18 Best Restaurants in Mekong Delta, Vietnam

This is a great find in Ca Mau, with nostalgic style (the name translates as "ancient street"), including quaint little wooden pavilions, a courtyard bonsai garden, and fish ponds. Serving Chinese-influenced dishes as well as Vietnamese cuisine, Pho Xua has a menu that contains English subtitles, although not much English is spoken by the staff. With its proximity to the ocean, it's no wonder that seafood is the house specialty, but there's also a range of chicken, beef, buffalo, and pork dishes.

Pull up a stool at this sidewalk restaurant and pop open a Saigon beer while you look to see what the locals are eating. Chau Doc is all about seafood, and you can't go wrong with clay pot fish—unless you don't like fish sauce, in which case go for clay pot pork, with juices that taste great over white rice. There's not a lot for vegetarians, but the plates of sautéed vegetables—morning glory, baby corn, banana flowers—flavored with coriander go well with rice, and there is a vegetable soup.

A basic Vietnamese joint, with a cafeteria-style interior and patchy English abilities, Bay Bong 2 does a range of standard but tasty Vietnamese dishes. The house specialty is com ca kho to (catfish in claypot) and sweet-and-sour soup with catfish or shrimp. The service can be hit or miss, especially if the place is busy, as it often is.

The setting of this charming vegan restaurant, which helps support the nearby Vinh Trang pagoda, is basic but pleasant with a tangle of potted plants. Service is not the fastest, but the food is truly delicious. Don't be fooled by the English menu that lists meat dishes, this is a strictly vegan place and they are made with imitation, soy-based "meats." The house specialty is the vegan Thai-style sour-and-spicy hotpot (lau Thai Lan); the braised vegetables in claypot (rau cu kho) is also a stand-out dish.

Across the road from the marina, this small, neat, and cozy café is a good place to stop for a coffee, ice cream, milk shake, or smoothie, as well as light meals such as salads, burgers, and Vietnamese dishes. It's probably the only place in town where you can get toasted Vegemite-and-cheese sandwiches, reflecting the owner's Australian roots. Famous for its "scoop" on Phu Quoc Island, Buddy is a de facto tourist information center, so stop by to pick up the latest copy of the Phu Quoc Island guide and free tourist map.

For fresh, cooked-before-your eyes seafood, head down to the Duong Dong Night Market. Dining at the street food stalls here, which set up around 6 pm, are a great experience, especially for group dinners. If you're not a seafood fan, never fear—a range of pork, chicken, and beef dishes is also available.

The food at this cheap local joint is tasty, and though the interior is basic, the restaurant is air-conditioned and the menu is in Vietnamese, English, and Chinese, so ordering is relatively simple. Mekong Delta specialties include lau (hotpot), ca kho (caramelized fish), and suon xao chua ngot (sweet-and-sour pork riblets) as well as bo luc lac (shaking beef—because it dances around the pan while being cooked) and chao tom chien (prawn paste on sugar cane sticks).

Popular with locals, this restaurant is designed to look like a bamboo village hut, and is a bit of a point-and-order eating adventure for visitors—the menu has no English, only a few photos on each page that vaguely correspond to the dishes listed below. The menu offers seafood, salad, beef, chicken, sparrow (chim se), and hotpot. Luckily the prices are so low it doesn't really matter if you mis-order a few dishes.

Western tourists will find an English menu (with some very unusual translations) at this basic Vietnamese restaurant, where a range of standard dishes includes the local specialty, lau mam (fermented fish hotpot). A big plus is the air-conditioned room, in a town where many places are fan-cooled only. The style is basic, with check table cloths and wooden dining settings inside and plain marble-topped tables on the terrace.

This garden restaurant is popular with locals. The specialty is whole chicken (including the head and feet), but if that's too adventurous, you can choose a beef, pigeon, or pork dish.

The house of district chief Tran Tuan Kiet was built in 1838, its 108 poles made from the wood of xylia xylocarpa trees, and doors carved with illustrations of flowers and trees. On display within the house is beautiful carved furniture, some with mother-of-pearl inlays, ceramic pieces, and other antiques. The house, restored in 2002 with a donation from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), who also sent over an architect, has four homestay rooms. There is an on-site restaurant, which can seat up to 250 people, serving Mekong Delta home cooking.

Fresh seafood, ribs, chicken, and vegetables are barbecued on sidewalk grills made from 44-gallon drums at this barbecue joint, where your food is selected from the blue canoe out front. The simple outdoor setting is even enjoyable in inclement weather, thanks to a canvas cover. Service can be chaotic but that's part of the fun. Noname also offers motorbike rental and a laundry service.

A plain and simple bar serving a range of drinks, including super cold beers, Oasis lives up to its name for the wealth of free travel information English owner Andy provides. (There is also a small travel agency inside the bar.) Oasis is the only place in town serving Western food, starting with breakfast, including the full English hot breakfast, and continuing through the day with bar-style meals such as chili con carne, baguettes, and Thai green chicken curry.

A basic riverfront restaurant targeted firmly at the tourist trade, Phuong Nam does a range of Vietnamese favorites and some of the Mekong Delta's more exotic specialties, such as field mouse, snake, and crocodile. The interior is basic, with check tablecloths and chunky wooden furniture, and the fan-cooled restaurant is open to the street. If you don't fancy the adventurous options, there are also vegetarian, seafood, pork, and chicken dishes.

Alongside a French colonial villa once home to a Nguyen Dynasty official, Mekong serves up fresh and tasty Vietnamese dishes, has an English menu, and serves cheap cold beers. The location could be described as a courtyard if it didn't look so much like a parking lot, and the metal tables and chairs are rather basic, but the striped awnings and red tablecloths do give the place a certain touch of sophistication. The menu includes southern Vietnamese staples such as seafood, eel, quail, and frog, but there are plenty of less exotic options as well.

This cute little café has a short Asian fusion menu and a good selection of drinks, including local Pasteur Street craft beer on tap. Breakfast choices include a delicious eggs Benedict, as well as homemade granola. The array of baked goods changes daily. It's also very vegan friendly.

A Long Xuyen institution, Thang Loi is a large outdoor restaurant known for its seafood, although the spring rolls and beef dishes are pretty good, too. There is an English menu (and cheap beer) to make things easier.

A simple roadside eatery where you'll see a good mix of tourists and locals, Truong Van serves standard but tasty pho, spring rolls, fish soup, and grilled beef in a sweet-and-sour sauce. Vegetarians can tuck into mixed sautéed vegetables (cauliflower, baby corn, red and green peppers, morning glory) over wok-fried noodles. Toast to your trip with Saigon beer and finish on a sweet note with the excellent banana pancakes.