After researching and reading blogs, food reviews…we had a few choices on Chu Quoc, 2 places when we arrived at the entrances, tables were empty, I wondered if reviews were old, we ditched those places. Found a local restaurant search engine: foody.vn, look for a few highest score places and just go with guts to see how they were. One difference, those places were full of people.
We arrived at Bup around 8:45pm, the restaurant was full, they asked us to return in 30 minutes. We treated that as a healthy sign and returned 40 minutes later. There were a western group just arriving behind us and tried to get before us, the restaurant admitted all of us, them to the westerners’ side with higher chairs, and us with the locals since we didn’t mind the lower seats.
Goi ca trich - raw fish salad
Peanuts
Accompanying herbs and cucumbers
Rice noodles
Roll everything in a rice paper
Dip the rolls in a sauce with chili and more peanuts - we just loved this dish
Oc hung hap sa - steamed sweet snails with lemongrass
Ghe hap - stir fried flower crab with tamarind
Mi xao rau cu - stir fried noodle with vegetables
The owner came to see us after the meal and asked if everything was alright. He explained to us the locals at the next table, each person drank at least 9 bottles of beer. He apologised for the rubbish on the floor, he said culturally Vietnamese was like this, but after the place closed, they would clean up the whole place. I guess he was a bit worried for negative feedback.
On the whole, the meal was excellent, better than our seafood dinner at the night market, with fresh ingredients, well cooked and prepared. The restaurant was lively. With 3 beers the meal was 740,000 d - $32.50 USD.
Búp
108 duong 30/4
Duong Dong
Phu Quoc
Vietnam
