女性ライダーとスクーターで行くサイゴン・ミシュラン・フードツアー｜KissTour

KissTour After Dark: Michelin Stars, Wet Streets & Absolutely No Self-Control There are food tours. And then there are food tours where four restaurants are apparently considered a reasonable evening, your guide has mistaken you for people with functioning stomach limits, and somewhere along the way your internal organs begin drafting a formal complaint. Welcome to KissTour.com after dark. Tonight’s accomplice? Amy. Four handpicked Michelin Guide-listed stops around Ho Chi Minh City, tucked down side streets, hidden among the chaos, and about as far removed from white-tablecloth dining as you can get without eating directly off the pavement. No pretentious nonsense. No tiny plates with artistic splashes of sauce. No chef explaining why three peas arranged in a triangle represent the circle of life. Just Vietnam. Real food. Real flavour. Real streets. And two hungry travellers with absolutely no concept of when to call it a night. STOP ONE: BEO OI — BUN CHA & PIGS’ EARS We kick things off in the north with bun cha and crispy pigs’ ear spring rolls. Because nothing says let’s ease ourselves into the evening quite like pork, deep flavour and a mountain of fresh greens that would rival a goat’s daily shopping list. The pork has been given the slow treatment, with the broth doing its overnight magic. Juicy, tender and packed with flavour, it’s the sort of food that makes you wonder why anyone bothers with complicated cooking techniques when patience and good ingredients can do this much heavy lifting. Then come the pigs’ ear spring rolls. Lightly crumbed, crunchy, savoury little parcels of happiness. Add the fresh herbs, pile on the greens and suddenly you can almost convince yourself this is a health-conscious decision. Vegetables were involved. We’ll take the win. A cracking start. Four restaurants to go. Well, technically three. But we’re not counting. Counting is for people who know when to stop. STOP TWO: KINH CHAO QUY KHACH — PHO MIEN GA Back on the bikes. Friday night. Recent rain. Traffic everywhere. A million scooters doing things that would get your licence confiscated in most Western countries. Amy and our trusty KissTour crew weave through the wet streets like they’ve got a direct line to the traffic gods. We arrive at a place that looks less like a restaurant and more like somebody’s neighbourhood hawker stall. And that’s precisely the point. This place has earned its place in the Michelin Guide for four consecutive years. No grand entrance. No elaborate fit-out. Just locals, steaming bowls and a broth that could make a chicken question the point of its own existence. Pho mien ga. Chicken soup with glass noodles. The broth is translucent, deceptively simple and an absolute bloody banger. Somehow, it manages to deliver more chicken flavour than seems physically reasonable. Dark meat. Light meat. Silky noodles. Fresh basil, coriander and chilli on the side, letting you build your own little bowl of happiness. And the locals? They’re getting on with their dinner, seemingly oblivious to the fact that a couple of visiting food tragics are mentally composing love letters to their soup. Not a white face in sight. Which, in our book, is generally a pretty encouraging sign that somebody knows what they’re doing. We wash it down with nuoc rau ma — refreshing pennywort juice — because apparently we’re now pretending to be responsible adults. The menu has plenty more to offer, including fresh chicken salad and rice noodles, but there are limits. Allegedly. We’ve got two more restaurants to go. INTERMISSION: FLOWERS, FAILURE & QUESTIONABLE VOCALS You’d think a food tour would involve food. Mostly, you’d be right. But Amy has other plans. We head into the flower market, where the city’s late-evening flower trade is getting into full swing. Bundles moving, vendors working, colour everywhere. Another side of HCMC opening up just as the rest of the city starts thinking about bedtime. Then comes the lotus challenge. Open a lotus bloom. Simple enough, surely? Apparently not. There are skills involved. Technique. Patience. Possibly a degree in botany. I lose. And as punishment, I must sing a random song. Now, I should clarify that the vocals were absolutely on point. In my head. The surrounding population may have a different recollection of events. Amy gets a laugh, I preserve what remains of my dignity, and we wander through the adjoining food streets, where seafood stalls are putting on a display that could derail even the most disciplined eating plan. Fresh seafood everywhere. Aromas floating through the humid night. Locals gathering around tables. We’re salivating. And we’re not even at the main event. STOP THREE: BO KHO GANH — THE PIECE DE RÉSISTANCE Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. Bo kho ganh. Vietnamese beef stew. Claypot goodness. Chunks of beef, tendons, marrow and a broth that deserves its own bloody national holiday. No noodles this time. Just a fresh banh — crusty bread ready to soak up every last drop of that rich, gelatinous, deeply savoury liquid. A basket of herbs. Fresh lime. Chilli. You adjust it to your own taste, although frankly, the kitchen has already done most of the hard work. This is the sort of food that doesn’t need to shout. It just sits there, steaming away, quietly dismantling every argument you’ve ever made for eating something sensible. The beef is rich and tender. The tendons bring that glorious texture. The marrow adds another layer of depth. And the broth? Jesus. The broth. You dip the bread in, and suddenly conversation becomes optional. The place is packed with locals and serious food lovers. Down a side street, easy to miss during the day, it comes alive at night with an atmosphere that screams Vietnam without trying to manufacture a single ounce of authenticity. No curated rustic decor designed by someone from London. No fake street-food aesthetic. Just a proper neighbourhood restaurant doing what it does best. And here’s the detail that seals it for me. The chefs sit down and eat their own stew. Think about that. The people making the food choose to eat it themselves. Not some elaborate staff meal hidden out the back, but the very thing they’re serving to everyone else. It’s a daily ritual for many locals, and apparently a hearty breakfast is not out of the question. Breakfast? With marrow, beef and that broth? I respect the commitment. It’s substantial, certainly, but somehow you walk away feeling satisfied rather than defeated. Although we may have reached a point where our trousers are considering early retirement. This one wins. Hands down. If the evening ended here, we’d be happy. But Amy has other ideas. Of course she does. STOP FOUR: THE DESSERT SHOP — SEND HELP We’re not really dessert people. Which is a statement that will shortly be tested in a court of law. The shop next door produces four little tasters. Tapioca pudding. Black sesame cream. A crunchy bean-and-rice combination. Something sago-like and comforting. Names temporarily irrelevant. The mission is clear. Eat. We sample. We taste. We dig in. And then we finish everything. All of it. Our pancreases are now working overtime, desperately trying to keep up with the incoming sugar situation. Somewhere, a nutritionist has just woken up in a cold sweat. But the desserts are lovely. Different textures, gentle sweetness, ingredients that feel wonderfully familiar to Vietnamese food culture and completely different from the usual Western sugar bomb. We came for a taste. We left with four empty dishes and the sort of expression normally associated with people who’ve just discovered the meaning of life. Amy and the crew are delighted. Apparently, we’re the only guests who’ve managed to eat absolutely everything placed in front of us. I mean, what did they expect? We didn’t come to Vietnam for a bloody tasting menu. We came to eat. And eat we did. THE FINAL VERDICT KissTour After Dark is a masterclass in why the best way to experience a city is often to hand yourself over to people who know it better than you ever will. Amy and the crew don’t just take you to restaurants. They take you into the city. Through wet streets and Friday-night traffic. Past flower markets and neighbourhood food stalls. Into places where the menu isn’t designed for tourists and the food doesn’t need an Instagram filter to justify its existence. Four restaurants. Four completely different experiences. And barely a scratch on the surface of the Michelin Guide-listed food scene in Ho Chi Minh City. There are so many places to eat here that you could spend a lifetime working your way through them and still leave with a list of unfinished business. Which, frankly, sounds like a pretty good reason to come back. And let’s talk about the word cuisine for a moment. Vietnamese food is so much more than cuisine. It’s a way of life. It’s breakfast eaten before sunrise. It’s steaming bowls shared on plastic stools. It’s herbs, broths, textures, rituals and generations of knowledge passed from one kitchen to the next. It’s the chef eating the same stew he serves his customers. It’s the locals filling a neighbourhood restaurant because the food is good, not because someone gave it a marketing budget. And it’s the kind of food that makes you reconsider every overpriced meal you’ve ever eaten in a restaurant with mood lighting and a wine list the size of a telephone directory. So, was four restaurants enough? What is enough? One can never indulge in too much good Vietnamese food. Although there may be a medically advisable limit to how many bowls, claypots and desserts one should consume in a single evening. We chose not to investigate. Huge thanks to Amy and the KissTour crew for another cracking ride through HCMC — equal parts food, culture, chaos and the occasional public humiliation involving a lotus flower and my apparently world-class imaginary singing voice. KissTour by day. KissTour by night. Come for the ride. Stay for the history. Return for the food. And whatever you do, don’t tell them you’re only a little bit hungry. They will take that as a challenge. And you will lose. Happily. With a full stomach. And absolutely no regrets.

+16

We had an awesome time last night on the Michelin food tour with Fidelia and Ruby! It's so much fun on the bikes, and incredible way to see the city! Even more dramatic in the off and on pouring rain, we were laughing the whole way. The food was great and both our guides were so lovely and informative, not to mention safe drivers too! What a great time, will absolutely do this again someday.

We had a great experience on the Michelin Food tour with Lucy and Swan. The food was awesome and our hosts answered any question we asked, whether it be about the food or about Vietnam. Highly recommend.

We had an amazing time with Kim, Jasmine, and Amy Mao. Each place that they took us to eat had GREAT food!!! This tour is a MUST do when visiting Ho Chi Minh City.

These gals are amazing! Aria was an amazing lead guide. Expert drivers, excellent information, and amazing food ❤️ we had the best time and I would definitely recommend this to friends and family!

I had such am amazing time with Kim! She has a calm, sophisticated presence that made my solo experience feel really comfortable. Her love and knowledge of the city really shine through. She also drove very carefully, so I felt completely relaxed even with all the traffic and bikes around us. I’d definitely recommend Kim to anyone looking for a safe, enjoyable, and authentic way to experience the city!

Fantastic way to experience Saigon’s food scene. The stops were really well chosen, with the kind of local spots you’d probably never find on your own. There was a great variety of dishes, making it a perfect introduction to Vietnamese food. Kim was especially amazing, both as a guide and a driver. This was my first time ever on a scooter, and within less than 10 minutes riding with her, it already felt completely effortless. She made the whole experience fun, comfortable, and genuinely memorable. Highly recommend the tour, and especially Kim!

Excellent. Fidelia was our guide for the tour and she took care of every single special requirement for our diet and gave us some amazing food and experience and great company:)

I had a great time experiencing new flavours of food with my guide Lucy

The night was wonderful, the girls Aria and Bee took such wonderful care of us and gave us the one of the best nights we have had in HCM, fellow travellers told us only to book with this company , so that’s what we did, the girls were friendly, happy informative and so loverly, the food was amazing, and the amount of food we had, had a wonderful walk through the flower market, to let som of our food go down, I was scared to get on the back of a scooter, but the girls made me feel very safe, we had the best night, make sure you book this tour and ask for Aria and Bee, and say hi from Jeff and Jan from Australia, you will not regret your decision , you to will have the best night

+3