Homely comfort

      A café-restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 2 offers a relaxed setting for quiet enjoyment of good food and drink.
There is nothing about its facade to suggest that the Mekong Merchant Café is anything special, or even that it is a café or a restaurant or a bar. But it is that very aspect of not being pretentious that appeals.
Located in District 2’s An Phu Ward, the café offers the perfect ambience to relax and unwind after a hard day’s work. From National Highway 1A, the section near Saigon Bridge, turn and go into the Thao Dien residential quarter of An Phu Ward and you will see it at 23 Thao Dien Street.
The restaurant is separated from the street by a low fence and its front yard is shaded by a tropical almond tree with a large canopy. Its underplayed facade belies the café’s interior design, which is beautiful. Many architecture and home décor magazines have featured this café.
The café is designed as a garden house, so the homely feel is very strong. One cannot fail to be calmed by its quiet and cool atmosphere. The Nipa palm leaf-tiled roofs, walls painted with dark colors, windows with knobs, and an old tiled yard covered with moss reflect a beguiling old-age beauty.
The furniture arrangement that seems carefully haphazard is another appealing feature enhanced by tables and chairs made partly of water hyacinths. The farthest room has much space for black and white photographs of streets and local people’s everyday lives. In front, household products such as furniture, baskets and flower pots are displayed and sold.
Given the special ambience, the Mekong Merchant Café is reasonably priced. Prices for foods and drinks range from VND10,000-40,000 (US$0.6-2.2) each.
Run by a British expatriate who has a similar establishment in District 2, the café can seat more than 100 people. It opens every day from 7 a.m.-11 p.m.