A restaurant for more than a lifetime
The sound of customers ordering food, the sound of waiters calling to the kitchen, the sound of stainless steel tables and chairs being quickly arranged to welcome customers to dine, the cheerful laughter of the restaurant owner with familiar customers... Every day, at around 12 noon, the small space of about 40 square meters of Chuyen Ky rice pot restaurant will be bustling like that and it will last until the end of lunch break.
Chuyen Ky is located in an apartment complex in the heart of the Old Market.
If you are a young customer, I believe you will not like the service style here. The person who takes your order will be one of the two owners, Mrs. My My and Mrs. Thuy Thuy. Your order will rarely be recorded, which makes those who are used to the usual service style worry that their order will be missing a dish. But no, there has never been a situation of missing a dish at the restaurant. That somewhat "chaotic" atmosphere may make many young customers unfamiliar, but this is one of the indispensable factors that create the "culture" of this over 70-year-old restaurant.
Chuyen Ky Pot Rice is no longer a strange place to Saigonese because how many restaurants have existed for 7 decades? The attraction of the restaurant that makes people mention it over and over again is not only the number 70 years but also what it has witnessed throughout a lifetime.
The restaurant is most crowded at noon.
"Chung phan" (pot rice read in Cantonese pronunciation) is the typical way of cooking this dish. Rice is put in a pot, enough water is added and then steamed. This complicated and time-consuming cooking method no longer exists because nowadays, diners need something quick, convenient, delicious, and high-quality to eat. The dishes here are not prepared in advance, but when customers order, the chef starts to cook, so it is very normal to see tables waiting for 25-30 minutes for the dishes.
"We just want to keep the family business from our grandmother's generation" - that's the explanation of the restaurant owner when asked why they still keep this way of cooking. Chuyen Ky, taken from the word Chuyen in Ly Chuyen, is also the grandmother of Mrs. My and Mrs. Thuy.
Speaking in broken, somewhat exaggerated but generous and comfortable Vietnamese, the two women said that "Chuyen Ky Tuu Lau" had been a famous restaurant for Saigonese since its opening in the 60s, with dozens of employees. At that time, only their grandparents were in charge of the restaurant, and they were sent to "learn the trade" from small jobs such as picking vegetables, washing dishes... By 1994, when their grandmother passed away, they had already had about 20 years of experience and from there they became restaurant owners.
Ms. Thuy Thuy is one of the two owners of Chuyen Ky restaurant.
That is also the way the assistants follow the restaurant. Mrs. My shared that Chuyen Ky currently has few waiters, but the ones who stay are all those who have followed the restaurant for nearly decades. The assistants from picking vegetables, washing dishes, serving... have worked from generation to generation, understanding how to cook are promoted to the position of head chef, assistant chef, their children also continue to "follow the profession" to help with the work here.
For the past few years, Mrs. My has been sick. One of the customers of the shop since her school days is now the head of a department at a large hospital and has now become the doctor treating Mrs. My. So, Chuyen Ky stayed there and witnessed many growths and changes in the customers and the "transformation" of Saigon.
Things that never change
Every day, the two women wake up at 5am to prepare the ingredients for a day of cooking. The ingredients used to make the dishes at Chuyen Ky do not come from any far away or expensive places, but are located right in the Old Market area (Ton That Dam) or the farthest is Cau Muoi Market, markets that have existed with Saigon for many decades.
Chuyen Ky's menu is still exactly the same as it was decades ago. Beef and sausage rice pot, lotus root soup, shrimp pate or braised pork belly... are still ordered every day and the flavor or preparation method has never changed over the years.
By 12 noon, which is also the busiest time, each steamer can operate at full capacity with 80 rice pots, steaming within 30 minutes. In the kitchen, there are about 3-4 people taking turns cooking but never stopping work. Every time a customer orders a dish, the waiter just needs to take the steaming rice pot from the steamer, add the food and bring it out. Dishes that do not have a special cooking method such as frying or stir-frying are also prepared by steaming, such as chicken stew or braised chicken.
Every noon, both the owner and staff of Chuyen Ky are busy, rarely having a moment to rest.
When asked about their family secrets, the two women did not hide anything because there was no special secret. Like mixing Tai Nguyen rice and Nang Thom rice to get a bowl of rice that was not too dry or too mushy, or using duck eggs instead of chicken eggs in a braised dish to blend the flavors of the dish better... they were all shared very freely.
The rice is cooked in a pot but is cooked evenly, a few grains of rice around the mouth of the pot are a bit dry but that is normal with this cooking method. The food is placed on top, if you want to eat directly, use a spoon to scoop it down skillfully, but if you are afraid of the food falling out, you can pour it all into a larger bowl and then eat. The meat broth is seasoned just right, soaking into the white rice, giving it a light and mild taste, very delicious to eat.
The clay pot rice dish is still prepared the same way after more than 70 years.
Times change, prices also change somewhat, but looking at the general level, a meal at Chuyen Ky currently only ranges from 50,000 VND to 70,000 VND per person. The restaurant is only open during two time frames from 11am to 2pm and from 5pm to 9pm, serving mainly lunch and dinner.
Just like that, the dishes of Chuyen Ky gradually became a habit of the diners because of the familiarity like home-cooked meals. Once, the two ladies received a family returning from abroad. The child in that family who had been "bullied" by the two ladies to eat, was now over 40 years old, and brought his children and grandchildren to greet the two ladies. Or there were customers who had been familiar with the restaurant since the time of their grandparents, parents, and now their children and grandchildren, who came back every few months, found the same corner, and ordered the same dishes. Or there were customers who had left Vietnam to settle down, and when they returned, they insisted on stopping by Chuyen Ky for dinner.
The ups and downs of a "relic" restaurant
After all these years, it is not difficult to know that Chuyen Ky also went through a period of prosperity, then surrounded by scandals. Mrs. My recounted that around the 90s of the last century, a group of Japanese tourists visited the restaurant and made a report, filming for a foreign TV channel, from which the restaurant became more widely known.
In the 2000s, Chuyen Ky seemed to be at its peak when countless diners came here, mostly foreign tourists. They came partly because they were curious about the dishes, partly because of the story shared on mass media sites.
The old couple couldn't remember how many times they had dined at Chuyen Ky.
During that time, the number of customers was so great that the rice steamers were working at full capacity but still could not produce enough rice to sell. So the two women decided to cook rice in the usual way, because that was the only way to ensure the meals. But that was a very wrong decision, when the diners who came for the uniqueness of the rice cooked in the pot could not hide their disappointment when the rice they enjoyed was no different from... normal rice.
That was also the time when Chuyen Ky brought back scandals. People rumored that Chuyen Ky could no longer maintain the traditional cooking style. This put a lot of pressure on the two restaurant owners. But then, the "storm" passed. Everything was balanced again. Chuyen Ky's rice steamers still produce delicious, sweet rice, maintaining the reputation of the restaurant that is more than 70 years old.
A normal afternoon at Chuyen Ky.
There were times when it was too hard, the two women also considered closing the shop, but it was not easy to give up something that had become a habit and joy for them for years since they were children. The two women shared that they could stop doing business and rent the space for 50 million VND/month, but they kept putting it off for a long time. Mrs. Thuy "asked" her sister to let them continue to operate for a few more years, until the Old Market was demolished.
