2025⇨2026 Enjoying noodle dishes (🇻🇳 New Year's Eve soba and Okinawa soba)! Okinawa soba can be made easily

I received an Okinawa soba set from someone from Okinawa. Curly noodles and dashi soup, and once you add braised pork belly on top, it's basically done — such an easy, so-called almost-instant noodle set. My husband Sei kept saying he wanted to eat it, wanted to eat it, wanteeed to eat it~, and the pressure kept building up, but I was thinking making braised pork belly seemed a bit of a hassle... I realized that there are also popular local eateries in Vietnam, and that all I need to do is buy the side dishes and prepared foods there, so heh heh, let's GO~ to Cơm bình dân! ⚫️Cơm bình dân literally translates to "the common people's rice/meal." It refers to Vietnam's casual, popular local eateries. They're found in large numbers near street corners and markets, and they support the everyday meals of working people and students. Rice takes center stage, with several side dishes of meat, fish, and vegetables lined up, and the typical style is to point at whatever you like to choose it. Fried dishes, stews, stir-fries, soups, and other home-style dishes are common, and the seasoning tends to be simple and mild. In Ho Chi Minh City, the soups tend to be a bit sweeter. As for price, with plenty of rice, vegetable side dishes (stir-fries or pickles), and soup... Soup is the standard, and if you have one side dish, it's about 40,000 VND (roughly 240 yen as of late 2025). If you add more side dishes, the price goes up accordingly. Vietnamese people tend to order just one side dish and dig right in—hearty portions, cheap, fast, and without any pretension. It's one of the food cultures where you can feel Vietnam's everyday life and atmosphere the most closely. At popular local eateries in Vietnam, the food is prepped in the morning, and customers pour in through late morning and afternoon — by the time it's past noon, the side dishes are pretty much all gone. That's why at the popular spots you see rows of motorbikes lined up, as workers come rushing in like a wave during their break time. I personally keep about three go-to places, but this time I was a bit late getting there, and when I looked around, there was almost nothing left. Especially the braised pork belly — that's a favorite side dish. Since men especially love it, it tends to disappear fast. Ugh, darn it... I thought as I slowly rode my bike around, looking here and there for some kind of local eatery, when I remembered a family-run place I'd been to a few times before. It's always so busy, and there are so many side dishes to choose from. It's a bit of a distance, but let's give it a try~ ⚫️Cơm Minh Hiếu (cơm 45) 45 Nguyen Cuu Van, Ward 17, Binh Thanh, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam https://maps.app.goo.gl/b9dWSyb87EFyDaRr7

Yes, they had it! Even though it was past noon, the shop was packed inside and the delivery bikes were jammed in too, but the variety of side dishes kept getting added... They had braised pork! This is it, this is it—half excited, I told the auntie, "Three servings of this pork, just the side dish is fine," and she said "OK, OK," so I felt relieved. After a while, the bag was full, and I paid — about 130,000 VND, roughly 780 yen. They asked me, "Don't you want rice?" and since it's basically free, it felt like it'd be fine to just take it too, but today it's Okinawa soba, so I don't need it. I cheerfully declined, saying "I'm fine, thanks~. Still, while thinking "three servings of braised pork belly might be a bit pricey?", I just went home as is since my shopping bag was already stuffed full, saying "eh, it's fine~". (I should have properly checked, but somehow I was just totally at ease...) When I opened the bag... it was hilarious.

Instead of pork for 3 people, they just put together a nice assortment of recommended side dishes for 3 people, at their own discretion.

And I only served half a portion, and still this much! There was chicken thigh teriyaki too, but it disappeared into my stomach in an instant. It was delicious! Beef and vegetable simmered stir-fry, stir-fried zucchini flowers, sweet simmered tofu stuffed with meat... Plus pork rib braised cubes (kakuni). (Along with the legendary chicken thigh!) In other words, four generous dishes! If anything, 780 yen is quite a bargain for this. So, while my husband was eating these side dishes as accompaniments, I made Okinawa soba... just boiled the noodles and topped them with various things. Vietnamese kimchi (pickled mustard greens), red pickled ginger, and a splendid bone-in pork kakuni.

I forgot to buy red pickled ginger, so I rushed into a store and bought some for about 50,000 VND (around 300 yen). You really can't do without it, you know. I did everything I could to find the ingredients here in Vietnam... but my husband quietly said, "I might not be so good with bone-in meat..." Ahh, yeah, I know that already. But you know, the meat clinging around the bone is the tasty part! Still, since our tastes just don't match on this, there's no point explaining it, so I keep quiet. I brushed it off by saying, "Next time I'll look for pork belly, three-layer meat, for kakuni~ Maybe I'll make it if I can find some~" I actually have been looking around quite a bit, though... but it was fun, so it's all good. So, I've managed to easily make Okinawa soba in Ho Chi Minh City too (this time it has bones in it, so maybe it's soki soba)~ (To be precise, I didn't actually cook it. I just gathered the ingredients, and even that was part of my job, haha.) It was absolutely delicious. Overseas Living Ranking