Lunch at the Propaganda Bistro

Our three months in Vietnam are drawing to a close. With being sick for a week and stuck indoors for much of the time due to the heavy monsoon rains, we feel like we haven't really got a feel for Saigon like we did with Hanoi. We agree that we like the city though. It's definitely very livable, and will be  even more so in the next few years once the city's new metro is up and running.

On one of our last days in the city, we walked to the city center area surrounding the cathedral. There are lots of international shops and businesses in that area, but one restaurant in particular had caught  our eye: the Propaganda Bistro.

The walls of the trendy bistro and cafe are decorated in brightly colorful murals reminiscent of Vietnam's iconic Communist Party posters that you'll see on billboards all over Hanoi and Saigon. It's a clever and kind of funny idea. The murals, depicting happy workers, farms, and industry, really are a work of art, and something quite representative of the modern Vietnamese culture.

Oh, and the food is good too! We sat down in the comfortable restaurant, and a waiter promptly brought us a bowl of peanuts to share. This was presently washed down with a nice cold Saigon Beer. I ordered a famous Vietnamese baguette sandwich, a banh mi, one of the dishes that I'll miss the most after I leave the country.

We've been eating mostly cheap street food (you can see all about that HERE), but occasioanlly we treat ourselves at a real restaurant. It can be a little pricey for our budget, but if it's cool and trendy like the Propaganda Bistro, I don't mind at all! It's fun to see another side of the country, one that embraces its past in a cool, modern way.