Singaporean national Jovel Chan moved to Ho Chi Minh City at a rather challenging time.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the globe, her job in F&B marketing for a prominent Malaysian airline came to a halt, forcing her to return to Singapore.

Being lock downed in her apartment in Singapore did not make Chan happy.

Encouraged by friends to relocate to Vietnam, which was still accepting entries with strict pandemic control measures at that time, Chan decided to open a fitness studio in Ho Chi Minh City, hoping to tap into the country’s growing health market. 

Chan flew to Ho Chi Minh City in December 2020 where she spent two weeks in quarantine only to find out that the city would soon implement social distancing measures.

Though her plan was put on hold, Chan was able to find a silver lining in the situation.

“I'm so glad I got to really see how [Vietnamese] people are because otherwise, as a foreigner, I would have come and worked in an office in District 1, only seeing the technology and modern aspects [of the country],” she said. 

“[Without the social distancing measures] you wouldn't see a lot of the things like the police presence and neighborhoods coming together to help everybody."

Chan herself did her best to be a part of the Vietnamese community’s efforts to support each other by volunteering to help deliver food to those quarantined at home due to COVID-19. 

The Singaporean still vividly remembers one day, she and her friends processed a ton of cabbages for distribution.

As the saying goes, when one door closes, another opens.

Another door, another path

While stuck at home, Chan kept up with online discussions about which restaurants in the city remained open and which were closed. 

She began to compile a list of these restaurants and posted it to a web domain she had already purchased to promote her fitness studio.

Her list quickly went viral after she posted it to a series of online forums, chalking up over 10,000 views in just a few days.

During the following Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday, restaurants and cafés began reaching out to Chan, asking her to update their operating information. 

From knowing no one in the local F&B industry upon her arrival, Chan quickly built a network of many Vietnamese businesses.

Chan’s blog is a vibrant platform where she continually updates readers on the latest trends and changes in Vietnam’s food and beverage scene.

It would feature lists of newly opened restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City, articles about emerging culinary destinations worth exploring in Vietnam, or guides to ‘new Vietnamese’ restaurants in the city. 

In addition to her own writing, some of the content is also produced by her team members.

Despite receiving numerous invitations from restaurants, Chan said she does not focus on monetizing her blog, because if a restaurant is not good, she simply will not review it.

After nearly four years in Vietnam, the 31-year-old blogger now generates her primary income through marketing and consulting for restaurants, as well as organizing tours, events, and supper clubs through her company, Saigon Social.

Thanks to a team which helps handle her operational work, Chan is able to pursue her passion: exploring Vietnamese cuisine. 

Besides running her blog, which attracts over 20,000 monthly visits, Chan also writes for several English publications in Vietnam and abroad, helping promote the country’s rapidly growing culinary scene.

However, she does not write about street food but focuses solely on restaurants. 

“I love Vietnamese street food. I love eating bún riêu [crab noodles] and bánh xèo [Vietnamese savory sizzling crepes], but I don't feel that I'm like a local person so I don't know if I should be the best person to write about street food,” she explained. 

There are a lot of other people who can write about street food better than her, she believed.

“Living in Southeast Asia, we all eat street food. So, I want to explore places that make me go ‘wow’ like seeing people use Vietnamese herbs in drinks, or blending phở into cocktails,” Chan said. 

“Small hidden bars and cafés tucked inside old buildings, filled with surprises and genuinely made drinks, run by young people, truly blow my mind.”

Chan believed that in the long term, it is more sustainable for Vietnamese cuisine to also enter a finer and more premium dining space.

"Tourists and food enthusiasts from abroad can also appreciate Vietnamese ingredients and culinary talents in a different way,” she said. 

“If they can only appreciate Vietnamese food on the street, then Vietnamese cuisine will always be VND25,000 and VND20,000. (US$1 = VND24,610)

“For instance, if I only eat street food, I wouldn’t know that people can create cocktails with Vietnamese gin and basil."

Chan shared an example of dining on oysters in Nha Trang, a tourist city in south-central Vietnam, where she was amazed by the quality, comparing it to that of Japan.

However, she noted that few people would know this unless they visited upscale restaurants.

She also recommended that Vietnamese restaurants create English-language websites to make it easier for foreigners to discover them.

‘An exciting time’

According to Chan, this is an exciting time for Vietnam’s culinary scene, with international media outlets from the Michelin Guide to The New York Times spotlighting Vietnamese food and many global brands entering the market. 

“I feel that now is the time that we're going to see the restaurant scene really change, and see a lot of Vietnamese chefs doing it,” Chan said. 

“In the past, like in every country in Southeast Asia, even Singapore, fine dining was very Western, like French fine dining and Italian fine dining."

Chan highlighted the exciting developments happening in Vietnam's food scene, from modern Vietnamese creations to unique fusions with other cuisines, saying, "It can be anything."

The Singaporean blogger hopes to remain in Vietnam for another five to ten years to witness the continued evolution of the country's culinary landscape first-hand.

“I wish I had come so much earlier,” Chan said.

Chan expressed her desire for larger events featuring international chefs and greater recognition for Vietnamese chefs both locally and regionally.

She also hopes to see more collaborations between Vietnamese and foreign culinary experts from across Asia.

In the coming months, Chan plans to organize additional food tours focused on modern Vietnamese cuisine and cocktails, along with workshops and tastings where visitors can sample and purchase high-quality gin, rum, sake, and chocolate made in Vietnam.

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