NEO- is quickly becoming a prime spot for some of Saigon District 1’s most memorable indie collabs.
It’s a balmy March Sunday, and Dakao resident Sam Russom thought his neighbor, craft beer and event spot NEO- (393/7 Hai Bà Trưng, Võ Thị Sáu Ward, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City), was playing some nice music and he decided to come check it out.
“I didn’t know any of this was here at first,” Russom said, explaining that he had no idea NEO- or events or beer or anything was happening next door. “I just thought it was a neighbor that liked good music.”
Music was part of the event he attended that evening, albeit maybe not a way evident from next door.
Sure, NEO- was playing its trademark selection of contemporary Vietnamese and international bangers, which you could hear on the rooftop as Mamacita’s Nguyễn Kim Ngân, who calls herself Kim, and adau kitchen’s chef Đức served a small but thoughtful menu of his eatery’s fusion cuisine.
“Silent disco” more than just performance novelty
But the music Russom was engaged with was a private show for him and anyone wearing headphones on NEO-’s rooftop, a silent karaoke complete with a car-sized projected video using the white building next door, Russom’s apartment, as a makeshift screen.
The concept is yet another clever attempt at urban-friendly clubbing.
The same people from 326 Concepts, an event audio & lighting consultancy, had just organised a silent disco night a week ago to great success. Tired of “auditory me time”? Take those red-lamped headphones off and you’re back to socializing.
At times it was a karaoke video everyone was singing along to — “Mama Mia” at the time was sung at least once — but when Russom doffed his headphones to speak with Saucefish, all eyes were turned to a Tiny Desk concert where British rapper Dooechi was showcasing her talents.
Maybe it was the intimacy of the private audience’s collective focus on the film silent to everyone except them but even with the event being very event-full in the sense of its being a full house with almost every seat in the house occupied, this area of the event felt quite intimate, like a house party where everyone either came as friends or was open to connecting with everyone there.
Russon described NEO- as friendly. “It’s very easy to be here.”
Mamacita Saigon’s excursion out of Thảo Điền a chance to savor Mexican-inspired mixology excellence
He was having a hibiscus tequila cocktail, the Dăm Bụt, served at the event, getting as he said reacquainted to the liquor after a lifetime of believing that it was borderline toxic, which he believes is associated to the widespread practice of taking it as a shot. “This is a sipping liquor, I recently learned. So this [cocktail] is a nice reintroduction to it,” he said.
Kim’s hibiscus cocktail recipe doesn’t so much mask the taste of tequila as complement it with a flavor that tames the sour bitterness of the liquor, chaos contained. Mischief managed in a drink showing a handsome, deep red under its hibiscus flower garnish.
Minus the alcohol, the hibiscus tea and amberella drink Cóc Ké Kim served at the event were typical of the drinks she and her friend would have had after school ended.
“When we were young, juice was what we had after school when we’d sit around and gossip,” she explained.
“I just twist the [hibiscus] tea” with liquor, she said. “We’re still young.”
Adau’s fusion cuisine is the epitome of Vietnamese “flavor bomb”
Beside her, chef Đức was serving a menu of dishes from Vietnamese fusion restaurant a.dau kitchen: a peppery beef salad with chimichurri, a stir-fried seafood and vermicelli dish topped with a salted egg, and a rice dish centered around a super flavorful, fish sauce and caramel-based marinated pork called kho quẹt.
a.dau kitchen is a place that serves food for healing and happiness, he said.
He chose the last entree for the pop-up event for its richness and flavor but seemingly also for its history — a recipe popularized during the days of Vietnam’s more acute economic hardship following the war.
Meat was sparse and had to last a long time, so making what little there was as an intensely flavor concentrated side dish that could be added on to liven up an otherwise necessary but bland dish of rice was a common practice. Having passed the days of deepest hardship, the dish is now eaten not so much out of frugality but out of genuine love of the flavor as well as nostalgia.
In a.dau’s dishes at NEO- that evening, it was easy to pick up on the country’s signature flavors, guest Khang Dương said.
“You can easily recognize the ingredients, but they’re being presented in a unique way,” he said. “It doesn’t feel like it’s erasing Vietnamese cuisine.”
“It’s familiar in a new way.”
NEO- is always keen on unique events and collabs, and curation is important
“I love the food,” NEO- owner Tùng Nguyễn said. “It’s that new kind of Vietnamese food.”
Tùng Nguyễn said he’s been working on bringing more events to NEO-, but he hadn’t been meeting the right kind of collaborators who could offer patrons both excellent food or drink as well as the warmth, charm and service he wanted to offer attendees.
This isn’t a characteristic of Vietnamese restaurant service everywhere in Saigon, and Nguyễn knows it.
“We’re trying for an ‘international standard’” in these events, he said.
