VietNam Travel: Café

Showing posts with label Café. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Vietnam bands wanted for Hard Rock battle

American Hitmen band performs at Hard Rock Cafe in HCMC’s District 1 - Photo: The organizers

Hard Rock Café has asked for Vietnamese entries in its search for four Global Ambassadors of Rock to play at its three day music festival, Hard Rock Calling 2011 at Hyde Park, London in June.

Last year the Hard Rock Calling concert featured Pearl Jam, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, The Who and Eric Clapton.

To mark the 40th anniversary this year, the Hard Rock Café has launched the first Global Ambassadors of Rock Battle of the Bands and is calling for Vietnamese entries for the qualification round.

The best 12 bands will have an audition with a judging panel made up of famous musicians and rock music experts. The winner chosen from the 12 will represent Vietnam at the regional finals. Audiences worldwide can watch the videos of the bands performances at www.hardrock.com to vote for their favorites.

To register and for further information, contact Ms. Uyen Tran-Chloe of Hard Rock Café HCMC at 0932 624 627 or email to uyen.tran@vtijs.com or log onto the website www.hardrockcafe.vn.

The entry email should contain a demo sent in MP3 format, profile photographs and a 50-100 word bio. The last date for entries is February 27.

Vietnam bands wanted for Hard Rock battle

American Hitmen band performs at Hard Rock Cafe in HCMC’s District 1 - Photo: The organizers

Hard Rock Café has asked for Vietnamese entries in its search for four Global Ambassadors of Rock to play at its three day music festival, Hard Rock Calling 2011 at Hyde Park, London in June.

Last year the Hard Rock Calling concert featured Pearl Jam, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, The Who and Eric Clapton.

To mark the 40th anniversary this year, the Hard Rock Café has launched the first Global Ambassadors of Rock Battle of the Bands and is calling for Vietnamese entries for the qualification round.

To register and for further information, contact Ms. Uyen Tran-Chloe of Hard Rock Café HCMC at 0932 624 627 or email to uyen.tran@vtijs.com or log onto the website www.hardrockcafe.vn.

The entry email should contain a demo sent in MP3 format, profile photographs and a 50-100 word bio. The last date for entries is February 27.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Eat, drink and buy the furniture at An’s Interior Café

Café and showroom in one. Good food, drinks and the furniture are on the menu at An’s Interior Cafe - Photo: Courtesy of An’s Interior Café

Interior café is a new concept in Saigon. It’s a coffee shop and an interior design showroom. Customers are invited to lounge around drinking coffee and browse at the same time.

“An” has two meanings. The name of the company that owns the café is, Hoang An Interior Company, and it also means peacefulness in Vietnamese.

In a quiet, blind alley off Tran Cao Van Street in HCMC’s District 3, An’s Café is hard to find among the old houses and trees. There’s a thick grey gate with a small sign, saying simply An’s. The entrance is through a garden decked with chairs and tables and bordered by a creeper covered wall.

Through the lace curtained glass door there’s a red piano and abstract paintings on the wall and upstairs is a large lounge bar for up to 60 people.

“Apart from serving good food and drinks, we also give them a peaceful venue to relax and browse the artistic items here. We change the café décor, every two months so guests can be surprised each time they come here,” said Kieu Viet Cuong, the café manager.

“Everything at An’s Café is for sale. If guests want to buy anything, they can buy the display article straight off the floor or wait three weeks for a brand new one,” Cuong added.

The food is meticulously prepared with a selection of Vietnamese and Western styles on the a-la-carte menu. Prices vary from VND65,000 to VND300,000. The Vietnamese spring rolls, beef roll with mushroom served with Italian rice and rack of lamb with pistachio are recommended.

The café also serves over fifty kinds of cocktails for VND65,000 to VND120,000.

An’s Interior Café is at 40C Tran Cao Van Street, District 3, HCMC, tel: 08 3823 3398, website: www.anscafe.com.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

An evening in Nirvana

Nirvana is located at 191A Hoang Van Thu Street, HCMC’s Phu Nhuan District. A guest at the Nirvana Café in HCMC’s Phu Nhuan District - Photo: My Tran

As one of the oldest cafes in Saigon, Nirvana Café’s attraction is its classic style.

The use of antiques and rare art combined with a sensitive attention to lighting lend meaning to the name. It’s a great hideout for anyone who needs to chillout, away from the streets for a while.

Behind the entrance is a wall with insets for oil lamps and a small altar for worshipping the earth god. Under the shade of trees and banana leaves is a small music fountain stage which plays every night.

The walls are painted to look old. “The color is in harmony with the lighting, making the café peaceful and fanciful, especially at night,” said one of the staff.

It has also got a lot of interesting bric a brac, including antiques, old scooters, lamps, ceramic vases and terra-cotta statues and wooden artworks. The chairs don’t match and the tables and stairs are made from dark colored wood that goes with the red curtains, giving it that northern-tribe feel.

The cafe has three floors. Different areas are reached by walking across stepping stones in shallow ponds containing fish and wetland grasses.

“I come to the café when I am in the mood as it is really a nice space to relax,” said Vi, a regular customer.

The café is a combination of cultures from the colorful hanging lanterns of Hoi An hanging in the corridors and ceilings, linga and yoni statues of Cham culture, oil lamps and furniture of the north and modern lights of Western style.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Hanoi meets Saigon for coffee

A guest takes a drink at the Cacophony café designed to resemble Hanoi street café culture - Photo: Tuong Vi

Saigon is the melting pot of Vietnam… It’s a mixture of cultures, customs, foods and peoples from every province and around the globe. There’s a place for everyone here to enjoy the tastes of home.

For the Hanoians in Saigon who miss their city, Cacophony café at 57H, Tu Xuong Street in District 3 is a nice reminder of their favorite street hangouts.

Cacophony coffee shop is built in an old French three story villa. Each floor has its own style. The ground floor is a place for those love it modern, with live acoustic music every night from Wednesday to Sunday including pop, rock, and country 9 to 10.45p.m.

The first floor is decorated to be a street corner of Saigon with red bricks and power poles and old black and white photos of the city.

The second floor is the pride of the Hanoian owners. Every detail invokes memories of the old town - the brickwork, the street signs and the old wooden doors. There are oil lamps hanging outside every house, low set tables with cushions and cuckoo cages on the roofs. Phung Thanh Hoa, the owner of the cafe that opened on the occasion of 1,000 years of Hanoi-Thang Long said photos can’t walk you down memory lane as well as the three dimensional experience of Cacophony café. It was designed with help from architecture and arts students.

Tran Khanh Hoang, manager of the cafe said cacophony means a discordant and meaningless mixture of sounds. They gave this name to the newly opened shop because of the mixture of sounds on the streets.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Places to celebrate Halloween Night

Scary party heads pose for photos at Seventeen Saloon’s Halloween bash last year - Photo: Official website of the Seventeen Saloon

If you are looking for a cool place for a Halloween party, here’s our list of some hotels, bars and café in town.

*Caravelle Hotel: The Halloween Nightmare Party will be at Saigon Saigon Bar at 6:30 p.m. on October 31 with exciting games, sweet and spooky Halloween drinks, “frightening food” and shock-inducing shots awaiting you and your friends.

Halloween drink list includes Vampire’s Kiss, Blood and Sand, Ectoplasm n’ Eyeballs, Swarm Water Gross and Bloody Vampire for VND135,000++ each.

*Legend Hotel Saigon: A fabulous night filled with the Halloween spirits and treats lies ready at the hotel’s Atrium Café from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Oct 31. There’s a buffet with frightful dishes, live entertainment by the Jamm’n Essence band and the orange and black scareroom, with skeletons, spider webs, carved pumpkins and frightening creations.

A witch will be flying her broom over the tables to make you scream. While enjoying the live band, you can have Transylvania Dinner, Asian Witch Soup, Dracula’s First Bite and many more devilish foods.

*Windsor Plaza Saigon: On Oct. 31 from 9 p.m. till late, the hotel’s America Discotheque will host Halloween special activities.

Dress up in your best costume for a chance to be crowned Halloween King or Queen of the night in the special costume contest. At 12 midnight, the lights will go out for 15 minutes and Halloween fever will come to life for everyone present.

America Discotheque will be decorated as a haunted house on the evening with plenty of spooky decorations everywhere, including traditional Jack-o’-lanterns, spider webs and mummies. There will be plenty of opportunities to take fun and memorable photographs with special backdrops and photo areas as well.

The hotel’s Café Central An Dong in Dist. 5 and Café Central Nguyen Hue in Dist. 1 will also present a fun-filled Halloween.

*Seventeen Saloon: The saloon will be turn into a Halloween maze with well-known celebrities from hell like Jason, Dracula, Vampire and Frankenstein. There are two different theme nights including “The return of Jason” (the main character in the Friday the 13th horror movie) featuring dances and gameshows on Oct 30 and “The combination of Dracular and vampire” on Oct 31.

The fun starts at 9 p.m. both nights at Seventeen Saloon, 103A Pham Ngu Lao Street, District 1. Guests who buy a bottle of spirits will get one Halloween mask or gift. Seventeen Saloon with give prizes for guests with the best make up. Free make-up is available from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

For further information, contact 3914 0007 or 0944 017 017.

*Vasco’s bar: To celebrate Halloween on Oct. 30, Vasco’s will transform its two rooms into dungeons. The main room will feature A.K.A.T, DJ Kamel Knight, DJ Robert Brant, DJ Alex Zander, Jordan and Jase while the Blue Room will host several birthday parties with music by Von Knappe, Don Pucci, DR.Jakell and guest performers.

The night also includes a variety of prizes and specials including a bottle of Southern Comfort and a US$200 F&B voucher to be used at La Camargue and Vasco’s for Best Male Costume and best Female Costume. Lucky guests will also have a chance to win bottles of Southern Comfort throughout the night.

Vasco’s 74/7D Hai Ba Trung Street, District 1, HCMC, tel: 3824 3148.

*Acoustic Café: The live music cafe Acoustic will host “Scream From the Ring” at 8 p.m. on Saturday Oct. 30. The Halloween live concert features bands Titanium, Coconuts and Overload, singers Ha Okia, Thao Trang, Chu Minh Ki, Minh MTV and special guests guitarist Nguyen Dat and his famous band Da Vang.

The night will also feature a host of horror games with the chance to win prizes worth US$400. Halloween makeup for guests is available from 6 p.m. Entrance is VND80,000 inclusive of a drink. Entry is free for guests in Halloween costumes.

Acoustic, 6E1 Ngo Thoi Nhiem Street, District 3, HCMC, tel: 3930 2239.

*Hard Rock Café: “Running with the Devil” is the Halloween Special Treat to guests at 9 p.m. on Saturday Oct 30. The café offers free entrance with live music, free shots and special treats for those in Halloween costume.

Hard Rock Café s at Kumho Asiana Plaza, 39 Le Duan Blvd., District 1.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Fairy tale telling café in noisy town

A view of The Princess and the Pea Café - Photo: Tuong Vi

It’s not difficult for Saigonese to find a coffee shop to escape the noise because there are a variety of cafés including those featuring live music, soft music and comedy performances. But a fairy tale telling café in the heart of a modern city like HCMC is quite new.

The café going by the name of The Princess and the Pea was opened in August by two film directors, Lam Minh Khoi and Vo Thi Thach Thao, as they were inspired by the well-known fairy tale of the same name by Danish author and poet Hans Christian Andersen.

Since it is in a very small alley on the crowded one-way street of Pasteur in District 1, it may take you some time to spot it. Car or bike parking is recommended at the HCMC Exhibition House, 92 Le Thanh Ton Street, and the coffee shop is just across the street. Entering Alley 85 for some meters and looking left, you can see Princess and the Pea sign and go up an old apartment building.

On the walls along the stairs there are many pictures featuring Western folk culture. The dark purple-painted café covers over 40 square meters on the third floor.

This is like a private world for the princess and is divided into three compartments. Given the limited space, the owners arrange low tables with cushions and pillows for guests. All cushions, pillows, curtains and even menus are made from flowered cloths.

At the window is the little smiley doll statue in a blue dress with a basket in her hands. She is a naive countryside girl who sings and dances in the yellow rice field as the tale tells her story.

At the end of the room, there’s a small bed piled with many mattresses reminding guests of the tale. Beside the bed are a mirror and a long red and black gown of the princess. Next to her bedroom is a place for the princess to entertain with the old stories and listen to music.

If you come there, don’t forget to taste a dish called burning rice. Dip a piece of burning rice into a small bowl of fatty onion and roll it with shrimp and salted dried meat, then dip it into chili sauce.

Visitors come to the place because they are curious about The Princess and the Pea tale by Andersen. Once upon a time, there’s a prince seeking a perfect princess for marriage and he goes many places but he finds no perfect lady. On a stormy night, a girl knocks on the door of his palace begging to stay there for a night. She says she’s the perfect one the prince is looking for. To check it, the queen leaves a pea on the bed and piles 20 mattress layers on the pea. In the morning, the queen asks the girl whether she sleeps well or not. The girl says she could not sleep well because of something hard under the bed. The queen smiles as she finds a true wife for her son.

On Friday, from 8:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., guests can listen to live music performed by amateur singers with famous movies soundtracks. Moreover, a monologue comedian nicknamed Cucumber performs there and tells guests about daily life stories. Because so many guests come on Friday but the room is small, for a maximum of 60 guests, you need to make reservations by Thursday by phone 0907.703.159 or 0907.010.192.

If you wish to stay away from the noisy streets and enjoy a fairy tale atmosphere after a day of hard work, don’t hesitate to go there.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Hotels celebrate National Day

For the celebration of Vietnam’s 65th National Day on Thursday September 2, hotels have organized some special programs.

*Caravelle Hotel (17-19 Lam Son Square, District 1, tel: 38234999)

Restaurant Nineteen of the Caravelle Hotel offers a large selection of carving stations as well as a unique cooked to order fresh seafood selection for VND888,000++ per person including a glass of Mumm Champagne and unlimited orders of Margaritas & Martinis and free flowing house wines, Italian and Spanish wines.

*Duxton Hotel Saigon (63 Nguyen Hue Boulevard, District 1, tel: )

The hotel offers special Independence Day rates at only US$85++/night with breakfast included. An additional US$10++/night is charged for double occupancy. The rates are valid from Aug. 27 till Sept. 5.

*Legend Hotel Saigon (2A-4A Ton Duc Thang Street, District 1, tel:)

Chefs of Atrium Café of the Legend Hotel Saigon will add gourmet Vietnamese dishes to the buffet spread at the Café for the occasion. Gourmets can leisurely enjoy authentic Vietnamese delicacies from Northern, Central and Southern regions while enjoying live music from Jamm’n Essence Band. Vietnam National Day Buffet is priced at VND418,000++ Adult and VND209,000++ Child for Lunch (11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.); and VND722,000++ Adult and VND361,000++ Child for Dinner (6 p.m. to 10 p.m.).

*Ramana Hotel Saigon (323 Le Van Sy Street, District 3, tel; )

The four-star hotel is serving an authentic Vietnamese buffet dinner for VND299,000++ per adult and VND150,000++ per child. Diners are offered a sumptuous buffet with more than 60 Vietnamese dishes which vary between fresh herbs and deliciously spiced meats and lettuce and herb rolls with shrimp, rice noodle rolls with beef, grilled seafood with onion and oil, bitter squash broth with minced pork ball among others. Enjoy free flow of soft drink and take in the live music of a traditional band at the intimate Café restaurant. The promotion goes from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. only one day on September 2 at The Café Restaurant.

*Windsor Plaza Hotel (18 An Duong Vuong Street, District 5, tel: 3 833.6688)

The hotel’s Café Central An Dong offers a range of regional tastes from Japan this September. For starters there’s a choice from 20 kinds of tempura - crisp vegetables to fresh fish, lightly battered and fried to perfection. Other unique dishes abound like rice wrapped in seaweed to sukiyaki, a Japanese hot pot with glass noodles, vegetables and thin strips of beef among others. The regular dinner buffet runs from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. and costs VND295,000++ on weekdays and VND325,000++ on weekends and holidays. Children 10 years and under are half price.

The TOTT Bar and Restaurant on level 25 of the hotel presents genuine Australian rock lobster prepared with a wide selection of savory styles. Some recommendations are homemade ravioli stuffed with lobster mousse, saffron and pearl caviar or oven-roasted fresh lobster, basted with barbeque sauce and choron sauce and a touch of tarragon. The TOTT Bar and Restaurant opens daily from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Hotels celebrate National Day

For the celebration of Vietnam’s 65th National Day on Thursday September 2, hotels have organized some special programs.

*Caravelle Hotel (17-19 Lam Son Square, District 1, tel: 38234999)

*Duxton Hotel Saigon (63 Nguyen Hue Boulevard, District 1, tel: )

*Legend Hotel Saigon (2A-4A Ton Duc Thang Street, District 1, tel:)

*Ramana Hotel Saigon (323 Le Van Sy Street, District 3, tel; )

*Windsor Plaza Hotel (18 An Duong Vuong Street, District 5, tel: 3 833.6688)

VietNam Travel

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Vietnam bands wanted for Hard Rock battle

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Vietnam bands wanted for Hard Rock battle

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Eat, drink and buy the furniture at An’s Interior Café

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Thursday, November 4, 2010

An evening in Nirvana

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Hanoi meets Saigon for coffee

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Friday, October 29, 2010

Places to celebrate Halloween Night

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Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Fairy tale telling café in noisy town

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Thursday, September 2, 2010

Hotels celebrate National Day

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Wednesday, September 1, 2010

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