SaigonNezumi

Baba’s Kitchen – Still my favorite halal Indian restaurant

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:57:39 +0000

I took a bunch of photos of Baba’s Kitchen last month which is still one of my favorite halal Indian restaurants in Saigon. Actually, despite what I wrote in my best halal restaurants list for Saigon, it is also my favorite halal restaurant since I practically visit the place or order online 3-4 times a week. I am generally not a fan of spices so at Baba’s Kitchen, I normally ask for medium spice for my meals. Just tell the waiters and they will make sure you get your dish at the right spice level.

Normally during lunchtime I like to order the Northern Thali Tray, one of my favorite dishes there:

In the evenings I may order the butter chicken with white rice, a favorite of many customers:

The chicken korma is perfect for delivery. Just remember that this dish is not a spicy dish so do not get angry if it is not spicy enough for you. Korma is a British Indian invention:

Make sure you order your meals with naan and my favorite apetizer, the kheema somosa:

On Saturdays, you should try the Indian all-you-can-eat buffet. I only managed to eat about 2 platefuls so do not order any appetizers:

Robin is always interested in hearing about your comments about your meals at Baba’s Kitchen. Be sure to fill out the comment’s card, you will even get a discount. Be fair and honest about your assessment though, complaining that the food is too spicy is a bit of a no-brainer, it is supposed to be spicy. Again, if you do not like spicy food, the choose the chicken korma or butter chicken.

Baba’s Kitchen delivers to most areas of Ho Chi Minh City, some areas incur a delivery fee. Just call Baba’s at: 083.838.6661 or 083.838.6662 if you want food to be delivered. They will tell you how long it will take to deliver your food which can be up to one hour or more in the outer districts.

Give Baba’s Kitchen a visit at 164 Bui Vien Street, Pham Ngu Lao Ward, District 1. It is opposite of the Stella’s Restaurant.

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Things that Expats find annoying about life in Saigon

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:00:33 +0000

Inspired by GaijinPot’s article, “Things that foreigners find annoying about life in Japan,” I decided to write a similar blog post about the annoying things about life in Vietnam. Though my article’s title mentions about Expats, I know that many of the below will also apply to Vietnamese as well.

Of course, this is my personal list in no particular order:

Seven days a week construction noise which seems to always follow me wherever I move. The jackhammers and drills are the most annoying 7am alarm clocks.
Buses, cars and/or motorbikes honking at me when the light changes even though they can clearly see that I am being blocked. If I was driving a tank, this would not be an issue…
Cars honking at me for no apparent reason. I also honk at people for no apparent reason.
Motorbikes that seem to always move to the right of the road before turning left. Oddly enough, I have a tendency to do this now for “safety” reasons.
Having a xe om ask me if I need a motorbike taxi after he just watched me park my motorbike. Troi oi!!!
Expats complaining about how bad Vietnamese motorbike riders are after THEY, the Expat, ran into them. I knew a teacher that always accused Vietnamese having a disregard for their lives which is odd, he was the one using drugs while driving, not them.
Asking for coca cola, being given a coconut. I am not that fat, am I?
Being the first to get to the gas station pump and the last to get his motorbike filled. Must be karma…
Traffic policemen who speak English. Got to pay the fine then.
Electricity going out towards the end of a movie. Happened again last night. Not sure who Tom Cruise’s character killed in the film yet…

Other annoyances:

@pedrosaigon wanted me to add the roosters. They are let loose in alleyways, love crowing at sunrise which can be as early as 4:30am in Saigon.

This is just my short list. I am curious to hear about your list.

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Why I like India’s .in domain names

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 08:13:23 +0000

A couple week’s ago, blogger and Twitter user, Ourman in Hanoi, mentioned that he just purchased a .in domain for his future website, ourman.in. When I saw this domain, I immediately realized that the .in domains would be great for bloggers and travel websites for marketing and promoting their country specific blogs.

Currently, if anybody used a .in domain name which was not related to India , it would be used to create unique website addresses such as kev.in for kevin (I tried to register this but somebody beat me to it). A great idea but why not saigonnezumi.in for my main blog web address? Hence, if I blog in Vietnam, , I can set my web address to saigonnezumi.in/vietnam/ using .in as “in”. To be more Saigon specific, I can either set the blog web address to saigonnezumi.in/saigon/ or saigonnezumi.in/vietnam/saigon/.

Sounds basic but it makes for great keywords, makes your site more country specific, and they are easy to remember which means, great for marketing. This would work great for travel and food sites as well.

An added benefit, the .in are not expensive to register, most domain registers already have them for a reasonable price. So if you are a blogger, why not go ahead and register a .in for yourself.

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Le Hong Phong School

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 10:55:31 +0000

If you happen to meet any top Vietnamese student studying their undergrad, masters or Phd program overseas, most likely the student will come from this school, Le Hong Phong. At one time, Le Hong Phong was one of the top 3 schools in Saigon. It still has a very good program but in previous years, the school was more selective choosing its students. If you could tally the number of students from Saigon attending the most prestigious universities overseas, Le Hong Phong will easily be at the top of the list.

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Exploitation of Asian Women (Books)

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:08:47 +0000

Since 1992, I have spent a lot of time researching issues revolving around Amerasians. I even formed a nonprofit, the Amerasian Foundation, to focus on Amerasian issues. One of the topics related to Amerasians deals with the exploitation of Asian women. Generally, where ever the US military had any bases, such as Japan (Okinawa), the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam, there is an sex industry established to cater to the needs of the US military. Similar industries were also set up to cater to the South Korean, Australian, French, to name a few, armies as well. Since the Vietnam War, these industries have now catered to Asian and Western tourists and expats.

My research looked at how the status of these Asian women played a huge role in the abandonment of the Amerasian and Eurasian children by fathers (a topic I will cover in a later post). For this blog post, I just wanted to a list of books that I recommend those who are researching this field should look at. For those in Vietnam researching at how the Expat men are treating Asian women now, these books will be good starting points.

Bananas, Beaches and Bases – A section of this book focuses on women and military bases, it also looks at tourism
Let the Good Times Roll – This book focuses on the women working the bars outside the US military bases in Okinawa, the Philippines and South Korea
Sex Among Allies – This book looks at US-South Korean policy and the affects on South Korean prostitutes
Sex Slaves – Looks at the Asian women sex trade in detail

Edit 1: Two other books that I recommend as well to go with the above books by Albert Memmi. These two books will also give some perspective on why people from the Third World do the things we find “unusual” and “not normal”. Great booksif you plan to live in Southeast Asia for a long period of time.

I am also interested in reading more contemporary research on this topic as well. If you have any other book suggestions, please add them below.

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Medicine anybody?

SaigonNezumi (Kevin) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:32:35 +0000

One nice thing about Vietnam, if you get sick, you will get all sorts of medicine. Below is what my doctor recommended to me yesterday for my knees and ankle.Normally my friends and I Google each medicine we get.

Edit 1: Two of the drugs were removed in the US for fatal interactions, one is dangerous for the heart. One of the drugs is only for ulcers. The other two were okay, one is a natural medicine and the last just calcium.

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