Going French

French food in Saigon? Definitely. The full works as well. Here is what we had at Augustin's (10 Nguyen Thiep, HCMC).

We started off with soups - the ubiquitous french onion soup and a fisherman's soup with aioli. Both were rich and hearty but the latter was extremely flavourful with a heady aroma of seafood. The aioli added another dimension of richness. We then moved on to appetisers. Foie gras pate with pickles and beef carppacio with parmesan shavings. Those two were pretty run-of-the-mill. I didn't enjoy the carpaccio much especially after our friend, Y told us about bacteria and raw meat. (thanks Y :) ) Moving on. For mains, we had the duck breast with wild mushroom cream sauce. This was really good with the meat still slightly pink in the middle. We also ordered the steak in roquefort sauce (this took us by surprise with the chopped steak and the fried sunny-side egg on the mince, nonetheless, it was quite tasty if you get pass the hamburger-like qualities.) Our friend J had the salmon which was a little over done in my opinion. The last main was the lamb cutlets. The breadcrumb crust was really well-received at our table with the garlicky buttery taste. We had the chocolate souffle and molten chocolate cake for dessert. The souffle was excellent with crisp exteriors and a chewy centre. The molten chocolate was a wrong order (as in we didn't order it and yes, it was not that nice as well - and we also found out that they don't believe in 'the customer's always right' philosophy here in Vietnam as it was our second wrong order for the day and second 'customer is in the wrong' situation for the day).

Overall, we enjoyed the value-for-money food at Augustin's. It's straightforward traditional french food that you can't fault. You won't find your upmarket modern adaptations here with its retro two-veg-one carb combinations. As for the service, it can be a little brusque at times, which I presume is probably due to the small seating capacity and the need for fast turnover.