There have been verbal rumblings recently about a great seafood spot called Oc Dao nestled somewhere between “that alley over there” and District 1. So, with these vague directions in mind, we apprehensively headed over.
We started the search on what is the only entrance to the alley on 285 Nguyen Trai in District 1. Just minutes after entering the hem we were enveloped by hordes of napping hairdressers waiting to catch a stray lady in need of a hair wash and manicure. Oddly enough, a series of dog meat restaurants lined the same alley, along with an inconspicuous, hideaway-style tennis court.
It’s a common theory that alleyways are usually good shortcut options when the main streets are congested from bumper to bumper, but beware most hems in Vietnam aren't alleys; they’re more like mazes. You start on the edge of one street and run the risk of ending up in a completely different district. An entire block can host vibrant arteries full of underemployed middle-aged men playing chess and plump noodle ladies. We were hoping this wasn’t going to be the case for us, and prayed we wouldn’t end up in District 12. We continued on, subtly avoiding the thit cho eateries. Through twists and turns, it's clear this is food lover’s lane — banh xeo (Vietnamese pancake), bo bia (rice paper rolls with daikon and sausage), banh mi (sandwiches), hai san (seafood) and bot chien (fried flour squares stir fried with scallion and eggs). The vendors and carts are aplenty.
It wasn’t long before we stumbled upon a courtyard framed by two apartment buildings. Here, the makeshift architecture is built to perfection. In a city bubbling with over 10 million souls, the skinny houses have to fit the alleys. The balconies of the apartments run along the tops of one alley only to be extended as another tenant’s roof on the other end. Staircases overlook entrances to even smaller alleys barely wide enough to fit a fat cat. An alley's alley? Is there even a phrase for that in English? The kids kicking their plastic soccer ball around plus the old lady who clearly fell asleep doing calisthenics on a park exercise machine both added a nice touch to the sunny courtyard.
A Saigon Shakedown
By this time, it was clear that this alley has got style. The xe oms almost completely ignored us and the guy selling clams at the end of one alley had a magnificent eagle tattoo emblazoned across his back. We headed down an even smaller passageway in the maze and found a large gallery of seashells hanging from the canopy of a fish hotpot restaurant. Mental note, check this place out later.
The odd winding lanes finally deposited us at another end of Nguyen Trai. The final sweet spot is a shop built right into a tree — man and nature coexisting in style.
Somehow we’d missed the seafood place and it was getting dark. Walking back into the labyrinth and taking a left where we should’ve taken a right, we came upon a whole new area. We were famished but were delighted by the discovery of another courtyard. This one was discrete, a few benches under the shade of a big tree that looked onto several business buildings in the distance.
Retracing our steps we finally fell upon Oc Dao 1 (Hem 212B, Nguyen Trai, Q1). How could we have missed this? It's packed to the teeth with loud seafood revellers. A good sign because empty eateries usually have mediocre food with good service while crowded restaurants have excellent food with terrible service. We squatted on small stools and ordered everything on the menu while chatting with the servers and inviting strangers to join us. Apparently the chubby lady running the show first came to the big city over 15 years ago impoverished but found a way to fund the seafood shop by collecting garbage. A true rags to riches tale, and the final story that makes this alley come alive.
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