Best Little Com Chay in Vietnam

Dr. Nguyen Lien Huong, owner of the Com Chay Thien Nhien (Nature) restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City.

View Photos (2) Image © 2000 Robert Reid

If the drive to Ho Chi Minh City's Com Chay Thien Nhien (Nature) restaurant doesn't kill you, then its all-vegetarian dishes can save you--physically, mentally and spiritually. At least that's what its owner Dr. Nguyen Lien Huong says, a 59-year-old doctor of traditional medicine who works and lives just behind the little dingy dive on Binh Thanh District's roaring Bach Dang Street. If that isn't convincing enough reason to go, the grub is.

About the size of a traditional, beef noodle pho bo shop, her com chay--a particularly frightful, 20-minute drive from the city center--offers an amazing number of fresh dishes for one thing, about 60 on any day. Fresh "chicken" salad made of baby bananas served cold; hot cups of tomato-based curry with bread or soups that defy their meatless ingredients; grilled mushrooms seasoned as if they were chicken or duck over rice; tofu prepared as pork; and refreshing desserts that look eerily like crude oil.

It's colorful eating to be sure, and Huong swears it's the healthiest vegetarian fare in town. I'd say it's definitely the tastiest. "Five years ago when I opened it," Huong says, no one had the idea to serve vegetarian food without greasy oils or huge doses of MSG. Now some places around HCM City are imitating us."

A Vietnamese native who knows French and English, Huong first became a "full vegetarian" six years ago after helping translate The Vegetarian Philosophy, a yoga diet book, into Vietnamese. That's how the food business began. "When I started practicing yoga, there was no good place to eat all-vegetarian food for my fellow yoga students, so I opened one for us. I always loved to cook anyway," she says. "It was like a 'cosmic will' wanted me to open a restaurant."

Actually two. She opened her first (at 177 Le Quang Dinh) five years ago, but it was soon so packed with regulars--from Buddhist monks and yoga students to Muslims and "even Christians"--that she moved her doctor's office into her home to open #2. So, these days, in between serving as director of Vietnam's first-ever yoga club, practicing yoga at home three hours a day, meditating for two and running two restaurants, she's still a doctor. In fact, the whole endeavor is an extension of her medical work.

"I want to help people become vegetarian because it's healthier. So everyday I try to think of new dishes. Anything healthy, but delicious, and not expensive either," she explains. "You know, our bodies are naturally composed to be vegetarian. And there's a world-wide tendency these days to stop eating meat."

There's also a tendency for her menu to fall out of date, as new dishes are constantly appearing, but that's the best part. Just go to the front on your way in, where most dishes are on display, then pick, point and eat. There's a surprise with each visit.

My favorite meal is a few grilled or sautéed vegetables - often tofu or mushrooms - over rice or bun noodles, then some la lot banh hoi (sautéed mushrooms, tofu and peanuts wrapped in la lot leaf, then grilled) with neatly rolled bun rolls and bits of green onion on the side. Add a little fishless nuoc mam (fish sauce) for taste, and sip a glass of cold - or if you're lucky, hot - soymilk ("soy beans have twice the protein of beef," Huong says). Finish it with a cup of sweet black sesame soup (It looks like oil, but trust me, it's great!) or a piece of coconut cake. Tasty. Total cost, about a dollar and a half. Sometimes less.

"I can do any non-vegetarian dish with vegetables only," she boasts of her offerings, which include croque monsieur, (but "no eggs - bad for the mental being"). "Except one dish. We can't do French seafood bouillabaisse. It has just too much. There's clams, shrimps, fish...too much!"

For breakfast, there's all-vegetarian bun bo Hue or pho bo, but the hu tieu dishes, bursting with flavor, is the best bet. My favorite, not on the menu, is hu tieu My Tho, served in the unique southern style. Don't stop when the clear mien noodles, "shrimp," tofu sausage, carrots, bean sprouts, mushrooms and lettuce run out. The broth, packed with bits of scallion and chopped peanuts, is the best part.

So if it's that good, why doesn't she move to a more lucrative area like the travelers' haven around District One's Pham Ngu Lao and De Tham streets, for example? She's been offered that before and always refuses to move.

I've lived and worked right here for 27 years. When I came with my husband it was still ricefields along both sides of the road. Now I want to stay near my home and my two children," Huong explained. "This restaurant has never been for my own profit. It's not a business to me; it's what I want to do. My practice is the most important thing for me. Yoga, meditation, exercise - every day. That's why you don't see me actually in the restaurant more often."

She said they're planning to renovate the restaurant soon, but don't expect it to go high end in the near future. "I make food with good will, with love. We keep the place simple, and the prices low, so even the poor can enjoy vegetarian food."

Thanh Nhien #2 is at 143 Bach Dang, Binh Thanh District. Huong can arrange specially prepared (but more expensive) deliveries and make suggestions for bigger meals. Call ahead, 899-6554. From the city center, go out Nguyen Thi Minh Khai or Dien Bien Phu Street, over the bridge to a huge traffic circle. Bach Dang Street is one block north. Thanh Nhien #2 is two blocks down on the left. You can also try the #1 restaurant at 177 Le Quang Dinh, which is equally as good but usually has less dishes.

Want to take yoga? Beginning, intermediate and advanced yoga classes are offered at the first-ever yoga club in Vietnam - at the Traditional Medicine Institute (273 Nguyen Van Troi Street). Call Huong at the restaurant, or Dr. Nguyen Bach Quyet at the Institute, 844-5954. The two-month course with about 40 students per class meets once a week for 90 minutes, and costs VND 40,000. Teachers come from all over the world. (The current line-up includes instructors from Taiwan, South Korea, Germany and India.)

See also: Eating Vegetarian in Hanoi ~ A.R. West

Published on 3/1/98