7 Favorite Happy Hours in Saigon

"Who likes to spend money though? If you can save money, you want to do it, right?"

Niall shares his top 7 favorite happy hour spots in Saigon, the bustling city he now calls home.
As a self-professed happy hour enthusiast, Niall has strong opinions on what makes a true "happy hour" deal, favoring bars that offer 50% off drinks over the dreaded "buy 2 get 1 free" promotions.

He highlights spots like the expertly-crafted cocktails at 86 Proof, the stylish ambiance of Mami, and the unbeatable sunset views at Café des Stagiaires. Throughout the episode, Niall marvels at the exceptional talent of Saigon's bartenders, who seem to elevate even classic cocktails like the Whiskey Sour.

He encourages listeners to share their own Saigon happy hour recommendations, as he knows there are many more hidden gems to discover.

Key Takeaways:
1. Niall is a self-proclaimed happy hour aficionado who loves finding the best drink deals in Saigon
2. He has strong preferences for true 50% off promotions over "buy 2 get 1 free" setups
3. Saigon's cocktail scene is thriving with incredibly talented bartenders that impress Niall
4. The 7 happy hour spots Niall highlights each offer something unique, from killer views to expertly-mixed libations
5. Niall encourages listener participation, inviting others to share their Saigon happy hour recommendations

"If you have a happy hour and it's buy two get one free, that's not a happy hour to me. That's the worst happy hour you can possibly do, I don't understand it. Who does that work for?"

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Transcript

Niall: 0:31

I'm from Scotland, we have a reputation, we have a stereotype that we don't like to spend money. I think it's true. I mean, I don't, Who likes to spend money though? If I don't know what they do, there is some sort of magic that they put into the Whiskey Sour, that just makes it taste incredible Welcome back to another episode of a Vietnam podcast. Thank you so much for joining me. My name is Niall Mackay, the podcast guy is what I'm calling myself now because I started this podcast in 2019 just as a hobby and Somehow I've grown it into a business where I now make podcasts for people across the world. I first came to Vietnam as a, for a holiday in 2015. We were here for about 10 days, went the whole country, and absolutely fell in love with the place. To the point that when my wife and I got back to Wellington, we found all these Vietnamese restaurants that we didn't know existed, had some Vietnamese coffee, we even found one place that was selling the beer, ba ba ba. If you know ba ba ba, it's, think about the cheapest beer that you can buy in Vietnam. I think these days it's like 13, 000 dong, maybe 15, 000 dong, which works out to be one New Zealand dollar. And then we went to this restaurant that was selling it for eight New Zealand dollars. We love Vietnam, but we didn't love it that much. We could not bring ourselves to pay eight dollars for a beer. We'd just been drinking for one dollar, and we knew it wasn't that good either. So, um, So, as I had mentioned before in a previous episode, I'm doing a new series of episodes all by myself, which I've never done before, and I want to share with you more about my life in Vietnam, but specifically Saigon. I always get confused and say Vietnam. I live in Saigon. It's totally different to most of Vietnam. It's a big, bustling metropolitan city. There's like 10 million people here. It has all the same highs and lows, ups and downs of any big city in the world. But there's so many more positives that make it such an amazing place to live. So I wanted to share with you a bit more about what I do here, what life is like here, whether you live here or not, and hopefully give you some helpful information that's going to help you find something new or do something new. Or when you come on holiday. give you something to do. if you do want to send me a message, you can go into the show notes and you can send me a direct message I can feature it on a future episode or I can respond to it. And if you have any questions, let me know. One of my, one of my favorite things is when I get to hear from people and they ask me questions. I also run a quiz night every Tuesday night at the Rabbit Hole Irish Sports Bar. That's the Rabbit Hole Irish Sports Bar because there is a Rabbit Hole cocktail bar. Don't get those confused. People have done that before. But if you ever want to come to the quiz night, if you're here on holiday or if you live here, I'll be there every Tuesday night and we have a, we have a really fun night as well. We have up to 40, 50 people between five and 10 teams every time. And it's normally a good laugh. So come and check that out. Now what I want to talk about today. Again, makes me, everything makes me sound like an alcoholic, and I'm probably a borderline alcoholic. But one of the ones I want to talk to you about today is Happy Hours. Now, it's no surprise, I'm from Scotland, we have a reputation, we have a stereotype that we don't like to spend money. And, to be honest, I think it's true. I mean, I don't, who likes to spend money though? If you can save money, you want to do it, right? So, I base my life around happy hours. No, I'm kidding. I don't base my life around it. But I will look up a place for a happy hour because if you can pay 50 percent less or get one free, then why would you not want to do that? Also, I'm getting older now, so I want to do my drinking earlier in the day, be finished earlier, get into bed. Had a reasonable hour and then wake up in the morning, maybe not feeling so fresh, but now I'm feeling fresh in the morning as well. So I'm going to share with you some of my favorite happy hour places to go to in Saigon. I think it's, I know people have set up websites in the past. I know it's something that a lot of people look up and so I'm only going to cover a few today, not every one, but just some of my favorite happy hours. I do also have to have a small rant that if you have a happy hour, like, no, thank you so much. That's amazing. You're giving away something for free. I don't want to sound bad, but if you have a happy hour and it's buy two get one free, that's not a happy hour to me. That's the worst happy hour. you can possibly do, I don't understand it. Who does that work for? Right, so, if I go by myself, I have to buy two beers or two drinks to get the third one free, so that's a minimum of three drinks I have to consume. So, I have to either consume them really quickly, which is irresponsible, so I'm going to have to have three drinks in like an hour or two, or, if I want to have one drink an hour, I'm gonna have to have three drinks, I'm gonna have to commit to being in your venue for three hours. Then if there's two of you there, which I'm generally with my wife, buy two, get one free. Who gets the free one? So we're going to have to buy one anyway. So then we're probably going to be like, Oh, we may as well buy another one. Cause then we get another one free. So you're back to the same problem. You just want to go and have one, maybe two drinks. And suddenly you fall to six. I know it seems Like I'm being ungrateful, but that's just the way it is to buy to get one free is not a happy hour Happy hour is buy one get one free or 50 percent off there. I've said it I've done my rant is over So on to the best happy hours in Saigon, let's go. All right, number one I think everyone knows this and they've been nominated recently again for best happy hour in Saigon and If you live here, you know it, you love it. If you don't, make sure you go check it out. And it's 86 Proof and the owners, I'm pretty sure are Jason and Rochelle. We've never really met properly. We've met a little bit over the bar. I've tried to get them on the podcast before, and they've said no. And I'm going to try again. Jason and Rochelle, if you're listening, I want to get you on the podcast. So get in touch. They're the people behind 86 Proof, which is a stalwart in Saigon, in Taodin. They used to have a little, Place just across the road on one tweet. They've now moved to a bigger spot and they have happy hour every day from four to 7 p. m. And it's 50 percent off. All drinks I think, I know at least cocktails anyway, because they make the best cocktails. Get the Espresso Martini, the Espresso Negroni, and personal favourite of mine, and most people I think, is the Whiskey Sour. I don't know what they do, there is some sort of magic that they put into the Whiskey Sour, that just makes it taste incredible and every other place my wife and I go to, if we get a whiskey cellar, it's held up to the standard of 86 proof. It's the first question we ask each other. You take a sip, you look at each other and you go, Is it as good as 86 Proof? And I think every single time the answer has been no. It is almost impossible. I don't know what they do. It's a perfect mixture of sour and sweet. I have no idea. Jason and Rochelle, you can tell us when you come on the podcast, but it is one of the most fun happy hours. I don't know why it's so fun. It's, do you know what it is? I do know why it's fun. It's the people watching. So it's right on Zwan Twi, Cross from Pastoral Street Brewing Company. And you can just sit there, enjoy a couple cocktails. There's a whole random cool bunch of people show up, people of all ages and backgrounds, and then you just sit on the street and you watch people go by in one twee on in TDY end, which is known as the expat area, but it's not just expats. And it's just a really good time. And that's a good time of happy hour as well. So daily, happy hour, four to 7:00 PM good three hours, and it is 50% off all drinks. Now number two on the list. is only a few doors down, and I do believe it is, well I know Jason is behind it, and I assume Rochelle as well, I've only met Jason there, I've not seen Rochelle there, but it's called Mami, and it's just opened, and it's one of those places when you go to, I know what it used to be, it used to be like a burger bar, what was it called again, I forget the name of it, it was like a hot dog place, Valhalla, and then there's Bespoke Tailors, and I think upstairs you can see was just storage. And then suddenly you walk by and there's this new bar and you're like, wow, they've just, I don't know how, I'm not an interior designer. I don't know how people do it, but it's just so well designed. It's so nice. You go up the stairs and that you can drink downstairs, but you go up the stairs. It's long and narrow. It's a low roof. Just really cool. It's got like Mahjong tiles, um, make up the bar. There's so much. Thought has gone into how it looks and when someone like me who has never put any thought into how anything looks, you're like, wow, you really appreciate it. And again, really good, happy off. 50% off really good cocktails. What amazes me about Vietnam? Well, sorry, let me correct myself. What amazes me about Saigon specifically is the talent here, not just. for cocktails but for everything, for the amount of good coffee that you get. The talent suite here is so incredible. When we first went to Mami, we were watching the cocktail maker bartender, do they have a special name like barista? I'm not sure but we were watching what they were doing and they were just so skilled at it and it seems like every week there's a new cocktail bar opening and my question is always where do they find the staff for this? And it's just such There just must be so many talented people out there because as soon as somewhere opens they're fully staffed and those staff aren't Like running around learning on the job, they immediately know what they're doing, which again, I think is testament to the Vietnamese people. But go check out Mamey. Let me just check what time it's at again. But go check out Mamey, 50 percent off drinks, and that one is from 4 to 8 p. m. So it's a little bit later, so if you time it right, you can go 4 to 7 or 4 to 6, do whatever you want. at 86 proof, walk a few doors down and you got another two hours of happy hour. I did mention I was Scottish, right? Like, I do think about these things. How can I plan out my happy hours to make the most of it? I know, I'm sorry. Then on the same track, if you want to extend that happy hour even further, get in a taxi, go to Fanviet Chan and go to the company. Their happy hour goes from 6 to 9 PM. And again, it's 50 percent off drinks. I was there recently. I was there And it's a really, really, really cool cocktail bar. It's small. There's only about, I think, eight seats, if I'm right. It does have an upstairs, which I didn't realize until the last time, but in the downstairs bar, there's only about eight seats and that makes it like a really cool, really small, really intimate. They let dogs come in as well. So it means that Biscuit can come too. And. Uh, the cocktails there were really, really good. I think I had a Negroni. And, but there's others, there's beers on the list as well. You can get a few different things at 50 percent off. So go check out The Company on Fam Viet Chan. It was somewhere that I'd wanted to go to for a while and never got around to it, but I eventually did and it was definitely worth it. So go check out The Company. Now, number four on my list will be one that is well known, I think, to many people who live in Saigon and that's Layla. Layla has been here now for quite a few years, which just shows how long I've been here because it still feels new. But that to me was one of the first really nice cocktail bars that opened up in Saigon. They make some really, really cool drinks and they have an awesome, uh, awesome happy hour. It's not just 50 percent off, but let me just look at what it is. So it's 50%, uh, so it's their happy hour. The last time I looked, their happy hour, the last time I looked it up was Monday to Saturday. Maybe double check that. That would be weird not to have it on a Sunday, but maybe not because people love a Sunday session, but it's Monday to Saturday from 5 to 8 p. m. They got tap beer at 50 percent off and then a selected bunch of cocktails that they give you the menu for that are only 95k including a salted caramel espresso, which I would definitely recommend and a whiskey sour. So you can go try a whiskey sour at 86 Proof, then go to Layla, get there, Whiskey Sour, and then you can compare it. If you do that, let me know what you think. I want to hear from you. Did you like it more or less? I think they all taste amazing. It's just something about 86 Proof that is even better. Now number five on my list, I mentioned before in my craft beer episode, they have two of their own craft beers. They have a blonde and a dark, but the reason I'm mentioning them is because they have a happy hour from five to seven, right at sunset, as I mentioned. So if you're in Tanmay Lawyer and Foo, I would check out Two Guys Belgian Fries. Go for the happy hour, 50 percent off the craft beers, get a seat right on the canal, watch the sun go down over Saigon, it's an awesome spot, get some Belgian fries as well, I know it's um, a little bit out of the way for most people, because most people don't come out to Tan My Loi unless you live here, but if you are in the region and you want a good happy hour, make sure you check out Two Guys. And if you get that happy o done quickly, see you get five to six, have a couple of beers in that time, jump in a taxi, get yourself over to Taodin, to one of my favorite, favorite spots in all of Saigon, and that's Café des Stagiaux, which I think I pronounced that pretty well. I just call it De Staggs. The Café des Stagiaires is in this old brick building. I remember when it was just empty. I don't even know what it was. And then suddenly they'd built a bar on the rooftop. They've got a dance floor and a venue in the middle where you can go watch comedy, go have a dance. I've performed it before. Really cool venue. But, uh, on the rooftop, it has, without doubt, the best sunset spot in all of Saigon. The sun goes down right next to the landmark 81. You can watch the lights come on, on landmark 81, which I believe is at Watch the river go by in front of you. Again, always a really cool bunch of people there. Some really nice drinks. They have Vedette beer, which has just come into the market, which I do believe is a Belgian beer. Those are really good as well. They have Happy Hour specials. So make sure you check out the menu, go onto Facebook. It's maybe not a complete buy one, get one free 50 percent off sort of deal, but it's definitely not a buy two, get one free thing, which I've already ranted about, but make sure you go check out Café des Stagiaire right on the corner of the Thao Dien teardrop with the best sunset views in Saigon. And last one is one that To be honest, it's pretty pricey. If you're coming from a western country and you've got a bit of money to spend, you're probably going to think it's cheap. I actually think it's probably western pricey, but the reason why is it's part of the Hotel Des Arts, which is one of the nicest hotels in the city. And it's right smack bang in the middle of D1, and this spot here is absolutely gorgeous. Absolutely beautiful looking right over the city. So you're right in the middle and they have a happy hour that goes from 3 to 7 p. m And it's 50 percent off selected drinks Which I know I sound so cheap, but it makes it way more affordable. So if you are worried about price or you want to spend a little bit less, if you're backpacking or you're travelling on a big trip and you don't want to spend a massive amount of money on cocktails, go for Happy Hour. It is plus plus, I'm pretty sure, so remember that as well. It says it in the bottom, which is plus VAT plus service, which puts the price up a little bit, but they have an amazing menu of cocktails. They have tap beer as well. And yeah, just one of the best views in the downtown area. And as always, sunset is always good on a rooftop as well. They do have a swimming pool there, but when the last time I looked it said swimming was only for hotel guests, so I don't think you can just go for a dip. Go have some fun there, it's an amazing spot. You've got to get the lift up, walk up some stairs, you might get lost. But once you find it, um, I think you'll have a really good time there as well. So that is my list of seven favourite happy hours in Saigon. I've made myself sound like a stereotypical Scottish person who doesn't want to spend any money. I'm very aware of that. I've made myself like, I've made myself sound like an alcoholic. I'm also very aware of that as well. But I've put this together just for you. I hope you have found it useful. As I said, send me a message. The link is in the show notes. I want to hear what you think, or if you have any happy hours, I mean, I know there's much, much more than that list, but I couldn't cover them all. If you have any that I haven't mentioned that you want me to bring up in another episode, then let me know, or you just want to let me know about it because. I love happy hour then I would love to hear from you as well. Remember, the best thing you can do is if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone else. Let them know about the podcast. You can also follow, subscribe, like, do all that cool stuff as well. And even if you just want to tell me how much you hate this podcast or how much you like it, send me a message, send me an email. I always love to hear from people and I will always get back to you. Thank you again for listening to a Vietnam podcast. Cheers!