A unique restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City where the owner cooks 30 dishes every day without using pots or pans.

By using only a frying pan to cook about 30 dishes a day, Toan has created a unique "pan-fried rice" restaurant, surprising and delighting diners who come to enjoy and learn more about it.

The restaurant only uses pans for cooking. Video : Ha Nguyen

"Fried rice"

Located on Pham Hung Street (Binh Chanh District, Ho Chi Minh City), the budget-friendly restaurant owned by Mr. Nguyen Van Toan (born in 1975) attracts many customers because of its unique features.

Besides serving a wide variety of dishes, the restaurant also has a unique and rare way of preparing food. The chefs here only use pans to cook the dishes.

At the restaurant, Mr. Toan personally cooks the meals. In addition to two large pots for cooking rice, Mr. Toan and his staff use eight pans of similar size to prepare nearly 50 dishes.

Toan's restaurant uses only pans to cook all its dishes. Photo: Ha Nguyen

Whether it's stew, fried, stir-fried, or boiled, Mr. Toan cooks it all in these eight pans. When the food is cooked, he and his staff transfer it to smaller pans placed on the table.

This unique cooking method was invented by Mr. Toan more than a decade ago.

Previously, Toan worked as a security guard at a bookstore. Later, he found the job of a security guard to be hard work and not well-paying, so he resigned to look for a new job.

Realizing he had a knack for cooking, he boldly used his savings to rent a space and open a small broken rice restaurant.

Unexpectedly, the dishes he prepared were praised by customers as delicious and to their liking. Afterward, he independently experimented and created many more rustic dishes that were familiar and close to the tastes of Vietnamese family meals.

Whether frying, stir-frying, boiling, or braising, Mr. Toan always uses a pan for cooking. Photo: Ha Nguyen

Toan shared: "I've never taken cooking classes and I don't follow anyone's recipes. I cook dishes that are familiar to family meals based on my own thoughts and experiences."

I'm from the Mekong Delta. Back home, I noticed that most people cook and eat food directly in pans or pots. Eating that way is simple and helps the food stay hot, making it very delicious.

When I opened the restaurant, I decided to cook all the dishes in a pan. Once cooked, I would transfer the food to a smaller pan.

When customers order, I put a small pan on the stove to reheat the food so that diners feel like they are enjoying a home-cooked meal."

After cooking in eight large pans, Mr. Toan and his staff transfer the food into smaller pans. Photo: Ha Nguyen

Affordable price, but guaranteed to fill you up.

Mr. Toan said that cooking food in a pan does not affect the quality of the dish. On the contrary, cooking in a pan makes it easier for him to season and stir the food.

Serving cooked food in smaller pans also helps the food retain heat longer.

Before cooking a dish, Mr. Toan cleans the pan thoroughly. When switching to a new dish, he washes the pan again to ensure that the flavor of the previous dish is not affected.

With the aim of cooking dishes found on a family meal menu, Toan's stir-fried rice restaurant serves dishes such as: braised pork with eggs, braised chicken, braised duck with ginger, fried fish, braised fish, stir-fried beef, etc.

When customers choose their dishes, Mr. Toan will take a small pan, place it on the stove to heat the food, then place the entire pan on a plate and serve it at the table. Photo: Ha Nguyen

To ensure food safety, Mr. Toan personally goes to the market to select fresh ingredients. The preparation process is also carried out meticulously by him and his staff.

Before the pandemic, his restaurant was exceptionally busy. Every day, he prepared nearly 50 different dishes to serve all his customers. After the pandemic, the number of customers decreased by 20-30%, so he only cooks about 30 dishes.

The restaurant attracts many customers who come to enjoy the food and learn about its unique cooking methods. Photo: Ha Nguyen

Toan's restaurant is open from 6 AM to 10 PM. In addition to customers dining in, the restaurant also serves customers who want to take food away.

Between 11:30 AM and 12:00 PM and 5:00 PM each day, the restaurant is particularly crowded. Each meal here costs 35,000 VND.

The shop also offers takeout service. Photo: Ha Nguyen

With affordable prices but delicious and generous portions, Toan's eatery is a popular choice for many.

"Compared to other places, the meals here are very affordable but still filling. The rice and food are always hot, and the restaurant also serves free fresh vegetables, which I really appreciate," said a regular customer.

A restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City with a 'smelly' name and 'shockingly' high prices is still packed with customers.

Besides "ancient tomb snails," "morgue sticky rice," "graveyard beef hotpot," and "garbage dump broken rice," this is also an eatery that attracts the attention of many diners in Ho Chi Minh City.

A restaurant with a name that gives you chills is so popular with customers that they line up to enjoy its food in Ho Chi Minh City.

In Ho Chi Minh City, there are many eateries famous far and wide for their "chilling" and intriguing names, such as "ancient tomb snails," "graveyard beef hotpot," or "morgue sticky rice."

Foreign tourists recommend a 40-year-old budget-friendly restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City with over 30 delicious dishes.

The casual eatery on Vo Van Tan Street, District 3, has been a favorite dining spot for this Western visitor for several years. The restaurant offers over 30 dishes on its menu, with his particular favorites being braised fish with fermented fish sauce and snakehead fish.

Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/quan-com-doc-dao-o-tp-hcm-anh-chu-nau-30-mon-moi-ngay-khong-can-noi-2345876.html