Seafood : Saigon’s fisherman’s wharf Chợ Hàng Dương

November 7, 2016

I’ve been wanting to eat crabs, shrimps and sea shells (oc) as much as possible and finally I found very attractive photos on the net that urged me to travel 3.5 hours trip by bus.

Cho Hang Duong locates just beside the sea shore of Can Gio, monkey islands in English still it is a part of Ho Chi Minh City. But you have to travel with 3.5 hours bus ride from the city to reach there. Google Maps says the bus starts from Ham Nghi Street but I found the bus No. 75 actually starts from the city bus parking lot at Phan Ngu Lao Street.

It was a rainy day and a typhoon was coming direct to south Vietnam. I guessed it may not hit the city directly and started the station. After 40 – 50 minutes, the bus was loaded on a ferry then we went directly to the south between bushes of mangrove.

The market is around 15 minutes walk from the bus stop. Rather an old style of Cho (market) was full of free sea foods such as shrimps, crabs, mantis shrimps, clams, scallops, oysters, whelks, octopuses, squids and so on, full of fresh seafoods. I ate nothing from the morning so I could not stand waiting these food.

Spending half an hour shooting still pictures and videos, I finally decided a stall where they sell female crab full of egg at 100,000 VND. Even if you order a male crab which is always cheaper than female, it costs around 250,000 VND in Saigon, so it is much cheaper here.

Then I ordered mantis shrimps, scallops, oysters and whelks. Actually they are too much for one person’s lunch but I could eat everything without leaving anything. Banh Mi fits well with juicy shellfish sauce. I ate too much that I won’t want to eat seafoods for some time.

The traveling fee is just 60,000 VND for a round trip and all these fresh food cost me 220,000 VND. The total is less than 280,000 VND and it is difficult to have lunch or dinner under 300,000 VND with this quality and quantity.