Ông Cua — Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City

To tourists, especially my dear Singaporeans, be careful when you come here. I think it is better to come as a group rather than a couple or single person. My husband and I came here at 2-3am, we ordered squid, bok choy, snails, rice and initially wanted to order steamed grouper fish.

They don’t necessarily follow pricelist. They go according to weight of the seafood which is normal. But it was super suspicious when they quoted us 1.3kg for 1,080,000 VND. For two person?? Ridiculous so we said no it’s okay, we skipped it. Then they come back and quote 1kg is for 600,000 VND. Then we said no bcs well I could eat affordable Zi char steamed grouper fish for $6-20 SGD. Then they come back again, and quoted 500,000 VND for idk how many kilograms already. And we said no as well because we just find it very suspicious them trying to bargain over food bruh. Dude I was just hungry. Then this dude said some remark to the other guy which I’m pretty sure was unpleasant in Vietnamese. And he walked off. lol. Didn’t even want to serve us anymore.

The food was pleasant, snails were a little too hard. Meat was as if like it was pre-cooked or was just heat up only. The veggies and squid was good. We waited for like 10-12 mins for them to bring the bill while they pack up all the tables and chairs, clearly looked like they didn’t want to serve us already. They served the other table more pleasantly and automatically brought them the bill. Then end up they charge us 2 hand towels that was not even given to us, and we did not even use, I used my own wet tissue ya. So ya.

Overall, not a great experience, if I were to come back here I would come back here during the day with a bigger group or with a local tourist guide or something. The food was good la, just not vibing...

This was my favorite restaurant in HCMC. The food is amazing and an incredible value. Delicious seafood and ice cold beer, what could be better? The owner Minh and his staff are all so kind and helpful.

I was reading through the reviews and saw that somebody said that the atmosphere here wasn’t so great… what are they talking about? This place is exactly the atmosphere that you want when you come to Vietnam: having great Vietnamese food amongst Vietnamese people instead of just hanging around other tourists at Bui Vien street.

Do yourself a favor and come eat at Ong Cua, I promise you that it will be the best meal you have in Vietnam!!!

I’m at the airport flying to Thailand right now and I’m sad that I didn’t get a chance to get one last meal and say goodbye to all the wonderful people at this restaurant. Say hi to...

this is an expensive restaurant located in an area where you can actually find cheap, yet quality food. My meal for 1 was 350k and taste wise was inferior to one that costs less than half. Surprising to find this place so highly rated. Note: as soon as you ask for the menu, you get seated and glass with ice, cutlery, spices brought out to you right away. Clearly the staff is well trained to trap tourists but in 2023 with help of google reviews, customers will be looking for quality and/or value so management has to change...