If you’re a fan of barbequed meats and seafood, you should check out the recently opened Grill Bar, a few meters behind Ben Thanh market.

This restaurant and café spreads over three floors with ample space and high ceilings, with the option of terrace seating, big enough for ten people. As you enter, you can catch a glimpse of the staff and the chefs preparing the food thorough their open-air kitchen allowing customers to not only enjoy the chefs in action but see the top hygiene conditions under which the food is prepared. Simple in design but sophisticated in appearance, Grill Bar combines traditional Vietnamese decoration with modern art.

The idea behind Grill Bar is to take traditional Vietnamese street food into a restaurant, relying on top-quality ingredients while preserving the local taste, using traditional sauces and marinades.

As for the food, they use real charcoal in the grill in order to provide the best flavours. Several types of fish and meat dishes are available, with prices ranging from VND85,000 to VND139,000, each dish is accompanied with a small bowl of rice, with three different options available (broken rice, sticky rice and delicious coconut rice).

The selection of prawns, grilled to perfection, arrived very quickly. Very fresh and you could feel the slight hint of charcoal in the taste.

Soon after, the pork belly and coconut rice arrived. The later was delicious without being overwhelming. As for the pork belly, it was great, offering fantastic taste and with hardly any fat, probably a result of it having been melted off on the grill.

Although I am not a big fan of chicken, we ordered some and I was not disappointed. In fact, it was some of the best grilled chicken I have ever tried: nicely grilled but juicy and served with a lightly hot marinade giving it an extra kick.

Each dishes was served with Vietnamese grilled corn, which was tasty and nice.

We tried two of the desserts, and I must say, although simple, you should try the homemade yoghurt with, a great combination of flavours. This was actually the spotlight of the meal.

Grill Bar is open seven days a week from 9 am to 10 pm, and they also offer set menus for breakfast and lunch.

Grill Bar. 122 Le Thanh Ton, District 1, HCMC. T: 08- 382 27 901