Skewers

Skewers is a restaurant in District 1’s expat area in HCMC (Thai Van Lung St). I had seen that they did Mediterranean food there and had wanted to visit since I found it about 2 years ago. I invited my friend to go with me and we headed out. After getting a little lost we arrived and were greeted by a nice bike attendant he quickly put the bike away. As we walked into the restaurant a feeling of dread came over me. It was the kind of place which is just to uncomfortable. Hard to put into words, yet I knew I was not meant to be there, a place were the rich and famous go to eat. I guess the way I felt about the atmosphere was dead, like a library rather than a restaurant, really stuffy.

Looking at the menu I was hoping to see something that I had been missing about for a long time. Hendrik had reminded me of this every time he went to Hanoi – the kebab. Looking through the menu the closest thing I could see was gyro- not quite the same. It appears that there were more choices from European Mediterranean dishes than Mediterranean dishes. There seemed to be quite a lot of good choices on the menu yet the prices of some things seemed a little out of my league. Then looking at the drinks menu all the prices were in US dollars and I knew that I had come to the wrong place (no locally brewed beer should cost US$2 in VN).

My friend went to order and it became apparent that the waiter had no idea about what the dishes contained. Given that they are not common dishes in VN you would still expect the chef to give a run down of all the dishes. I thought great we can go to another restaurant one with more atmosphere and wallet friendly prices. However my friend wanted to stay and then I convinced her to tell the waiter exactly what she wanted and make them get it for you.

At this restaurant I felt that this should hardly be a problem since they had all the ingredients for spaghetti and meat sauce anyway. I proceeded to order the spaghetti with chicken in cream and mushroom sauce.

The order didn’t take long to arrive given how much time it took to get the wait staffs attention to order. It looked like the bolognaise slapped together quickly without much care for presentation. I thought the cream sauce was a little bland and needed something. The chicken though was melt in your mouth lush. I never tasted the bolognaise yet I know it was not the Vietnamese way.

As we left I felt a little disappointed. The bike service boy had the bike ready and was the one of the best things so far for the night at that restaurant. Overall, I didn’t like this dining experience. I put it down to two things. First the wait staff not knowing the menu enough to make my friend uncomfortable and second the lack of an atmosphere. I think if you are in HCMC and want to eat try something Vietnamese or if you really need Mediterranean food go to Arab Kebab next door or O’brien’s factory (to be updated).