Unique Chaozhou style blood shop, selling 800 bowls a day in Saigon

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoa (45 years old) originally from Quy Nhon, Binh Dinh, then moved to Saigon to live, she knows many Chinese friends. Knowing that she liked to eat dishes with pork intestines, they showed how to cook Chaozhou-style blood soup. Ms. Hoa is the owner of the famous blood chung shop in Saigon.

The shop is located in Tan Binh district, is one of the shops that are always busy with customers. This dish is considered quite new and unique. According to the owner, every day the restaurant sells from 600 to 800 bowls, a number that any restaurant wishes.

The main ingredient is pig blood, which is beaten evenly and then distilled in a pressure cooker for more than 4 hours. Unlike blood boiled in boiling water and then cut into small pieces, distilled blood is soft, like hot tofu, when eaten, it melts in the mouth. A full bowl of blood is eaten with pork heart, jackfruit seeds, sugar cane leaves, bubbles, pho, tongue, pork brain and sliced ​​ginger with scallions and ground pepper on top. Hot dish with or without bread depending on preference.

When being instructed by her friend on how to make blood distillate, Ms. Hoa also researched to taste it to suit the taste of the Southern people.

To produce the finished product takes a lot of time, especially the cleaning of the internal organs. Every day, Ms. Hoa’s shop starts from early morning to noon to carry out the preliminary processing and food preparation stages. In addition, the drawing of blood into the bowl for guests also needs to be done carefully, if the blood is broken, it will lose the characteristics of the dish. The shop has 11 employees who work continuously, but sometimes the number of customers is crowded, the staff still cannot serve in time.

A full bowl of distilled blood at Ms. Hoa’s shop costs 50,000 VND.

This dish is considered suitable for many ages, from adults to children. The customer segment is quite diverse, students, office workers, laborers… The shop owner said that at first, the business was not really convenient, little known to diners, even some people didn’t like it. refused to try. But later, one person passed on to the other, so now the shop is crowded, selling a few hundred bowls a day, selling more at weekends.

Previously, the shop sold from 3 pm, but now it is sold earlier at 11 am to increase revenue and compensate for losses after the break due to the pandemic. Many youtubers, tiktokers come to enjoy and make video reviews, the shop is even more known by netizens.