Disclaimer: I left away all pronunciation marks in this text. For most people it won’t make much sense anyway. I will only include them if there’s a chance of misunderstanding (for example: cá = fish, cà = tomato).
Finding your way in Phan Rang
The whole Phan Rang-Thap Cham area, including kitespots and iteresting roads around it, is quite big. Here’s an overview map of different areas of interest.
Greater Phan Rang area and kitespots
My Hoa lagoon is where most of the kitesurfing happens. Many foreigners stay near the lagoon although some prefer to stay in hotels or appartments in Phan Rang city center. We always stay in Ninh Chu area, because it’s located comfortably in between both worlds. It has a local vibe and a small town and market attached to it.
Two roads also worth noting: the road to another kitespot called Son Hai or Surfer’s Paradise. It’s a great place for kitesurfing when the wind is very strong, but the facilities are less developed and there is a military area, so for some places you have to get permission first. Inform yourself before you go or just take your chances.
The other road worth noting is the coastal road to Vinh Hy and Cam Ranh. It’s a beautiful road along the cliffs, and there’s a waterfall where you can take a swim (find it on the map or ask around). Cam Ranh is known for it’s blue waters (best admired when it hasn’t been raining for a while) and has seen a lot of tourist developement in recent years. Vinh Hy is a fishing village that Vietnamese tourists find very attractive. It’s cute but I personally like the road better.
The train station and the Cham temples Phan Rang-Thap Cham is famous for, are located on the other side of the highway. We rarely cross this road as there is not much else to find here (please drop a comment below if I missed something). Most of the action happens in the area circeled as Phan Rang City center, more on that in the map below.
Learn to navigate Phan Rang city by heart in five minutes
Hospital road
Phan Rang is easy to navigate by head when you know some land marks. First off, there’s three roads you can take in and out of town. This is good to know because the road Google Maps wants you to take may not be ideal: we call it hospital road. It’s too narrow for the amount of traffic, it has neighbourhoods and small fresh markets on both sides with motorbikes coming out alleys. Best avoided when dark.
Two main waypoints: the big roundabout and the Christmas tree
Instead, the main road from the beach to the city center (there’s a big Vinmart/Vincom plaza halfway) is generally safe and has the big advantage that you have many landmarks to navigate by. For example, if you turn right after the big roundabout (you’ll recognize it when you see it) or after the park, you’ll get to K1, one of the areas with most restaurants.
Keep going straight on Vinmart road and you’ll get to the roundabout that has an undefinable work of art we started calling the christmas tree. Turn left there and you get to the main market. Again an area dotted with eateries – it also has most old buildings and colonial architecture.
If you’re tired or insecure on your vehicle you might want to take the central road. We call it boring road because there’s no traffic and not much to see.
General remarks on dining in Phan Rang (or Vietnam)
As much as I am passionate about the food in Phan Rang, I have to set a disclaimer first. Don’t expect too many English menus outside of My Hoa and do expect translations like “you sit on a cat” when scanning a menu with google translate.
“Just give me something you recommend” does not really work here.
Eating in Phan Rang is great but before you depart on your adventure, you should know some words in order to avoid ordering things most westerners don’t like to see on their plate.
| Popular dishes we steer away from | |
|---|---|
| (lau) ech | frog hotpot – I’m not kidding, the actual spicy soup with frogs in it fills restaurants. We generally skip all ech (frog) and all lau (hotpot) too, because of the undefinable meatballs and chicken feet we found in them. |
| trung tan / trung vit | fetal duck egg also known as balut – not my favourite. It goes by more names than only trung tan, so I generally just skip all trung vit (duck eggs) to be sure. You can eat vit (duck) though, it’s tasty but not cheap. |
| oc | shells/snails – some like it but no thanks |
| can ga / dui ga: yes please, chanh ga: no thanks | can ga: chicken wings. dui ga: chicken tighs. chanh ga: chicken feet. |
| cha ram tom / cha gio tom | shrimp spring rolls. Very tasty but do expect the whole shrimpy to be inside it, feat and all, sometimes the head too. Cha gio (spring rolls) is a great choice in vegetarian places. |
| hau – muc – hai san | oysters – cuttlefish – mixed seafood all up to personal preferences, some will argue you HAVE to eat oysters in Phan Rang |
| mam tom | mam is fish sauce, which you can safely eat if you like it, but mam tom is shrimp paste. Even many Vietnamese lack the stomach capacity to endure this treat. |
| rau ram | Vietnamese Coriander or as I call it: Herb of the devil. If you’re like me and somewhat tolerate normal coriander, you may find yourself wondering what herb is terrorising your tasting buds every now and then. It’s rau ram, sharp leaf-shaped vietnamese coriander. The smell and taste are stronger. Just ask for “khong rau ram” (use a rolling R and a long english A. KH sounds like a german ach-laut or a spanish J. Best of luck). Apparently rau ram goes especially well with balut 🙂 another good reason not to order balut. |
Paying the bill
To ask the bill say “tin tien” (the first syllable is short. To pronounce the “ie” in tien, imagine the way someone from Texas pronounces the “ie” Vietnam). You can call “em oi” to get the waiter’s attention, but it is only polite when he or she is younger than you (if not, just wave and smile, unless you want to learn every single Vietnamese pronoun and the corresponding age and gender). You can leave a tip if you like, but it’s not cultural, especially in roadside eateries and coffee shops. You’ll probably have someone running after you with the change you forgot.
You’re not being scammed
If you get a plate of wrapped hand towels, you pay for each one you use (about 4000). If you order a soda or beer and receive two or three bottles, that’s normal. You don’t pay for the ones you leave unopened.
Tra da is never far away
If you get a glass of tea (tra da, pronounced “cha da”) that’s free and will usually be refilled when empty. Tra da is included in all coffee places, the only exception being the kitecenter coffee bars in My Hoa. For restaurants, generally speaking, you can expect to find tra da or ice water somewhere. Feel free to pour yourself some if there is a thermo bottle on the table or a pot in the corner with some cups beside it. If you want to be polite you can also ask “co tra da khong?”
Our favourite restaurants organized by type
Well… sort of organized.
Section 1. Places where you share dishes with friends
It’s very common to order a bunch of food and share with the whole table. If you come to any of these restaurants, the plates will arrive whenever they’re ready. Just go with the flow and share whatever arrives first. These places are generally cheap, expect to spend about 80-100 vnd per person.
There’s a few table manners expected here (yes, they do in fact exist). First off, it’s completely normal to stack empty dishes, cans and chicken bones under the table. The waiter will also look under the table when making up the bill. Second, you’ll get small bowls to put your food in. Try to use different cutlery for scooping food from the shared plates and don’t use the same chopsticks or spoon you’ve been eating with. Finally, the person at the head of the table is traditionally expected to pay the bill.
Bo Ta – foreigner friendly beef restaurant and grill
Bo Ta is a restaurant that focuses on beef and has barbecue built into the table (we’ve never used it). They have two joints in the K1 neighborhood (Bo Ta 1 and Bo Ta 2) and they never disappoint. Dishes are a bit more expensive, but they serve huge portions. The food is foreigner friendly and will not have weirdish looking beef pieces in it, as long as you don’t order any organs of course.
Don’t miss
- bo luc lac: american style juicy beef cubes with a savoury sauce, served lettuce and french fries
- bo xao toi ot opla: stir fried beef with garlic and chili (not spicy), served with a fried egg sunny side up and delicious banh mi to soak up the sauce
Sala Quan – very local chicken restaurant
Unlike the other Sala, this Sala Quan is very much not a vegetarian restaurant. Situated on the Vinmart road, this place is almost always packed. The fact that they took over the Napoli coffee bar next door to double their space didn’t do much to change that.
The atmosfere is good and staff work very hard to get all orders to all tables. The floor is raw concrete and the hygene standards are somewhat different than those in more upscale places. Needless to say we never suffered stomach problems here.
They have a menu with the standard range of sharing dishes, but they specialise in whole/half grilled chicken with salt an chili (not too spicy). Haters will say the chicken is quite chewey for a restaurant that specialises in it, and they are right. Just enjoy the flavours and learn to appreciate the chewey-ness and all of the running around the skinny chicken had to do to achieve it.
Don’t miss
- Con ga nuong: whole or half chicken flamegrilled with chili and salt. It took us some time to learn to appreciate the chewey-ness, but we kept coming back for the other dishes and the atmosfere.
- Bo xao sa ot: beef stirfried with lemongrass and chili
- Com chien ot xanh: another classic, fried rice with green chili (it’s not very spicy)
- Bo luc lac: the “shaken beef” is also excellent here, juicy beef cubes in a savoury sauce served with lettuce and French fries
- Mang tay xao toi: baby asparagus stir fried with plenty of garlic
Roof tile barbecue: nuong ngoi so 1
If you stay for one day only and want to make your dinner memorable, look no further. It’s as odd as it is fun. Nuong ngoi so 1 was a roadside eatery at first, where you would sit on tiny plastic chairs with a rooftile over a firepot on the sidewalk. Business must have been good, because they now have several joints in town with solid furniture (although I’m happy they didn’t get all too formal). We listed the one on the main road through K1, but you can look on the map to find others.
You receive a stove with a rooftile over it, along with oil, sauce and salad. The oil slowly drips off the tile into a cup as you grill your desired meat, mushrooms and vegetables. Combine with fried rice and kimchi for a great dinner.
Don’t miss:
- The okra and eggplant are suprisingly good from the grill
- The kimchi, I’m no kimchi expert but I love the way it balances the grilled flavours
- Their signature beef is highly recommended and comes with a banh mi that you grill with the sweet sauce on it
- Enoki mushrooms wrapped in bacon, as well as the bacon-cheese rolls, are classics
- Green chili fried rice or fried rice with egg
Section 2. Vegetarian restaurants
Most vegetarians in Vietnam have religious motivations. Because of this, you generally have to go to a vegetarian restaurant to get really good vegetarian dishes. Although the food sharing places mentioned in the previous section have vegetable dishes on their menu and may even have things like fried tofu, the options there won’t be anough to keep vegetarians happy for days on end.
Vegetarian restaurants get very busy on days with religious meaning like full moon and new year. You can find your own vegetarian restaurant by scanning for chay (vegetarian) along the road.
Sala vegetarian restaurant
The OG of veggy places in K1, Sala has built up a good reputation among foreigners. The dishes are tasty, the furniture is suitible for long-legged foreigners (if you ever get tired of the cute little plastic chairs in most road side eateries), the staff are lovely and the whole place is very clean.
Don’t miss:
- The banana flower salad
- Spring rolls are a classic favourite
- They have home made cakes worth checking out
Tram tiem com chay – a lot more than veggy rice
Go straight on the Christmas tree to find Tram tiem com chay on your right side. It has a yoga garden vibe and a pond with coy carps, and although the place is oriented on Vietnamese customers, they have a translated menu. The dishes are very rich in taste and it’s a nice variation after taking your veggy friends to Sala for years.
Don’t miss:
- Mi quang: their vegetarian take on this iconic rice noodle soup is just too good
- Com chien ot xanh: green chilli fried rice
- Tempura fried Enoki mushrooms: I don’t remember the exact name on the menu, but you’ll see it when you find it
- Cripsy noodles: don’t let the somewhat slimey structure of the sauce put you off, the combination with crispy fried noodles is fascinating
Vegetarian eatery on the way to My Hoa
The food options on the road between the bridge and My Hoa still leaves room for improvement, but this vegetarian eatery qualifies as a hidden gem. At least.. when it’s open. The only downside is that we haven’t been able to get a grip on their opening times.
It’s a small stall inside a big shop selling plastic buckets and packaged food. There’s a yellow sign next to the road saying VEGETARIANEATERY.
Don’t miss:
- Banh cuon: vegetables, vegetarian sausages and rice noodles wrapped in rice paper, served with sweet chili sauce. It might not sound like an exciting dish at first, but it’s mouthwatering.
- Bun nem: this rice noodle salad is equally good, but sadly hasn’t been available the last few times we visited.
Section 3. Mi Quang
Mi Quang noodles originate from the Quang province, but it’s a great dish to try in Phan Rang too. It’s a rice noodle soup, with flat noodles (a bit like tagliatelle), peanuts, quail eggs and a variety of toppings (listed below). The broth is not always yellow here (unlike the original dish in the Quang province) but it’s still more colourful and savoury than pho.
How to eat mi quang
To pronounce the “quang” part (Quảng) try to say “mi weng?!” with a strong exaggeration on the question intonation (tone going down and then up). To choose your toppings: you can go for dac biet (special) or thap cam (mixed) if you’re feeling adventurous. You’ll get eggs, shrimp, nem/cha (sausage/patty) and meat. To keep things under control, you can also choose your preferred combination:
- thit (heo) is (pork) meat, usually filet
- trung is in this case boiled quail eggs (highly recommended)
- tom is prawn
- you can also go for ga (chicken) but I recommend a combination of the above
- suon is pork ribs/bones (not always the easiest in a soup)
It’s served with a salad containing banana flower (the union-like red curly stuff), spicy lettuce (rau cay) and crispy sesame rice paper (banh trang me). Stuff the lettuce in the noodlesoup and crumble the rice paper over it.
Mi Quang for breakfast in K1
My Son is a reputable mi quang shop in the K1 area that has been supplying us with a solid stream of good soup for years. They’re open in the morning and in the evening but it’s sold out from time to time. Arriving in the morning seems to be your best bet.
Don’t miss:
- Mi quang thit trung is our favourite here. There’s a handy menu on the wall that you can point to.
- Rau cay and banana flower: don’t skip the veggies served with every order, they’re delicious.
- Mi quang thap cam / mi quang dac biet: if you want to go on a mi quang adventure and order special/mixed, this is the place to do so.
Very local Mi Quang with beef
For a local experience and an amazing mi quang with beef, head to mi quang bun ca ngoc. Coming from the big roundabout, turn right at the christmas tree and go left on the first crossroads. The shop also sells bun (soup with thick round noodles) with fish and in the daytime they specialise in dynamos (that’s correct).
You’ll eat on plastic chairs surrounded by tools and dynamo motors neatly stacked on the shelves. The lady is lovely.
Mi Quang for dinner near the market
There’s a good mi quang shop in the area near the market too: Mi quang chinh hieu. They open for dinner. It’s a bit less straightforward to order, so I personally suggest you order Mi quang thit heo (pig meat) or just sit down and go with the flow. There may even be a menu, but I haven’t been able to locate it just yet.
I don’t have a photo hihi, so you’ll have to do with google maps.
Section 4. Bun nem
Bun nem is a rice noodle salad, basically a dry noodlesoup with, vegetables, lettuce, sauce and meat patty/sausages. It’s nourishing but not as heavy or salty as a noodle soup. Very tasty.
A word of warning: bun nem is not the same as bun mam nem. Bun mam nem is served with mam tom (shrimp paste fish sauce), raw eggplant and pig ears, all of which I don’t really enjoy eating.
You can find regular bun nem, but it’s sometimes also listed as bun nem nuong or bun nem thit nuong, all of which are good and don’t have any bones or weird stuff in it (except for the sausage if that’s not your thing). Expect to pay about 30.000 vnd for a bowl of bun nem.
Bun nem cuon hien near the market
This place was first recommended to us by Vietnamese friends and we keep coming back. It is open all day, tasty and very clean. Turn left just before the market, it’s on your right side.
It’s a good place to eat your first bun nem, because you don’t need an iron stomach to eat here and the sausages are accessible (Vietnamese sausages come in all shapes and sizes, some being more recognizable, fishy and sometimes even groundy – the sausages here are beginner level and tasty).
Don’t miss:
- Aside from bun nem, they have excellent cha cuon here: fresh rice paper spring roll.
- They usually add rau ram, very strong Vietnamese coriander. You can order khong rau ram if you don’t like it.
Nha Trang style bun nem and cha cuon
Another place we found by a local recommendation and one of the few reasons we sometimes take the southernmost road back to the shore. This popular place is known for both its bun nem and its Nha Trang style fresh spring rolls, where you collect all the meat, lettuce and sauce an roll the thing yourself. Staff are lovely and there is a handy menu with photos you can point to.
They do serve more adventurous looking sausages than the above mentioned place, but they are worth trying for their amazing flavour.
Don’t miss:
- Bun thit nuong: that’s the bun nem (rice noodle salad)
- Nha Trang nem phan: that’s the Nha Trang style DIY fresh spring roll
Section 5. Banh mi
You can find your fair share of banh mi in stalls along the road. Any banh mi is generally good banh mi, but we have a few pearls we would like to share.
Banh mi Saigon
They have been around for a few years now and each season when we arrive the shop has grown a bit more. Their opening times are early morning until 11 and than from 16 to around 22. From the newly appeared signs on their shopfront “Please order when it’s your turn” “Please don’t step behind the counter” you can tell that it gets busy.
Instead of just ordering a banh mi and see what you get, they have a very clear list with prices and toppings here, which makes things easier. Price are low and quality is high.
Don’t miss:
- Banh mi opla cha bong: fried eggs sunny side up, sweet and sour vegetables, coriander (if you want) and cha bong (salty pork floss). Go get them proteins 🙂
- Banh mi heo quay, if they have it: crispy grilled pork
- Banh bao: can I recommend this even if I never tried it myself? I guess I will. The bao pao breads look great and they’re served warm.
Banh mi ari
A newcomer that quickly made it’s way to the list of top choices in 2025. Banh mi Ari is one of the few good finds on the road from Ninh Chu (the bridge) to My Hoa. Sure there’s plenty of joints selling com tam, but they tend to be very good one day and meh the other.
The banh mi is roasted over a fire after they finish topping it, they have all kinds of sausages as well as heo quay (crispy pork) and opla (fried eggs). The opening times are convenient (I forgot the exact times, they’re on the paper on the side of the stall).
Don’t miss:
- Our recommendations are the same as for the above banh mi, so I’ll just be honest and copy them:
- Banh mi opla cha bong: fried eggs sunny side up, sweet and sour vegetables, coriander (if you want) and cha bong (salty pork floss). Go get them proteins 🙂
- Banh mi heo quay, if they have it: crispy grilled pork
Section 6. Places that would not fit in any other category
Like I sead before, it’s only somewhat organised.
Com ga ngoc – grilled chicken
This is possibly the best grilled chicken I currently know of (anywhere). It falls off the bone, very juicy and almost caramelised. It’s served with sticky rice and a small bowl of soup. They also have grilled pork, chao (rice soup) and boiled chicken, but I’ve not been able to order anything else after trying the grilled chicken when I first came here.
It’s in the last street before the central market, in front of the bun nem place listed earlier.
Don’t miss:
- Com dui ga nuong: rice with grilled chicken leg
- Com chan ga nuong: if a leg is to big for you, you can also order a chicken wing
- Warning: while chan ga is chicken wing, canh ga is chicken foot, so try to be clear in your pronunciation
Banh cuon – steamed rice rolls in the morning
Banh cuon is warm, freshly prepared steamed rice rolls with minced pork and mushrooms inside them, served with herbs, lettuce, grilled patty and a juicy chili dressing. The flavours and textures are amazing, you really should try it. There’s several places in Ninh Chu where you can eat banh cuon in the morning (aim to arrive before 9 am). This small shop is highly recommended, both for the food and the sweet uncle and aunt who carefully prepare each dish.
I can not tell you the name nor the exact location at the moment. Driving into Ninh Chu from the roundabout, it’s on the right side of the street not long after you pass the Bach Hoa Xanh supermarket. There’s a yellow sign standing next to the road and a small white showcase with the owner working behind it. There’s two plastic tables inside where you can sit down to eat.
iNG coffee roasters – excellent coffee and coworking space
This post is already so long I hardly think anyone will finish it all the way, let alone if I also included dessert places – they are plentiful in Phan Rang. I will probably make a seperate post on coffee and desert.
However, iNG coffee roasters deserves to be mentioned because it’s so different from all the other (coffee) shops in town, both the upscale joints and the local phin places. They roast a variety of arabica beans, which you can take home in a bag or taste in any of the coffee styles you may want to try at the bar. It’s built in a factory hall and all the furniture adds to the atmosfere. The music is usually spot on, it’s not noisy at all and they have to large tables making it an ideal place to work remote.
In addition to providing excellent home made cake, coffee, cappuccino, cold brew and other specialty coffees, they organise art and barista workshops.
