If you were to ask me what the best bar in Saigon is, Khoai on Phạm Viết Chánh (PVC) would be one of my answers. After all, Khoai ticks all the right boxes: the atmosphere is unbeatable, the food and drinks never disappoint, and the service is always friendly and attentive. I’ve started and ended many nights at Khoai, and so during my time living in Saigon, it’s left an indelible mark on my experience of the city. So here’s to a bar that makes Saigon what it is, here’s to many more nights that start and end at Khoai.
Perhaps my love of Khoai runs so deep because it reminds me of Shimokitazawa, a neighbourhood back in my hometown of Tokyo. The area is known in Japan’s capital as being hip and trendy, and is made up of numerous vintage clothing stores, independent coffee shops, and live music venues hosting indie bands trying to make it big. From the first evening I walked past Khoai on PVC, I was certain that I’d visited something similar back in high school, on some hazy evening out with friends in Shimokitazawa. Khoai felt inherently familiar, and yet in its own way, completely different. An Egyptian sarcophagus stood like a solemn bouncer at the entrance. Inside, the place was neon-lit with more random bits and bobs dangling from the ceiling or placed haphazardly around the bar. Metal chairs were painted red, blue, and yellow. Faded, floral-patterned couches of the kind you’d find in your grandma’s living room made up some of the furniture. Lamps of all shapes and sizes, some switched off, others adding to the neon with their own splashes of light. There was something innately playful about the way Khoai was decorated, as if the owners had asked a group of eight year olds to go to town in designing the place and the result was, surprisingly, pretty cool. Above all, it’s this atmosphere that Khoai creates as a result of its layout that makes it so appealing. From the outside looking in, it just seems like a place you’d like to have a few drinks with friends. Once you’re seated, however, you get sucked into the ambience and find yourself—before you know it—at ease, chit-chatting and laughing as time ticks steadily by.
My favourite place to sit when I’m at Khoai is on one of the seats outside. There’s a certain energy you can’t help but be swept away by when you’re sitting there. This is where worlds collide. You’ve got Khoai’s chic Shimokitazawa-eqsue ambience playing right alongside what makes Vietnam one of my favourite places to eat and drink: the fact people are always dining out on the street. Seated at one of the tables by Khoai’s entrance, you get a premium view of PVC and can watch with the passing hours the whole place come to life.
If I start a night at Khoai the area might still be relatively empty. There'll be a few people seated at Birdy and maybe one or two at the bar across the street that keeps turning into something else. PVC might still not be as rowdy, groups of friends coming and going, still looking bored, the odd solo traveller walking through, not really sure what they’ve stumbled into. You order a drink, toast to another night, another night that starts and ends at Khoai. And with the hours you’ll watch as PVC comes alive, groups of friends marching to their favourite watering hole, girls with runway-model legs strutting arm in arm while all the guys follow the traces of their high-heeled footsteps. Before you realise, you’ve been carried away. You look around and see through a vision fogged by several drinks a world which is alien and yet one that has become home. Khoai has reminded me many times that though Tokyo will always have my heart, Saigon is home now.
Then there have been times I’ve ended the night at Khoai. When I’ve been to one, two, three other places beforehand and arrived at Khoai for perhaps an unnecessary but nonetheless delightful nightcap. One more for the road before hitting the hay, one more with one or two friends. By that point we’ve devolved into blubbering idiots, speaking with the slur of barflies who’ve had more than their usual take, speaking in our own special tongue and cackling at our own special inside joke. No matter how loud we may be, no matter how the world might swirl around—a blur of light and sound—when we arrive at Khoai everything seems to settle down. It’s like we’ve been astronauts jettisoned out into space, and somehow floating back to our spaceship, we enter its quiet, pressurised stillness. I ask the staff for a table outside, Khoai welcomes us in with open arms. And so sitting outside I’ll find myself—after a sip of a double whiskey—settling into a kind of somber, tired mood. All the drinks and food would’ve caught up by then, and looking around PVC I’ll see the street awash in the midnight merriment of another weekend slipping by. There’s a steady stream of people coming and going, Birdy’s filled up with its own crowd, and the bar across the street that keeps turning into something else has finally managed to gather its own lot of customers. It isn’t long before I realise I’ve got nothing left to really say. The past several hours have been good and filled with conversation but there’s no longer anything more to add. And so I’ll sit there, nursing my drink and who knows, perhaps I’ll get another one before calling it a night. Why not, after all? Even though I’ve got nothing left to say there’s a comfort in that somber, tired mood. There's peace in just having another sip, knowing that while Tokyo will always have my heart, Saigon’s home for now. Khoai’s home for now.
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