Soo Kafe — Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City

Oh Soo awesome!

This cafe is a Godsend, right opposite to the Ben Thanh market, it has delectable collection of coffees and the most globally consistent cafe ambience.

Location tip: You’ve gotta look for the board amid the surrounding stores, but look up - say at 1-2 floor level and you’ll find it.

To enter it, (just like any other surprisingly awesome place in Ho Chi Minh city,) you’ll have to navigate across a rather constricted hallway and then up 2 flights of stairs. When we visited, there were no elevators, so this one’s really the best prelude to your shopping spree in Ben Thanh.

First and foremost- book lovers - MUST VISIT PLACE. They have a wide collection of books, across languages, and a few nooks where you can comfortably settle with your books for hours. It’s cosy and amazingly well maintained.

Kudos pointers: Extremely polite staff, and also very helpful! They’ll serve you some life saving cold water (for free which is too much to ask in Viet) There’s a cute little cookie (again - for free) that accompanies the coffee and it’s just splendid! Tasty af! You can charge your devices while you comfortably sip coffee

Excellent coffee - Vietnamese egg and Ice Cafe with milk stood out in their body and taste. I mean, when in Vietnam, coffee replaces water, so it’s supposed to be a class apart 🤓

Loved this place, soothing music, calming ambience, brilliant coffee and books - a perfect accompaniment to the craziness of a Ho Chi Minh day!

Pro tip- This place has multiple Instagram perfect locations tucked within. Keep in mind orange decor, and wide wall and...

Poor. Went for the French press, told me they were out. Had to order v60. Then they forced me to pay 85,000 instead of 70,000, which is listed on their menu, because they only had one bean. No reason for not having French press available. 3.60 USD for a small pour over not worth it. Feel they intentionally added on the 15K when they knew I’d have to get a V60 when they told me no French press.

Avoid and go to Okkio

Update: The person who responded to me doesn’t understand. I ordered French Press. Then told “they don’t have.” Then I ordered v60 (since I walked all that way specifically for filtered coffee) with the 70,000 bean and was told I needed to pick the 85,000 bean because they were out of that too. I didn’t “pick” the most expensive bean. You all essentially picked for me because you proclaimed to be out of everything I tried to select.

You also told vegetarians that came in after me you were “out of” vegetarian sandwiches.

You all are either scammers or genuinely not competent at ordering supplies. Either way, it’s not a good look, especially when there are hundreds of coffee shops in Saigon.

Anyone with decent customer service skills would have given a discount due to you forcing the most expensive bean on a customer or at least been apologetic.

Do better & learn to stock things appropriately or label your menus with what...

Hi! If you read this, it is that you contemplate the idea of going to Soo Kafe for a drink, a pastry or something along those lines. Please know that this peaceful café is a nice place to be, simply because the staff doesn't speak english (for the most part) and are well intentioned and because there is a restful vibe, lots of books in Vietnamese to decorate the place and give it a somewhat ancien style. Coffee was good, they didn't ask for a positive review (which is a rare "courtesy", in Saigon), I even wished I stayed longer to read my book. For leaving early, the heavens punished me and the rain started pooring heavily. So my advice to you today is this: if you enter the café, you stay in the café. No matter what you do, don't go out. Buy more coffee, read more books, chat a bunch more, but don't go outside (oh gosh, I'me starting to sound like a hikikomori). But really, there was this mood when you feel comfy to stay longer somewhere and be yourself. I give it 4 stars because there is not a billion food options and nothing is perfect, but it's surprising to find a café of this kind in such a busy and noisy neighbourhood. Forgot everything about outside, for a moment....