During my first week here in Ho Chi Minh City, I had learned about a motorbike food tour through tripadvisor (a great website to reference when you're traveling pretty much anywhere in the world).
Riding a motorbike was definitely on my to do list and food? Well, let's just say that I live to EAT! haha.
As advertised online,
XO TOURS is the "first tour company in Vietnam to offer affordable motorbike tours with beautiful female tour guides dressed in traditional Vietnamese Ao Dai."
There are a couple of different tours available such as the foodie, shopping spree, saigon by night, and sights. The foodie tour is the most expensive tour ( $65) they offer. I had called a couple of days in advance to book the tour and come Thursday around 5:20pm, 3 tour girls showed up in front of our school to pick me up along with Michelle & Jason.
We were a little bit worried because it was drizzling but we had the option of canceling if we didn't want to tour in the rain. We decided to suck it up and let the tour begin.
Michelle is ready to go!
The tour guides introduced themselves to us and we were assigned to one guide. They handed each one of us a rain poncho + helmet and put us on their motorbikes and we were quickly on our way to our first stop. This was the first time that I had ever been on a motorbike. Within the first 5 minutes of being on the bike, I decided that I felt safer being on a motorbike than when I walk around as a pedestrian on the streets of HoChi!
Feeling VERY safe, and like a giant next to my petite tour guide, haha
1st stop an outdoor noodle shop in an alley way (XO tours focuses on the STREET foods of Vietnam that tourists normally DON'T get to try, and promises no Pho, Banh Xeo, or Banh Mis). When we arrived at the shop, we were greeted by the owner of the tour company along with a few other tourists who had signed up to do the foodie tour.
The noodle dish we had was "BUN BO HUE" which is quiet different from Pho. The tour company owner told us that this is actually the more traditional Vietnamese noodle dish. The broth is made from beef bones, lemon grass, and fermented shrimp. It was a whole lot of lemon grass and beef flavor but I thoroughly enjoyed it! It was refreshing to know that there is more to Vietnamese noodles than PHO itself. I'm hoping to have this one more time before I leave!
2nd stop was a quick sight seeing stop at Binh Tay Market in Ho Chi Minh's version of Chinatown, located in district 5. We had already been to Binh Tay Market through another tour so this wasn't very exciting for us and there was no food to try! Boo.
3rd stop was at an outdoor restaurant in a district that was well known for goat breast meat. Of course, we were served goat breast first. Each of our tour guides sat down next to us and served us beverages, cooked our meats, and practically spoon fed us. We quickly learned that you don't have to lift a finger on this tour!
After the goat meat, we also had squid, frog (or jumping chicken!), quail, and prawns on a stick. All was pretty delicious but I think I was more amused that my prawn was completely peeled and my meats cooked for me by my guide than the food itself.
4th stop was in district 7. It was another sight seeing stop with a bunch of high rise apartment buildings that a lot of foreigners buy real estate in. It was a part of Ho Chi that I never saw before. There weren't any motorbikes around nor street vendors.
5th stop or the final stop was in district 4, well known for fresh seafood.
We stopped at a busy outdoor restaurant and were served lots of seafood such as scallops, crab legs, and clams in lemon grass soup. This was also the stop where they offered us BALUT or fertilized baby duck eggs. In the very beginning of the tour, my guide had asked me if I had ever tried BALUT, of course I had no idea what it was. She explained what it was and quickly became VERY excited about me trying it later on. Jason, Michelle, and I all tried a spoonful or two, but it definitely wasn't one of my favorites.... You could see the shape of the baby duck forming that is until they cooked it and it stopped growing.
(thought about inserting an picture of the BALUT cracked opened... but decided that I would spare you the gag. if you're interested, you can google it yourself! ;)
At this final stop, we were also served street desserts such as coconut jelly & flan in a cup.
Overall, I really enjoyed my FOODIE TOUR experience. The foods that we tried definitely were things I probably wouldn't have had a chance to try if it wasn't for the tour itself. I don't think that $65 is worth just the food you eat. However, I think a lot of the money goes towards the experience of being with a personal tour guide who services you and informs you about various things around the city.
My guide was very informative while she drove me around on her motorbike and she was genuinely interested in getting to know me. She answered all of my random questions and told me a lot about herself. I really enjoyed my time with her. The tour was a little over 4 hours so it was a lot of hours that we spent in VERY close proximity of one another!
After the tour ended, the guides drove us back to our school building and that was the end of our foodie tour. Glad that I experienced this and would recommend it to anyone who loves to try new foods and wants to be driven around the city without lifting a finger!
