Where I Had Breakfast Every Morning in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Usually when I say breakfast, I mean about 9:30 - 10:30 AM. In Vietnam I had breakfast, like the real kind, between the hours of 6 - 7:30 AM. Lucky for me, my jet lag had me Googling “Vietnamese breakfast District 1” bright and early on my first morning there. Yes, I had researched coffee shops, and yes my hotel offered breakfast but as a rule of thumb I don’t eat hotel breakfasts, even at nice hotels, it’s a waste of a real food experience, and coffee shops weren’t open as early as I was ready for them.

My morning desperation lead me to one of the great revelations of my four days in Ho Chi Minh City, still called Saigon, for the most part: Nhu Lan Bakery. If you’re a Miami reader, I’ll cut to the chase, it’s basically just like Palacio De Los Jugos, but Vietnamese. We ate alongside professional looking people, mostly men, I noticed we were fueling up on real food to start the day (I also do not believe in dessert for breakfast, ie: french toast).

“The banh mi is the equivalent of $1.08. The pho (with beef, chicken or beef-bal aka meatballs was $2.15. We added on some strawberry banana milkshakes every morning and iced coffee, because the Vietnamese are as obsessed with an iced coffee at a level that rivals my own addiction, and the whole thing would come out to under $5. You can understand why we went back everyday. ”

Open at 4 AM everyday and located just a short walk from my hotel, The Myst Dong Koi, this was our morning go-to not once, not twice but four morning of my trip. And yes, I realize that I basically treated it like a hotel breakfast and ate from the same place everyday.

Nhu Lan is an open air cafeteria with different vendors lining the perimeter where you can order and go on your way or you can sit inside and order at the table from any of the vendors. This led to some confusion the first day but the Vietnamese are very, very accommodating people who were truly nonplussed by our total lack of understanding and just pointed to us what we should do next (ie: sit, order from menu, pay at guy sitting at a table with a cashier).

Let me get to the part you’re wondering about - the banh mi is the equivalent of $1.08. The pho (with beef, chicken or beef-bal aka meatballs was $2.15. We added on some strawberry banana milkshakes every morning and iced coffee, because the Vietnamese are as obsessed with an iced coffee at a level that rivals my own addiction, and the whole thing would come out to under $5. You can understand why we went back everyday.

I should clarify that we would order a bahn mi, pho and these milkshakes and coffee, or some variation of that combination, every morning and split it with husband Jazz, who you may recognize from the Instagram stories where I record him doing very neurotic things in our kitchen.