Quy Nhon

An Bình

Mid-sized vegetarian just north of the temple. Slightly more upscale setting than most vegetarian restaurants in the city, with tablecloths and flowers on each table. Open hours officially 07:00–21:00, although often closes for long breaks. One of several vegetarian restaurants near the Long Khánh Buddhist temple.

Vegetarian bánh xèo 10,000 dong. Plate of daily vegetable dishes with rice 18,000 dong

Breakfast bánh xèo

Several vendors offer bánh xèo for breakfast in front of their homes on the small, tree-lined street of Trần Quang Diệu between Nguyễn Công Trứ and Tăng Bạt Hổ. They cook daily on most mornings from 07:00 to 10:00, or until they run out of ingredients.

3,000 dong per pancake

Buratino

One of the only restaurants in Quy Nhơn — if not the only restaurant — specializing in Western-style food such as pizza and pasta. The restaurant is often recommended by the bigger hotels to Western tourists looking for comfort food similar to home. But it's a small restaurant and Quy Nhơn is not an international city, so the food is suited to local tastes and ends up being more Vietnamese-style than Westerners expect.

Daily until 23:00·Dishes from 50,000–100,000 dong, combo meals 200,000–270,000 dong

Bánh Kem Ngọc Nga

The largest, most elaborate — and commensurately most expensive — bakery in Quy Nhơn. Intricately designed and decorated cakes, for example shaped as animals (frogs, dogs, bunnies, dragons) and human figures (Buddha, princesses). Cake flavors include green tea (matcha), tiramisu, and standard cream cakes. Also offers vegan (pure-veg) baked products. The bakery spans three adjacent stores, with one specializing in cakes, the second in cookies, sweet breads and chocolates, and the third in general baked products. Unusually for Quy Nhơn, the bakery has a website, and the site is even available in English.

Mid-size cakes 60,000–200,000 dong, larger and more elaborate cakes 200,000–400,000. Cookies and chocolates 5,000–15,000

Bánh Mì Đất

Local chain of three sandwich shops. Fixed-location stores but no seating. Offers more variety of options than the typical specialized street-side sandwich stall, as well as choice of warming the baguette.

One sandwich 10,000–15,000 dong

Bánh xèo market vendors

Numerous bánh xèo vendors rove the streets around the local market Chợ Đầm in the northern end of the city near the riverside. Very local.

1,000–2,000 dong per pancake

Bê Thui Cầu Mống

Small restaurant offering the famous Quảng Nam specialty of spit-roasted veal. The calf, carefully selected at a young age and at a weight of 30–35 kg (66–77 lb) so as to be not too large and not too small, is roasted whole on a long rod over an open street-side fire of burning charcoal. The blackened skin is then scraped off, and the pink meat is shaved into thin slices and served with salted anchovies, rice paper, chili, garlic, fish-oil dipping sauce, green banana pieces and herbs.

150,000 dong

Bảy Quán

Two-storey restaurant specializing in sizzling steak and eggs (bò neé). Very popular with students and local workers.

Combo meal of steak and eggs, salad, soft drink, and bread for 30,000 dong

Bốn Quang Tuấn

Very good value barbeque/hot-pot restaurant in the centre. Family operation with just six tables. Very popular among students for its low-cost beef and pork barbeque.

Pot of clams in spicy sauce 30,000 dong. Hot pot 60,000

Cô Hai bánh xèo

Family-style restaurant offering delicious bánh xèo. Good quality at budget price. A 10-minute walk from the beach on a pleasant, tree-lined street in the southwest of city.

4,000 dong per pancake

Gia Vỹ

The most famous bánh xèo restaurant in Quy Nhơn has two branches. The largest — and definitely the most touristic — of bánh xèo venues in the city is Gia Vỹ 2, which lies at the northern end of a cluster of four restaurants competing side-by-side on Diên Hồng street. Factory-like in its efficiency and size, circus-like in the bustle of the cooks, waiters, and boys running around trying to corral passing motorcyclists inside, the restaurant offers indoor and outdoor (across the street) seating. The original Gia Vỹ, on Đống Đa in the northern end of the city, is much smaller, more local and massively more tranquil than the second branch. Prices are the same at both branches: 25,000 dong per plate of two pancakes.

Hai Thái

Cavernous indoor and outdoor restaurant in the city centre specializing in goat meat. All parts of the goat offered: stomach, intestines, etc. The smell of many goats being grilled simultaneously can be overwhelming if you're not used to it. Private eating rooms available off the main restaurant space.

Goat meat on a stick 27,000 dong each. Goat meals 90,000–200,000 dong

Hiển Nam

Medium-large vegetarian attached to the Hiển Nam temple just west of Nguyễn Tất Thành street. A four-minute walk from Coopmart. Picturesque views of the temple through the open back gate of the restaurant.

Daily lunch of rice with several vegetable dishes plus soup: 15,000

Hương Việt Cafe

Large upscale cafe and restaurant in the centre, east of Nguyễn Tất Thành and just north of the central market. Beautiful and atmospheric setting where customers sit inside pagoda structures which are connected by wooden bridges and surrounded by topiary and bonsai trees, all accompanied to the sound of classical music from both Europe and Vietnam. Popular with the upper-classes of both local residents and Vietnamese tourists. Standard Vietnamese food and drink on offer.

Coffee 20,000 dong. Tea (several varieties offered) 20,000–25,000. Food prices about 50% higher than same fare at other Quy Nhơn venues

KFC

The only Western fast-food chain restaurant in the city, in the southeast corner of the Coopmart shopping centre.

Kim Ngọc Bánh Mì

A permanent street stall one block south of Minh Tịnh temple selling vegetarian baguette sandwiches (bánh mì).

One sandwich 8,000 dong

Mià Hàng 07

Large seafood restaurant set underneath a semi-covered tin roof in a parking lot on a desolate stretch of road in the southwest of the city. Five-minute walk from the beach. Despite the semi-disreputable appearance (of both the restaurant and the customers), it attracts a loyal local crowd of older intellectuals, who while the day and night away in semi-drunken and fully-rehearsed arguments about the last millennium of Vietnamese history. Vietnamese language knowledge is obviously helpful to follow the twists and turns of the intricate debates, but thanks to involvement with American soldiers in the 1960s, several of the older men can happily hold forth in English after a few grilled octopus and beers. Restaurant offers the same shellfish and seafood options of the restaurants on the beach promenade for prices around 20–40% less.

NamSushi

Large and elaborate sushi restaurant. Two storeys: the lower floor seating is at normal tables, while the upper floor has views towards the sea and seating on pillows and a no-shoes-allowed shiny hardwood floor. The quality of the food might not be at the standards of sushi in Tokyo (or Beijing, Moscow or Los Angeles), but it's the best and most modern sushi in the not-so-international-yet Quy Nhơn. It's a two-minute walk from the central beach and a five-minute walk southwest from Coopmart.

Daily 10:00–14:00, 17:00–22:00·Tuna maki 40,000 dong, sushi 30,000–80,000 for two pieces, temaki salmon hand roll 45,000. Basic combo sushi sets 125,000 dong for 14 pieces, 345,000 for more elaborate 25 pieces. Sake 150 mL 85,000 dong, 250 mL 145,000, 1.8 L 250,000

Nhà hàng

Very large vegetarian restaurant on the south side of Long Khánh Buddhist temple. Dependably open long hours from morning until night, including holidays. Slightly more expensive than the many smaller, family-run vegetarian restaurants in the area.

Noodle and rice dishes 25,000–50,000 dong

Oishi Quán

Hot pot restaurant popular at night with university students. Seating both indoors and at stylish wooden tables on the street.

Hot pot 110,000–150,000 dong

Pháp Duyên

Mid-sized vegetarian one block southeast of the Minh Tịnh temple. A five-minute walk from either the central plaza on the beach or from the Coopmart.

Mixed vegetables, rice, soup: 17,000 dong

Phương Ngá Bakery

Small bakery offering cakes and chocolate pieces. Offers all the standard cakes and decorations, with a specialty in tiramisu cakes and fruit-jelly cakes (including passion-fruit cake). Unusually for Quy Nhơn, sells pieces of cakes in single servings, rather than entire cakes.

Whole cakes 50,000–150,000 dong. Single-serving piece of cake 10,000–20,000. Chocolate letters (for spelling out words with chocolate) 2,000 each

Phượng Tèo Bún Chả Cá

Large and very popular low-budget restaurant for fish cake noodle soup.

25,000 dong per bowl

Pizza H-P

Small pizza restaurant in the city centre with the English-language motto "Be Different". Offers hot pot and Western pizzas done Vietnamese style.

Pizza: small 50,000 dong, large 100,000

Pop Gelato

Modern gelatto shop in west of city. Popular with young people.

Quyết Thắng

One of many hot-pot restaurants in a small area near the corner of Diên Hồng and Lê Lai. Offers the option of either grilling your food or the traditional style of boiling it in a pot of simmering stock.

Hot pot 200,000 dong

Quán An

The largest of several small street-side bánh xèo restaurants in the little night-food area just off the beach promenade on Ngô Văn Sở and surrounding alleys between Nguyễn Huế and Nguyễn Lạc. The bánh xèo is the same at all the restaurants in the small area. Price is highly variable at Quán An; it's one of the very few restaurants in Quy Nhơn which sometimes charge foreigners different prices than locals pay. A plate of four pancakes costs locals 15,000–20,000 dong; tourists are typically charged 25,000–30,000 dong.

Quán An Cô Bốn Bún Thịt Nướng

Standard Vietnamese local canteen. Pork, chicken, beef stews with rice or noodles. It's neither particularly good nor particularly bad: there are dozens of identical places throughout the city. However, this particular restaurant has become something of a cult-hit among Western tourists to Quy Nhơn after one foreign customer discovered that the owner speaks fairly proficient English thanks to his five-year stay in San Francisco and Oakland. Several years after that first foreigner's review, this small canteen has improbably amassed by far the most English-language reviews online of any restaurant in the city, much to the bemusement of the owner and the few local residents who are aware of it.

20,000 dong for a plate of rice or noodles with different meat dishes

Quán Dê19

Goat-meat in a small corner-restaurant in the city centre. All parts of the goat prepared. Cheaper than larger goat restaurants.

Goat meals 30,000–100,000 dong

Quán Dê35

Goat-meat in a roof-covered, open-air restaurant on the northern riverside shore. Views onto the river, bridge and temple across the water. All parts of the goat prepared.

Goat meals 50,000–150,000 dong