Vinh Khanh Food Street: Ho Chi Minh City Seafood Guide

What Is Ho Chi Minh City’s Seafood Street?

If you visit the well-known Lotte Mart in Ho Chi Minh City to buy souvenirs, you may pass through an area lined with brightly lit restaurants.

Vinh Khanh Street, commonly known among visitors as one of Ho Chi Minh City’s best-known seafood streets, is a restaurant street a little over 1 km long in District 4. Its official name is Vinh Khanh Food Street.

Many of the restaurants here specialize in ốc, a Vietnamese word often used for shellfish such as snails, sea snails, and clams. Some places also serve other types of seafood, including sushi and grilled seafood dishes.

About 95% of the restaurants are local Vietnamese seafood restaurants, and most of the customers are Vietnamese. If you want to experience a more local side of Vietnam, this seafood street is worth considering.

How to Order on Ho Chi Minh City’s Seafood Street

Food poisoning can happen in Vietnam, so when eating seafood at local restaurants, I recommend avoiding raw items whenever possible.

International visitors do come to this seafood street, so some restaurants have English or other translated menus available.

If you are given only a Vietnamese menu, try asking, “English?” first. In many cases, staff will bring an English or translated menu if they have one.

If only a Vietnamese menu is available, at least look for menu items that include the words below.

• BBQ or Nướng: grilled
• Hấp: steamed

Most Vietnamese dish names include the cooking method. For example:

• sò điệp (scallops) + nướng (grilled) + phô mai (cheese): grilled scallops with cheese

So when ordering, you can choose from the recommended seafood items below and then check the cooking method listed with each dish.

Recommended Menu Items

The restaurants on Ho Chi Minh City’s seafood street have very similar menus. No matter which restaurant you choose, the options are broadly alike, and there are a lot of them.

Among the choices, scallops, shrimp, and shellfish are usually the safest picks for most people.

• sò điệp: scallops
• tôm: shrimp
• ốc: shellfish, snails, and similar items
• cơm chiên hải sản: seafood fried rice
• Mực: squid

Menu items that may not suit everyone

• ~ HẤP SẢ: This is a dish prepared with lemongrass, an herb commonly used in Vietnam and across Southeast Asia.
  When lemongrass is used, there is often at least one person in the group who does not enjoy the flavor. Preferences vary, but for me, it is in the same category as cilantro: some people like it, and others find it difficult.
• Lẩu (hot pot): In Vietnam, hot pot is called lẩu, and it is often served with various kinds of seafood.
  The broth usually contains herbs and spices. Once it starts boiling, you add the ingredients served with it.
  Many of these broths include lemongrass and other herbs, so if you are sensitive to strong herbal flavors, it may be better to avoid it.

Which Restaurants Are Good?

You can find many articles online recommending specific restaurants on this street, but in my view, there is no single seafood restaurant here that is consistently reliable every time.

To be more precise, this is not unique to this street. Many local Vietnamese restaurants are not always consistent. The food can change depending on who is cooking that day.

Even if you visit the same restaurant and order the same dish, one day it may be perfectly fine, while another day it may feel like it was not worth the money.

If you look at the reviews on Google Maps, you will often see that opinions are quite mixed.

Personally, I often visit the places listed below.

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Even if you do not go to one of the places above, I recommend getting off near the entrance to Vinh Khanh Street, walking around, and choosing a restaurant with many Vietnamese customers.

About 95% of the food menus are similar from one restaurant to another, so this approach is usually fine.

I have also visited several well-known restaurants on this street after recommendations from Vietnamese locals, but the quality varied quite a lot.

Travel Tips for Seafood Street

There are not many other tourist attractions in District 4, where this street is located. In practical terms, there is not much to visit here apart from the seafood street itself.

Perceptions have changed quite a bit now, but in the past, District 4 was considered by some locals to be one of the rougher areas within Ho Chi Minh City.

If you told Vietnamese people you were going to District 4, some would react with something like, “Why would you go there?”

So if you are not especially interested in seafood, or if you are sensitive about hygiene, I would not recommend going out of your way to visit this seafood street.

It is a typical local Vietnamese area where open seafood restaurants line both sides of the road.

I would not call it extremely dirty, but it is also not a place I would describe as clean.

You can eat seafood in central Ho Chi Minh City, including District 1, without much difficulty. At a decent seafood buffet, paying about US$35 per person can usually get you a wide range of seafood, sometimes including lobster.

Address and How to Get to Ho Chi Minh City’s Seafood Street

There is no special public transportation option that takes you directly to the seafood street, so it is best to take a taxi or Grab to the address below.

The address below is for a random shop located right next to the entrance. Since the street entrance itself does not have a dedicated address, you can get off near this point and then look around the area.

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