Unique restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City, owner cooks 30 dishes every day without a pot

Using only a pan to cook about 30 dishes a day, Mr. Toan created a unique "pan rice" restaurant, surprising and exciting diners to come and enjoy and learn about it.

The restaurant only uses pans to cook. Video: Ha Nguyen

“Pan rice”

Located on Pham Hung Street (Binh Chanh District, Ho Chi Minh City), the popular restaurant of Mr. Nguyen Van Toan (born in 1975) attracts many diners because of its many special features.

Not only serving many dishes, the restaurant also has a unique and rare way of preparing food. The chefs here only use pans to cook the dishes.

At the restaurant, Toan is directly in the kitchen cooking. In addition to 2 large pots for cooking rice, Toan and his staff use 8 pans of similar sizes to prepare nearly 50 dishes.

Toan's restaurant only uses pans to cook all dishes. Photo: Ha Nguyen

Regardless of whether it is braised, fried, stir-fried or boiled, Toan prepares the food on these 8 pans. When the food is cooked, he and his staff scoop it into smaller pans that are already placed on the table.

This unique cooking method was invented by Mr. Toan more than ten years ago.

Before that, Toan was a security guard at a bookstore. Later, he realized that the security job was hard and did not bring good income, so he quit to find a new job.

Realizing that he had a talent for cooking, he boldly used his savings to rent a space to open a small broken rice shop.

Unexpectedly, the dishes he prepared were rated delicious and suitable for customers' taste. After that, he researched and created many more rustic dishes, close to Vietnamese family meals.

Whether it's fried, stir-fried, boiled or braised, Toan always uses a pan to cook. Photo: Ha Nguyen

Mr. Toan shared: “I have never learned to cook and I do not cook according to anyone's recipe. I cook dishes close to family meals based on my own thoughts and experiences.

I am from the West. In my hometown, I see most people cook and eat food in pans and pots. Eating like that is both simple and helps the food stay hot, so it is very delicious.

When I opened the restaurant, I decided to cook all the dishes in a pan. After cooking, I scooped the food into a smaller pan.

When customers order, I put a small pan on the stove to reheat it so that diners feel like they are enjoying the dishes at a family meal.

After cooking in 8 large pans, Toan and his staff scooped the food into smaller pans. Photo: Ha Nguyen

Affordable price but guaranteed to be full

Mr. Toan said that cooking food in a pan does not affect the quality of the dish. On the contrary, cooking in a pan makes it easier for him to season and stir the food.

Placing cooked food in a small pan also helps the dish retain heat longer.

Before cooking a dish, Mr. Toan cleans the pan thoroughly. When he moves on to cooking a new dish, he washes the pan thoroughly to ensure that the dish is not affected by the flavor of the previous dish.

With the criteria of cooking dishes on the family meal menu, Mr. Toan's fried rice restaurant serves dishes such as: braised meat with eggs, braised chicken, braised duck with ginger, fried fish, braised fish, stir-fried beef, etc.

When diners choose their dishes, Toan will take a small pan and put it on the stove to heat up the food, then put the whole pan on a plate and display it on the table. Photo: Ha Nguyen

To ensure food safety, Mr. Toan goes directly to the market to choose and buy fresh ingredients. The preparation process is also carefully carried out by him and his staff.

Before the pandemic, his restaurant was especially crowded. Every day, he prepared nearly 50 different dishes to serve enough customers. After the pandemic, the number of customers decreased by 20-30%, so he only cooked about 30 dishes.

The restaurant attracts many diners to enjoy and learn about unique cooking methods. Photo: Ha Nguyen

Mr. Toan's restaurant is open from 6am to 10pm. In addition to customers who come to eat directly, the restaurant also serves take-out customers.

The restaurant is especially crowded from 11:30 to 12 noon and 5 pm every day. Each meal here costs 35,000 VND.

The restaurant also serves take-out customers. Photo: Ha Nguyen

With affordable prices but delicious and plentiful food, Toan's restaurant is chosen by many people.

“Compared to the general market, the rice here is very affordable but still ensures a full meal. The rice and food are not only always hot, but the restaurant also serves free raw vegetables, so I really like it,” said a regular customer of the restaurant.

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Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/quan-com-doc-dao-o-tp-hcm-anh-chu-nau-30-mon-moi-ngay-khong-can-noi-2345876.html