Pawn 200,000 VND and enjoy a food tour at the 100-year-old “Fuyu Market”

Phung Hung Market is located on two streets, Phung Hung – Lao Tu, in District 5, forming a T-shaped market park. In the 1930s, carts from all directions flocked to Binh Tay Market and Soai Kinh Lam Market, choosing this place as a landing point. District, thus forming a toad market selling food and drinks. Later, because it was located near the Capital Theater, the market was also called the Capital Market.

From early morning to noon, the market sells fresh food, full of vegetables, meat and seafood. Because the prices are higher than many places, Phung Hung Market is known as the rich market in Ho Chi Minh City.

In the afternoon, the market “transforms”. The meat, fish, fruit and vegetable stalls are replaced by rows of cheap and popular food stalls, and until about 10 pm, it is crowded with diners.

Café Baru is essentially a cart filled with a variety of soft drinks, coffee pots, tea filters, and a few small tables on the sidewalk or near the curb.

On the door behind the vending cart, the owner hangs photos of special guests who have visited, including beauty queen H’Hen Nie. The name Ba Lu was originally the nickname of the first owner, “Lu” is the Cantonese pronunciation of the word “lu”.

The small corner of the store is always filled with the aroma of black tea and the strong aroma of coffee. Every morning, when the owner roasts coffee on the side street, the aroma still envelops people’s hearts. Baru’s specialty is milk tea, which uses a large net to filter tea leaves to create the traditional Hong Kong socks milk tea. The owner, Mr. Hong, started learning this craft at the age of 10 and inherited his father’s business in his 20s.

1 part milk – 5 parts tea or coffee. Baloo’s drink is rich in flavor and needs to be drunk slowly while hot, sipping every drop of flavor leisurely. This is also a way to avoid tea or coffee drunkenness.

Each cup of milk tea, black coffee and milk coffee is priced at the same VND25,000. The egg coffee alone costs VND30,000. In addition to the main drink, customers can also enjoy black tea as a dessert for free.

Unlike Hanoi egg coffee, which is made by beating egg cream with sugar and milk into coffee, Chinese egg coffee is made by beating a fresh egg into a cup and then pouring hot coffee into it. Diners stir well to dissolve the egg into the coffee and drink it while it is hot to avoid the fishy smell.

One of the delicious dishes that makes up the Phung Hung Market brand is Chilli Bitter Melon – often jokingly called “Chilli Bitter Melon”. This is a time-honored snack for the Hakka people (Hakka people). Big red peppers, bitter melon, eggplant are sliced, stuffed into fish cakes, and then cooked with fried tofu in a soup full of peppercorn and chili flavors. A special “tongue-twister” dish for a cool rainy day.

Most of the spicy taste of the chili spreads into the soup, so when you bite into a piece of fish cake stuffed with chili, you can only hear a faint spicy taste. Each meal costs 45,000 VND. In addition, the store also sells many dishes such as stewed pork, braised spare ribs, dumpling noodles, rice cakes… The price is 40,000-50,000 VND.

The bitter melon shop is always the most popular in the market. The shop owner said that the shop consumes about 1,000 liters of broth every day. 6-7 people cannot take turns to serve. The seats for diners go from the house to the sidewalk.

Opposite, a pot of steamed spring rolls filled with steamed flowers, with the tempting aroma of rice flour. The owner poured a thin layer of flour on the cloth covering the pot, beat the eggs, added shrimp, minced meat and scallops, and steamed them until cooked.

The shell of the spring roll is opaque white, soft and smooth, and thicker than the Vietnamese roll. Each roll of rice paper with squid roll costs 77,000 VND. People in the Cho Lon area have been familiar with this dish for 40 years.

The same restaurant also serves Southern-style banh xeo. The pancakes are large, golden, crispy, and filled with shrimp, pork, green beans, bean sprouts, and onions.

Banh xeo is served in small rolls, wrapped with lettuce or raw vegetables and dipped in a sweet and sour fish sauce. A serving of banh xeo usually costs 60,000 VND, with eggs costing an additional 10,000 VND.

The green and greasy betel leaf beef costs 50,000 per portion.

Unlike the dozens of roadside restaurants in Phung Hung Market, Tang’s bread gleaming on the corner of Nguyen Trai – Phung Hung intersection has been popular for 56 years.

The meat sauce here is not steamed but roasted to produce a rich aroma. It is estimated that the restaurant consumes about 40 kilograms of meat sauce every day. The large, hard and soft sausage balls, served with a salty but not sweet sauce, are also a popular ingredient in the restaurant. In addition, the steamed pork belly brings out a strange taste. The meat is thick and sweet, and the fat is sticky but not greasy.

In addition to savory bread priced at VND26,000, the store also has sweet bread with typical Chinese ca dé sauce for VND20,000.

The food at Phung Hung Market is a blend of traditional cuisines from many Vietnamese-Chinese immigrant communities and southern food styles. Throughout the market, the sounds of buyers and sellers talking to each other, the sound of car engines, and the sizzling of frying pans and dishes are endless.

In addition to the dishes mentioned above, the market also has noodles, porridge, vermicelli, and seafood.

There aren’t many types of desserts on the market, mainly tofu and basic desserts.

The smooth tofu is soaked in sugar water and exudes the aroma of pandan leaves. It can be eaten in the traditional way or with pearls, snails and red beans. The price of the meal is 10-15-20 thousand VND, depending on the size.

The various teas, priced at VND12,000, are pre-packaged for diners to take with them or pour into cups to drink on the spot. The pandan corn sweet soup is smooth, fragrant with pandan leaves and sweet with coconut milk. The refreshing apple (betel nut flower) sweet soup. The sweet soup has a strong coconut and nutty bean flavor. All sweet soup dishes are cooked to medium sweetness and no ice is needed.

Tables, chairs and shops are lined up in the middle of the street, and diners can buy one dish at a time and sit down in the same shop. Reasonably priced compared to many of the city’s expensive dining areas, while also being tasty and easy to eat, Phung Hung Market is popular with many families, couples and groups of young people.

If you are a group of 5-6, trekking from one restaurant to another, buying a small portion at each place to share and enjoying all the food, the cost per person is between 150-200,000 VND.