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Saigon Hẻm Gems
Living in central Saigon as a diehard fan of ice cream and all frozen sweets, I fondly remember the late 2010s–early 2020s as the age of abundance. Back in the day, across downtown, there was always a little something for ice cream fans of all preferences.
Vietnam
Thwunk! Thwunk! Thwunk! Thwunk! The vendor’s cleaver struck the heavy wooden chopping board again and again after slicing through duck meat. Centimeters away, a microphone hovered, capturing each strike.
Food Culture
My family lives in Saigon, a long distance from our hometown in Quảng Ngãi. We only visit a few times a year, but each time is a celebration of amazing food: bánh tráng nướng with sausages, bánh gói with spicy, garlicky nước chấm, crispy fried rolls, etc. Without fail, whenever I set food in the city again, I can’t help missing it dearly.
Saigon Hẻm Gems
My earliest memories of breakfast are of Omachi beef-flavored instant noodles cooked with tomatoes and ground pork. On days where noodles sounded uninspiring, my mom would offer me the same plate as my dad: rye bread, butter, and Russian caviar. Eager to follow in his footsteps, I welcomed this addition to my breakfast menu, eventually replacing my beloved noodles.
Architecture
In the history of architecture, rarely have we seen such a challenging movement as Vietnamese modernism. Not only does it show how a culture evolves and expresses itself across historical epochs through its building practice, from the traditional to colonial and eventually modern period, but the language of Vietnamese vernacular modernism also reveals deeper understandings of human creative potential.
Saigon Hẻm Gems
Though I’ve known about momos for quite some time, it was only recently when I first visited Om Momo — a cozy little Tibetan restaurant tucked deep inside a dark nook in Thảo Điền — that I finally tried momos. Inside, one finds a world with a life of its own: at its center stands a mysterious figure, thinly veiled by a cylindrical sheath of turquoise; hung on the walls are vibrantly colored photographs and artworks; and between them sit tables of diners who gaze and converse around salt-rock lamps that warmly illuminate the room.
Music & Arts
Tattoo Therapist, dr.99hz, cd.cadao, goc.viet, Solarist and Baby Nepotism: listing the artists that call Th.ink Room home feels like shouting out the members of a rap clique. Indeed, tattoo artists, more than any other visual artists, are akin to rappers in their use of pseudonyms, so to employ a common hip-hop refrain, Saigoneer became interested in Th.ink Room because “game recognize game.”
Saigon
From inside the workshop, artisans carry bundle after bundle of freshly made incense sticks into the courtyard amid the morning mist. A gentle scent of spices linger in the air.
![Exploring Vietnam’s Dynamic, Diverse Artist Residencies [Part Three: Hanoi]](https://media.urbanistnetwork.com/saigoneer/xplr-images/premium-content/2026-05-BC3/b1x.webp)
Arts & Culture
When you mention puppets to someone in Vietnam, they will immediately think of water puppets. And if not this traditional art form, frequently relegated to tourism activities, then they will think of children’s entertainment. But Vietnam is in fact home to a small but devoted group of people involved in contemporary puppetry and object theatre because, as TồLô Puppet Theatre Company puts it, the genre holds “magical, unexpected, and sometimes grotesque possibilities.”
![Exploring Vietnam’s Dynamic, Diverse Artist Residencies [Part Two: Huế, Hội An and Đà Nẵng]](https://media.urbanistnetwork.com/saigoneer/xplr-images/premium-content/2026-04-BC2/zz1x.webp)
Arts & Culture
A subtle shimmer inherent to the seashells encrusted around its eyes makes Lân Sư Hồ shiver with life and appear as if it will leap out of the warehouse and prance into the ocean where its coral skin once grew.
Saigon
The Hùng King Temple at 2 Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm was originally built in 1927–1929 under the name Temple du Souvenir Annamite (Annamite Temple of remembrance), primarily to honor the memory of Vietnamese soldiers who died while fighting in World War I.
![Exploring Vietnam’s Dynamic, Diverse Artist Residencies [Part One: Saigon and Đà Lạt]](https://media.urbanistnetwork.com/saigoneer/xplr-images/premium-content/2026-04-GoSea/r1x.webp)
Music & Arts
What is an artists-in-residence program? This simple question arose repeatedly when Saigoneer explained to friends and peers that we would spend three weeks traveling throughout Vietnam, visiting the nine local art residencies taking part in the GoSEA program.
Hanoi Ngõ Nooks
“If you have a heart and you have a mind, you must support Palestine,” Saleem Hammad emphasized as we sipped sweet tea overlooking Hanoi’s Old Quarter from the balcony of his restaurant, Oliva. The dinner we had just finished was delicious, but the visit to Vietnam’s only Palestinian restaurant felt more significant than a simple meal. Learning about Saleem’s journey, his personal relationship with Vietnam, and his efforts to deepen ties between Palestine and Vietnam underscored how cuisine can foster cultural exchange and understanding towards peace.
Saigon
Saigoneers without private vehicles might be happy to hear that the city is planning to make the municipal bus system free to ride in the near future.
Saigon Hẻm Gems
“O” is the affectionate way central Vietnamese call their sisters and aunties. For children of Central Vietnam like me, it has taken root in me like the most natural anchor of home. Sometimes when I’m out and about, glimpses of the accent of my hometown would pull me back home.
Saigon Hẻm Gems
When the owner of a popular restaurant in South Korea specializing in dwaeji-gukbap, a dish widely beloved in Korea but little known outside, visited Vietnam for vacation for the first time around a decade ago, he saw a real possibility of bringing and introducing this special Korean dish to Vietnam. Fast forward to today, his vision has materialized into the quite remarkable scene of a restaurant in Thảo Điền bustling with Vietnamese customers who come to enjoy the humble dish.
Society
In a small kiosk overlooking the crowded Nguyễn Trọng Tuyển Street in Phú Nhuận, Nguyễn Thị Tâm routinely checks the clock and reviews the day’s train schedule meticulously. She’s repeated these tasks countless times, a crucial component of a job that she’s done for two decades as a train crossing attendant.
Saigon Hẻm Gems
When a dish travels far from its homeland to take root somewhere else, one common yardstick for judging it is “authenticity.” Is the seasoning true to form? How closely do the ingredients match the original? Has the cook stuck to tradition, or wandered too far into improvisation? But what if an entire cuisine was born and shaped in defiance of that very idea?
Vietnam
If things go our way, YouTube’s notorious unskippable ads might be a thing of the past come this February.
Culture
To live in Saigon is to coexist with clutter. Chaos is perhaps to be expected, when one’s habitat is a gargantuan crowded compressed narrow concretized megalopolis of over 10 million people, but few cities I’ve been to are as cluttered as Saigon.
Dishcovery
After egg coffee, coconut coffee, and salt coffee, is the next coffee trend going to be peanut butter coffee?
Saigon Hẻm Gems
Upon finding out that I’m a student at the University of Architecture HCMC, people tend to bombard me with a barrage of questions: if my coursework is tiring, if my school fees are skyhigh, and what my plans for after graduation are. These curiosities are understandable, but in the past years, one peculiar query has popped up more frequently: “I heard there’s a really good miến trộn place outside your school, is it true?”
Parks & Rec
Lắng Nghe Điểm Chạm is a project aiming to expand exposure opportunities and application potentials of performing arts into the life of marginalized and minority communities of Vietnam.
