Le Garçon Saigon — Restaurant in Hong Kong Island

In a city with unlimited opportunities to eat and explore, this gem is worth a detour. I first ate here just before Covid and the banh xeo was the best I had ever had, the crepe expansive and appealing with crispness and tenderness, and the fresh greens and herbs were as abundant as my own garden. Today I passed by the small street the restaurant is on and was flooded with fond memories of that meal. I made a reservation as soon as I got back to my nearby hotel room and found myself there a few hours later. This restaurant can hold its own with any dining establishment in the city and it may be the best Vietnamese outside the country I've eaten at. Refined but unpretentious, more expensive than most other Vietnamese restaurants, Le Garcon Saigon delivers first-rate quality and superb, balanced food. The pork collar, grilled after a long rest with a sweet, herbaceous marinade, provided a great ratio of meat and fat, and was punctuated by fresh rau ram and the best nuoc cham I've tasted. The crispy fried eggplant put most tempura to shame and managed to retain a light, crispy exterior with a soft-as-jam interior, complemented by a delicious vinegar ginger sauce. Both items were recommended by my server, who gave great descriptions of the food and steered me away from ordering too much as a solo diner. The manager came by my table and offered me a shot of rice wine as a digestif, and its clean, persistent finish rounded out the meal nicely. The music was a bit loud for my liking but the youngish crowd seemed to like it. If I'm in Hong Kong for my next wedding anniversary, this is where...

I have been here for dinner before and I remember I liked it, so I gave it a try for lunch this time, turns out it was rather disappointing.

as a vietnam cuisine, I think the lunch menu is slightly overpriced, I could get similar food in a lot cheaper alternatives. The set lunch is $428, so we ordered from ALC menu.

We opted for one spring roll, and two main to share, as my fd doesn’t eat beef, so we ordered pork collar with rice vermicelli, and yellow chicken with garlic bread. The portion of the yellow chicken was extremely small, I could barely find the chicken, only few pieces there 😂 and I thought it came with broken rice (I asked the server about it) so we chose the garlic bread as our side, so we could try both. But turns out there were no rice on the plate at all, we asked the staff about it and she said the rice is in the pate, which was quite invisible 😂 The chicken really literally is 雞碎咁多，I was shock coz it cost $248 🫣 And I’m a fan of garlic bread, but I couldn’t taste any garlic from this bread and it was stale … The spring roll was really good tho, and pork collar was not bad. Just don’t order the yellow chicken … is a scam 🫠🫠

Oh and i got this free dessert coz I made my reservation via openrice, and it was delish.

Overall, I think the food quality was not bad in general despite they are overpriced, and just avoid to order that chicken, I remember the wagyu bavette was good, just go for that instead, same price but worth it.

$275pp (3...

i have been to this restaurant with different group of friends for over 10 times now, but sadly i will have to remove this restaurant from the list as the quality of food has significantly dropped since they changed the chef from Bao La to Tony.

In which i will need to comment on the dish below:

The grilled lamb chop dry aged grill lamb has always been a signature dish from saigon, however the lamb (cost around 450 HKD) is so burnt and tiny that its barely eatable, even that i ordered medium rare, it still gives me medium well.

the rice paper roll the original rice paper roll comes with the grilled dish, which now you have to add 78HKD to included it, which is not a big problem. However, the rice paper roll dont even comes with the sour source. Not sure if the chef expecting people to eat the roll dry or what, but i personally think the source is a must have.

the beer chicken beer chicken was also a signature dish of saigon, but someone they want to make it a “special dish” which can not be found on the menu! The original beer chick included a crispy skin with juicy chicken meat, but now its more a regular grill chicken with no beer flavour.

im not sure if its black sheep’s decision or chef bao’s choice, but if someone notice it please.

#Bring back chef...