Every now and then I get a craving for instant noodles but rather than keep it simple as instant noodles are supposed to be I like to spice them up a little by adding some extras.

I normally just throw in whatever I can find in the fridge or freezer. Things like prawns, squid, scallops, crab meat, crab stick, prawn balls, fish balls, beef balls, mixed vegetables, tofu, Chinese sausage and egg.

In a few of the dishes I added seafood tofu imported from Japan which is tofu mixed with seafood (probably mostly fish) and black sesame seeds. It’s tasty and has an interesting texture like just like a cross between fish balls and tofu.

So there you have it. My instant noodles with that little bit extra.

Man, what a night. Got home, laid on my bed and before I knew it was morning. It was Tram and Nguyen’s birthday yesterday so we had a few drinks to celebrate at the Shadow bar on Dong Du Street in District 1.

Lots of good food and plenty of booze always makes for a good party so after a few hours I was pretty much totalled. So yeah, check out some of the photos from the night.

I headed out to meet up with Tracy today and decided to bring along the camera and take some random shots of Saigon since I haven’t taken many photos of the city for you all to see.

Anyways, we decided we’d have Japanese for lunch but couldn’t find a restaurant that had power since the power company dudes shut off power across a big chuck of district 1 to do some maintenance work. No power means no air conditioning and I just couldn’t have that. After walking around a bit we ended up at Sushi Express which thankfully had power.

After a hearty lunch of sashimi, sushi, jelly fish salad and teriyaki chicken we just did a bit of walking around and some shopping. Check the photo on the bottom right of the supermarket isle dedicated to instant noodles. That’s just so full on!

Tracy also makes an appearance in one of the photos. See if you can spot her.

For Bien and Le Thuy’s second last night here in Saigon we decided to spoil ourselves with a lavish buffet dinner at the Saigon Cafe, a buffet restaurant on the 1st floor of the Sheraton Saigon Hotel. Man, this place never disappoints! Everything was so good. Bien and Le Thuy couldn’t get enough of the oyster mornay which was totally delish. The mud crab was also totally amazing. Between the three of us I think we downed a total of four or five crabs. We should have taken more photos of all the other amazing dishes that we ate but we were all too involved with eating we didn’t want to make time.

Anyways, check out the photos. And we were only able to make time to take the dessert shots ‘cause we were all pretty full by then. Haha, we sure did stuff ourselves that night.

A whole week has past since Bien and Le Thuy landed at Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh city eagerly greeted by myself. Now after all the food and fun in the Vietnam sun they’ve jetted off to continue their holiday in Thailand.

Anyways, I thought I’d share a few photos from their visit. The photos were taken at the various restaurants where we ate, Dam Sen Amusement Park in district 11 and Shadow Bar in district 1.