah. Almost five hours with this amazing woman, a local vegan in Saigon who took me around some of the street vendors and things that you might not otherwise think about stopping at because you don't know if the options are vegan or what's safe to eat or whatever. So, thank you so much for spending your morning with me. It was so cool.