A customer looks at the menu in the beautiful garden of Hoa Tuc Restaurant in HCMC’s District 1

Newly-opened Hoa Tuc Restaurant is a charming venue for fine dining in Ho Chi Minh City, where fresh, well-prepared dishes and the elegant setting will leave a lasting memory.

Housed in the courtyard of a former opium refinery at 74 Hai Ba Trung Street, “Hoa Tuc” means poppy, and the theme is subtly apparent throughout. The green and purple interior makes it a perfect dining choice among foreign tourists and expatriates. The terrace, also known as the tea garden, is decked with cushions and lots of greenery.

The main dining area is an airy, white room with early 1900’s art-nouveau décor. Original columns of the colonial building combine with chandeliers made of bent copper tubing and rustic ceiling fans. Poppy patterns decorate the menu and shimmer in the framed wallpaper.

The restaurant offers a refined selection of classic Vietnamese, a mélange of dishes from north, south, and central areas which are traditionally prepared. The management recommends the entre “mixed platter of Hoa Tuc starters,” and “Hoa Tuc salad with seacooking, fresh palm hearts and lotus stems.” For mains, both the “BBQ lemon grass beef with white noodle nest” and “sautéed glass noodles with crab and vegetable” are delicious. You can go local with “bo la lot,” a dish of grilled beef wrapped in a betel leaf.

The delectable array of desserts is the house specialty. Sample the sweet flavors of “banana and sago pearls in coconut cream” or “sesame sticky rice balls stuffed with bean paste in coconut soup” which are among the favorites.

In the tea garden, you can enjoy al fresco breakfast in the morning or romantic candle-lit dinners. There is an interesting variety of organic teas, green teas from Japan, and Korean rice tea plus a wide range of juices and shakes.

The wine menu is small but well- selected. Most are whites and roses imported from Italy, France, Australia and New Zealand priced between VND350,000 - 540,000 (US$21-32).

Reported by Thuy Nhien