A Taste of Vietnam

As befits a city of more than twenty million people, the restaurant scene in Mexico City is very cosmopolitan.  I have eaten in Italian, Polish, German, Uruguayan, Thai, Chinese, and Korean restaurants here.

On Thursday afternoons, the cleaning lady comes, and I get out of the apartment.  Last week, I was looking on Google Maps for someplace different to eat.  I found a Vietnamese place, about a half hour walk from the apartment, that had good reviews.  I decided to try it out.

The restaurant is located within a small market building in a neighborhood with the tongue-twisting name of Tlacoquemecatl.  

I walked up and down the aisles of the market, passing food stalls and small restaurants, but I could not find the Vietnamese eatery.  I ask a couple of people working in the stalls, and they had never heard of the place.  I double checked on Google Maps.  One of the reviews said that it was located within the market.  The reviews were all recent, so it was not a case where a restaurant had closed down.

I asked a third person, a butcher, and he took me to the restaurant.  It was located at the rear of the market building down a little passageway.  I would have probably never found it on my own.  It was simply a little kitchen space with a counter and four stools.  There were two guys cooking.  Neither one of them looked Vietnamese, and one of them looked like a "gringo".

I placed my order from the limited menu.  There was a couple, seated at the stools next to me, finishing their meal.  One of them asked the shorter fellow where they were from.  He said that he was from Mexico City but that his business partner was from the United States.  After the couple left, I struck up a conversation with the owners, and asked the "gringo" where he was from and how he ended up cooking Vietnamese food in Mexico City.  His name is John, and he is originally from Florida.  He was studying hospitality management, but he then went to Vietnam, and lived there for ten years.  He visited Mexico City and liked it here.  He met up with Edgar, who is Mexican but has lived in Canada, Dubai and Abu Dabi.  They decided to start up a restaurant and found this market stall as an inexpensive place to start.  They have only been there for a few weeks, which explains why most of the people in the market had not heard of the place.

As I said, the menu is very limited.  They have spring rolls, Vietnamese sandwiches, and noodle bowls.  John hopes to expand the menu if the business goes well.  I ordered a chicken noodle bowl.  

It was tasty.  I was surprised that it was served cold, but since it contains lettuce as well as mint, basil, and cilantro leaves, I guess that it is served like a salad.  I have never mastered the use of chopsticks, so John went to another restaurant and borrowed a fork.

The place is called "Em Oi", which is the expression in Vietnamese that you use when you want to get the attention of a server in a restaurant.  I enjoyed my meal, and I especially enjoyed the conversation with John and Edgar.

As a postscript, on the way out of the market, I passed the butcher's stall.  I thanked the butcher for showing me the way to the restaurant, and I got into a conversation with him and his co-worker.  The co-worker is from Georgia and has been living in Mexico City for years.

Mexico City is full of interesting people and stories!