Saigon-Saigon Restaurant

Our latest video review courtesy of Big Review TV... "..if you're looking for good Vietnamese food in London, Saigon Saigon is the one..."

Thanks I Am A Feeder for the rave review! So glad to see our hours & hours of hard work put into each and every bowl of Pho can put a smile on your face (& tummy!)..

Start your week with 20% off our entire a la carte menu on Monday & Tuesday evenings. Offer starts from the 16th Feb!

Check out our latest 5 Star review on tripadvisor :)

Caramelized Chicken Ga Kho
Caramelized chicken – ga kho is such a simple yet delicious recipe that you’ll want to keep as your quick go to dish for an easy but delicious dinner. Mom used to make this dish with a lot of ginger and caramelize the chicken in much the same way as our ca kho to (fish in clay pot), but there’s more then one way to skin….er, caramelize a chicken so to speak.
Chef John from Food Wishes has a super easy method of combining fish sauce, sugar, water, and vinegar into a one step caramelization process without making your own caramel sauce or using store bought caramel. His recipe results in a familiar caramelized sauce that is sweet, savory, and gooey delicious. It’s so simple and we’ve made several times, never getting tired of it.

Bun Moc – Vietnamese Pork and Mushroom Noodle Soup
now we like to share another great northern noodle soup call bun moc.
Bun moc is a vermicelli noodle soup made from a pork and shiitake mushroom infused broth. The meats commonly include pork paste balls made from gio song (raw pork sausauge), cha lua (pork sausage–which is gio song that has been wrapped in banana leaves and boiled). Taken all together, this is a delicious, earthy, yet light noodle soup that’s very popular in the northern parts of Vietnam, but can also be found throughout the country. Unlike pho or bun bo hue, this soup is not as time intensive and is really easy to prepare.

Ga Roti – Vietnamese Roasted Chicken
We recently got an email asking for Vietnamese chicken recipes and realized that we really haven’t featured our little feather friend as we should.
I decided to make the traditional Vietnamese poultry dish for dinner known as com ga roti, the term roti, is the Vietnamese way of trying to say rotisserie/roasted chicken. Just as Americans tend to Anglicized things, Vietnamese also Vietnamize things too!

Chao Tom (Sugarcane Shrimp) is another one our favorite traditional Vietnamese appetizers from the central region of Vietnam and Hue, the imperial capital.
The sugarcane skewer infuses a subtle sweetness to the shrimp paste and we love biting into the sugarcane as a chaser after the savory grilled shrimp. Serve alone as finger food or as a wrap with rice paper, lettuce and fresh herbs.

Traditional Vietnamese goi du du is a simple combination of shredded green papaya, coarsely chopped basil, and strips of sweet and spicy kho bo (beef jerky) doused with a spicy soy based sauce.
While this is enjoyable it doesn’t have the complex flavors compared with other Vietnamese salads which are filled with a multitude of fresh herbs and pickled vegetables, a wonderful medley of textures and flavors topped off by crush peanuts and a spicy nuoc mam cham sauce.
In this version of papaya salad, we use similar ingredients as our previous salads goi hoa sen and goi tom with one special exception: crispy anchovies.

" Goi " is a generic term for “salad” in Vietnamese. But typically it does not include lettuce like most traditional western salads. And just like the term “banh,” there are numerous different types of goi using different veggies, for example, goi ngo sen (lotus root), goi bap cai (cabbage), goi buoi (pomelo), goi du du (papaya), and goi bap chuoi (banana flower) to just name a few.
Goi can also be name for the type of protein it contains, for example, goi ga (chicken), goi ...vit (duck), etc. What is almost a constant, however, is the dressing. Most are dressed with the familiar fish sauce based dressing, similar to the nuoc mam cham, but slightly more tart with additional lime.
The salad goi is also different from goi cuon which is the term for spring/summer roll–not sure why, but perhaps there is lettuce and other veggies wrapped inside. What is different about this particular salad we present today is that the veggies are first “brined” so to speak in salt, wilting it, but still leaving a great crunch!
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Mi ga is one of our favorite noodle dishes because it combines the simple flavors of a broth steeped with chicken along with the great texture of fresh al dente egg noodles. Such a pure dish is actually hard to find even in Little Saigon. Egg noodle restaurants here specialize in more of the Chinese style like egg noodle soups such as mi vit tim or with barbecue pork such as xa xiu.
We used ga di bo translated as the ‘walking chicken’ or ‘free range chicken’ which is much mor...e tender, fresher, leaner, and juicier than the butterball or jenny o’ chicken. It’s given the name because these chickens were raised on free range and allowed to roam freely instead of being contained. This ‘walking chicken’ is found in Asian markets and a little bit more pricier than regular chicken but it is well worth it. They are a delicious, clean, and healthy source of protein !!! :)
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Betel plants originated from Southeast Asia and has been cultivated for thousands of years. High in antioxidants, their uses have included, but are not limited to medicinal healing, stimulants, and even breath fresheners. In India, it’s even consider an aphrodisiac.
The betel plant is part of the pepper family and includes two varieties, piper sarmentosum and piper betle. In Vietnamese culture, the piper betle is also called trau and is used to “begin the converstation”…in ...other words, helps break the ice in awkward situations among adults as these were passed around as it were chewing gum…of course this was in the days of our grandparent’s generation and not so much any more today due to the unflattering staining of teeth black when chewing these leaves with the areca nut.
Betel leaves also have symbolic meaning in traditional Vietnamese weddings where the groom would offer betel leaves among other gifts to the bride’s family. Hence the Vietnamese phrase “chuyện trầu cau“ meaning “matters of betel and areca,” is synonymous with marriage...
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A good Banh Xeo is a crispy crepe bulging with pork, shrimp, and bean sprouts, plus the garnish of fresh herbs that are characteristic of most authentic Vietnamese dishes.
To enjoy one like a local, cut it into manageable slices, roll it up in rice paper or lettuce leaves and dunk it in whatever special sauce the chef has mixed up for you !

Cha lua or gio lua (Vietnamese ham/sausage) is another common item on the traditional Tet menu. As we mention, Tet is a time for families to come together and celebrate the new year with a fresh start. But it’s also a time to remember and honor the past. During Tet, cha lua is frequently used as an offering to relatives that have passed and placed before the ancestral alter in each home. And of course since it’s a filling for the traditional new year snack banh day (sticky ri...ce cakes), you can’t have a shortage of cha lua around the house during Tet.
The rest of the year however, cha lua is something that’s so ubiquitous in Vietnamese cuisine, that we often take it for granted. Cha lua goes well with anything from banh mi, banh day (sticky rice cakes), banh cuon (steamed rice rolls), xoi gac (red sticky rice), and noodle soups such as bun thang, bun moc (pork and mushroom noodle soup), and bun bo hue. Or it can simply be fried (cha chien) and dipped in a chili fish sauce and eaten with rice.
Hang with us for a second now–here’s where the terminology can be tricky. Before the cha lua/gio lua is cooked, it’s in a form of a pork paste called gio song (song in this context means uncooked)–a lean cut of pork is grounded/pounded into a paste and seasoned. This gio song is what you find in the frozen section of your Asian grocer and is used to make our bun moc (pork and mushroom noodle soup). From this gio song base you can also make cha que (cinnamon pork pate).
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" Me and my girl friend had dinner in Saigon Saigon last week, and we had amazing experience there, at first , we thought something would be boring or similar to other cuisines like chinese , thai, but we were wrong. Vietnamese food has unique taste , and both of us were really enjoy every single minute there.
What can i say, the atmosphere is so friendly, and authentic, and truly charming, the food is absolutely wonderful and yummy,tasty, and especially staffs are the most of it, very welcoming, knowledgable, enthusiastic , smiley even they were so busy and working hard, but they were still very helpful and so kind.
We really love Vietnamese ppl, and their cuisines also. Nothing more we could expect,. definitely we will come back again with friends." - Kevin .

This is Vietnamese Pho. There are three elements that make up a bowl of Vietnamese pho: the broth, the rice noodles and the meat. If you are a pho lover, you may be a fan of the noodles or of the way the meat, herbs and spices play together in your mouth as you slurp your pho to the last drop.
There’s no denying that the pho broth is the most important element of Vietnamese pho. Pho broth is the soul of the dish. It is what makes the dish Vietnamese pho.