A new restaurant offers Vietnamese fare prepared in accordance with halal guidelines. Thomas Maresca stops by Halal@Saigon to sample the food and learn a bit about the halal diet.
Dong Du Street, in the shadow of the towering Sheraton hotel in downtown District 1, has long been a hub of Ho Chi Minh City’s small Muslim community.
The Indian Jamia Mosque, built in 1935, is one of the largest and most prominent places of worship in town, and surrounding it are a concentration of halal eateries, including the well-known curry restaurant on the grounds of the mosque itself (profiled in last July’s AsiaLIFE).
Most halal restaurants in town have to this point tended to be simple, no-frills places serving Malaysian or Indian cuisine, and while tasty, they’ve lacked much in the way of atmosphere or refinement.
No longer. There’s a new halal kid on the block, directly across the street from the mosque in a prime location, and it announces its culinary bona fides proudly in its title: Halal@Saigon. The restaurant, which opened in February in the three-level space formerly occupied by wine bar Qing (now at 110 Pasteur Street), is clean and stylish and stakes a claim as the first high-end halal eatery in HCM City.
More importantly, while Halal@Saigon has several Malaysian staples on the menu, its cuisine is primarily Vietnamese, with a wide range of dishes from around the country. It’s the first, and most concerted effort to open up Vietnamese food to the Muslim community.
Labor of Love
Halal@Saigon is a labor of love for Dr. Shimi Sumathi, a Malaysian of Indian descent who has lived in Vietnam for 15 years. She came to the country to run her family’s pharmaceutical business, but her background and doctorate are in nutrition, and the dream of starting a restaurant has been percolating for a long time.
“For 10 years, I’ve been thinking that I wanted to open a restaurant. This is my passion,” says Dr. Shimi, who is also president of the Malaysian Business Chamber Vietnam. “I sat with a few friends and said, ‘let’s do something for the Muslim community.’”
Dr. Shimi is not a Muslim herself, but being deeply involved in the Malaysian community, she realized many Muslims living in or visiting HCM City had little opportunity to eat the local cuisine, due to halal dietary restrictions. “If you come from overseas, you want to try the local food,” she says. “I’ve had Muslims tell me they came here and only ate bread and butter.”
Now Muslims can sample classics such as banh xeo for VND30,000 (US$1.68), pho or beef noodle soup for VND38,000 ($2.10), and fresh spring rolls for VND60,000 ($3.38). Crispy noodles with seafood (VND86,000 or $4.84), a medley of shrimp, squid and vegetables on top of a nest-like bed of noodles, were particularly good, as were the very tasty grilled mussels (VND38,000 or $2.10) garnished with peanuts and slivers of hot chili.
We also dipped into the Malaysian end of the menu, and liked the very authentic roti chennai (VND30,000 or $1.68) and nasi lemak (VND60,000 or $3.79), the national dish of coconut rice and dried anchovies, served with hardboiled egg and chicken.
Halal Practices
The kitchen staff are both Vietnamese and imports from Malyasia. It took some training for the Vietnamese staff to observe halal practices, which are similar to Jewish kosher laws. Halal means “permissible” in Arabic, and in translation generally refers to the set of dietary rules that were laid out in the Qu’ran, most of which have to do with the manner in which meat is slaughtered.
There are a limited number of licensed halal meat and poultry suppliers in HCMC. They must follow the ritual slaughter process called Zibah, in which animals are killed with a swift, clean knife slice across the throat while the phrase “Bismillah, Allahu Akbar” (In the name of Allah, Allah is Great) is recited.
As with many religious rituals, there’s a practical aspect to it: back in the pre-refrigeration days of the seventh century, this method drained the blood most effectively and made the meat easier to store and less susceptible to disease and infection. Advocates like Dr. Shimi still say this is a more hygienic and humane way to slaughter.
The halal kitchen must also be kept entirely free of any non-halal (“haraam,” or forbidden) food items—meats not certified halal, as well as pork and alcohol, the two main Muslim no-no’s. Utensils and cookware that have touched non-halal food cannot be used either.
Keeping with strict tradition, Halal@Saigon is entirely alcohol-free. However, Dr. Shimi is already planning to open another location with halal food that will also serve alcohol—not at all uncommon in moderate Muslim countries—and which will aim at drawing more local Vietnamese diners.
In the meantime, Halal@Saigon has expanded the menu for local and visiting Muslims, and is a welcome addition to HCMC’s culinary scene for diners of any creed.
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