The Ultimate Guide to Cơm Tấm Ba Ghiền — Saigon’s Famous Broken Rice

Cơm Tấm Ba Ghiền: Saigon’s Broken Rice, Unbroken Spirit

There are meals you plan for, and then there are meals that simply happen to you.
Cơm Tấm Ba Ghiền is the latter.

Tucked into a chaotic street in Phú Nhuận, this place doesn’t ask for your attention. It demands it. Smoke spills out onto the pavement, carrying the unmistakable perfume of charcoal, pork fat, and something sweet that hits you like a memory you’ve never had. It’s messy, loud, unapologetically Saigon — and it’s beautiful.

Michelin slapped a Bib Gourmand on the door, but Ba Ghiền was great long before anyone with a clipboard came looking.

The Plate That Says Everything

Cơm tấm — broken rice — is Vietnam’s love letter to resilience. What was once a leftover ingredient became a national staple. If there’s any place that tells this story best, it’s Ba Ghiền.

Your plate arrives fast, hot, and heavy:

• A colossal charcoal-grilled pork chop that looks like it survived a back-alley knife fight
• Chả — the steamed egg meatloaf no one talks about but everyone eats
• Bì, thin threads of pork skin coated in roasted rice powder
• A quivering fried egg, edges crisp, yolk gold
• Pickles to slice through the richness
• A ladle of nước mắm that’s sweet, salty, funky, and perfect

You don’t eat this politely. You dive in headfirst. And you keep going until there’s nothing left but the bare plate and a faint sweat on your forehead.

The Cost of Good Eating

Ba Ghiền isn’t trying to impress you with a tasting menu or wine pairings.
This is food for the people, priced like it.

• Dishes start from ₫100,000
• The big “give me everything” thập cẩm sets hover around ₫120,000–₫150,000

For a meal that fills your stomach and stays with your soul, it’s a bargain.

The Scene

Walk in and you’re hit with the organised chaos that makes Saigon what it is.

Metal tables. Plastic stools. The clatter of utensils. The roar of motorbikes idling outside. A grill master flipping pork chops like he’s conducting an orchestra of fire. No one’s posing for Instagram here — though you probably will anyway.

This place has been feeding locals since the ’90s, long before food tourism was a term. You eat shoulder-to-shoulder with students, construction workers, and aunties on lunch break. Everyone equalised under the gospel of good food.

When to Go

If you don’t like crowds, pick your moment:

• Before 11:00 AM
• After 1:30 PM

But honestly? Even when it’s packed, Ba Ghiền moves. Everybody wants the same thing, and they’ve perfected the art of getting it to you fast.

Where You’ll Find It

Cơm Tấm Ba Ghiền
84 Đặng Văn Ngữ, Phú Nhuận District
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

No reservations. No fuss. No problem.

Advice

Bring cash, bring appetite, leave pretension at the door

Sit close to the grill if you want to feel alive

Don’t ask for less fish sauce — ask for more

Order the mixed plate; life’s too short to skip toppings

The Last Word

If you end up wandering the alleys of Saigon, you can bet to end up at Ba Ghiền — sweating in the midday heat, hunched over a plate of broken rice, grinning like he knew a secret the rest of the world hadn’t caught onto yet.

Because this place is what eating should be:
Honest. Humble. Full of heart.

A reminder that the best meals aren’t found in luxury dining rooms, but on streets where life spills out in all directions.