HUIXIANGSIYAN — Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City

As a Chinese, I’d say this place is very authentic. The only reason it’s a 4/5 on food was because out of the dishes we ordered, the size of the chicken pieces in Spicy Chicken with dry chillies dish (辣子鸡) were so small we had to really pick.

With only 3 of us and 6 dishes in mind, the server lady suggested we get smaller portion: Mapo tofu (麻婆豆腐), Spicy chicken dry chillies (辣子鸡), Green pepper stir fry with pork (青椒肉丝), Tomato scrambled eggs stir fry (西红柿炒鸡蛋), Yangzhou fried rice (扬州炒饭), Sweet n Sour pork (菠萝咕噜肉) and a Spicy Sour fish dish (酸菜鱼) however, the fish was sold out. You can probably guess, I went with 2 white guys. The dishes are super typical Chinese dishes like Chinese food 101. The tomato scrambled eggs is a household dish, my parents used to make this all the time 😋

Mapo tofu was excellent. It was spicy and so much flavor like star anise and the five spice really add a kick to it. Make sure you pick out those Sichuan peppercorns if you see them before one lands in your mouth between your teeth and explodes a numbing menthol throughout the mouth 😏 I suggest go for the normal portion over a nice bowl of plain rice.

As mentioned above the spicy chicken dish we could barely find any chicken and it’s not because we got the smaller portion. In China, the chicken pieces are also not that large but larger than dice 🎲 for sure, some where peanut size. The first few pieces we had, there was a strong curry powder. Weird! After digging in, the curry powder was mere, maybe it was sprinkled on top. Also my companions tasted the strong curry flavor for this dish too. The chicken used in this dish is boned in, so the fact that the chicken pieces were smaller than dice size was a little disappointing. The peanuts and the chillies were great to munch on with Tsing Tao beer!

Our favorite dish was the green pepper pork stir fry. It’s suppose to be hot 🌶️🌶️🌶️ even tho it doesn’t look it. Great flavor, authentic taste, a signature dish that is all time favorite loved by all. The pork is so tender, very typical possibly using meat tenderizer, it’s quite common for beef and pork stir frys in southern cooking.

The tomato scrambled eggs stir fry came out very pretty, good presentation but in China the eggs are stir fried bigger in size and more gooey due to the last step of sugar added. And we don’t sprinkle with scallions. Maybe because we chose the smaller portion so they didn’t want to scramble the eggs too big? Will have to try normal size next time!!!

Yangzhou fried rice was good and the pineapple sweet n sour pork was very crispy on the outside yet sticky coated with sweetness.

Overall great service, the servers can speak Chinese, very attentive, always filling our waters as you will need it it’s spicy!!!

Place can fill the tanks with some seafood, they were all empty! There are private rooms upstairs so it’d be great for...

Let’s get the bad out of the way first. Absolutely ZERO atmosphere. Set in a private Thao Dien villa with barely any effort made to convert or decorate it into a welcoming space. On a Sunday morning, I felt the life sucked out of me to the very audible hum of the fish tank in front. Prices, as noted are high, even for Thao Dien. But, and we here transition to the positive, portions are massive. I ordered two dishes (Mapo Tofu and the “water dumplings”) as a single diner and just finishing up the last of it 2 days later. I got at least 3 meals out of it. Mapo Tofu is killer. Maybe the best I’ve had anywhere in a long time. I would go out of my way for this dish. The water dumplings were exactly as described. Dumplings didn’t look so appetizing, swimming in a bowl of flavorless water and bok choy, but were quite tasty. Dipping sauce with sesame seeds is divine and I appreciated that they included a large portion of it and vinegar when I asked them to pack up the leftovers. Didn’t have an issue with the service. I really don’t think there’s anything else like this in this part of An Khanh. It’s not perfect, but I liked the food and...

The food was quite good, authentic taste. However we were not happy with the service. Our servers were like trainees, they were not good on navigating on their menu ipad (which had only Chinese except bilingual in dishes name), slow on taking any question or request, looked disoriented most of the time. The most disappointment was their response regarding portion of food. We asked clearly whether ordering 5 dishes too much for 3 of us and she (the server) said yes. Then the food came in HUGE portions. Lucky for us there was one dish sold out, still, we cannot finish what we ordered. When we asked why she didn’t tell us how big those dishes were, she just stared at us awkwardly & then left (in her defense, I think she didn’t even know how the food was like & also didn’t have the skill to respond tho).

The general ambiance was quite blank, the restaurant is in a villa, basic decoration, it has several slots for car park within its garden. Looked clean & acceptable.

I do hope they improve their service. Still can come back for...