1,2,3… Yo! Happy Saigonese New Year!

2020 has arrived! I rang in the New Year in Vietnam’s hectic and incredible capital of Saigon. Enjoy a visual tour of the best New Year’s Eve I ever had…

Back in Portland, we like to eat a crab feast to ring in the New Year’s – but this year, our shellfish spread has a Vietnamese twist. Read on…

We start our banquet with octopus – grilled, diced, and served with herbs and spicy sauce.

Octopus fresh off the grill… scissors are easier than a knife!

Next, we have some succulent skewered shrimp glazed with sweet chili sauce and then grilled.

Grilled clams, topped with oyster sauce, peanuts, cilantro, and scallions. You either pick the clam out of its shell with a chopstick, or use the chopsticks to loosen the clam and throw it back like a shot. I opt for the latter.

Time for the main attraction (1 of 2)! Crab claws and legs (no troublesome body) in a thick chili sauce with fried garlic cloves and herbs. This is a food item that requires one’s hands to be washed immediately after. A mere napkin will not suffice. And if it suffices, you’re not eating it correctly.

Crab II! No sauce this time, just a dry rub of chilis. The St. Louis of crab to the Kansas City of the previous one, if you will.

Check out this absolute unit cranking a hoon while whipping up some delish crab.

Done with your plate? Just put it on the floor with your empty 333s and dirty Birkenstocks.

Top Left: a look of anguish caused by chili in a cut on the fingie.

Please don’t ask me to pronounce the name of this fine establishment.

But wait, it wouldn’t be a true Vietnamese NYE without a man dressed like a pig and his friend dressed like a monkey singing karaoke in the street with the help of a gargantuan speaker strapped to a moped.

Zev and MonkeyMan say chúc mừng năm mới from Saigon! (I’m not sure where all those teeth came from)

Published by

Zev Green

Zev is a first-year ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) in Iyo City, Ehime Prefecture, Shikoku, Japan. He hails from the lovely city of Portland, Oregon, and has had a lifelong connection to Japan inherited from his mom, who was an ALT herself some thirty years ago. He attended Japanese immersion elementary school in Portland and has been studying Japanese off-and-on ever since (heavy emphasis on the off, as his Japanese is not great). Zev’s primary interest is cuisine (as documented on his personal food/travel blog, zeveatsit.com), but he also has a burning passion for music, movies, sports, prestige TV, and recreationally reading Wikipedia. He thinks that The Sopranos is the pinnacle of creative fiction, the Grateful Dead are the greatest American rock n’ roll band ever, and Deni Avdija will be an All-Star this season. He has many other strong opinions and enjoys discussing them – if you want to hear more, subscribe to his blog!

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6 responses to “1,2,3… Yo! Happy Saigonese New Year!”

johanna9201

January 1, 2020 at 3:08 pm

chúc may mắn năm 2020!

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Mete Bakircioglu

January 1, 2020 at 7:35 pm

God I wish I could meet the dynamic pig and monkey duo.

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June cohen

January 1, 2020 at 7:42 pm

Chuc may man nam from Gr J. Sure beats the pizza that papa and I had with a few other celebrants who were gone by 10. I’m the only one up to peek at the SF fireworks from upstairs windows. What a feast you had. Rubber gloves ok? Xoxo to you all.

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Autumn

January 1, 2020 at 8:48 pm

The succulent skewered shrimp looks delicious!!

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Uri

January 3, 2020 at 3:03 am

By far my favorite blog to read. Thank you Zev for the amazing pics and descriptions . All of it looks amazing. Glad you are eating well and treating yourself right. Looking forward to reading more in 2020!

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My First Mailbag – Eat It

October 23, 2025 at 6:22 am

[…] My first visit to the Vietnamese restaurant yielded some decent salad rolls, a banh mi with good bread that could have used more veg, and an authentic 333. […]

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