I can never have too much seafood.
And I guess there are many people like me.
So I would love to invite you guys – my readers, and seafood lovers, scrolling around the town with me to discover the tops of places offering succulent street seafood – the real Nha Trang seafood.

The first destination in my series about Nha Trang street seafood is Xuan Anh, a small sidewalk restaurant located in Thap Ba Street. In its original name, “Quán ốc Xuan Anh” means “Xuan Anh snails restaurant” but in fact, there are a number of kinds of seafood such as shrimps, lobsters, squids, fishes, snails, sea urchins and many more being kept alive in big plastic basins or glass aquariums with aquarium air pumps. The restaurant has both indoor seating and pavement seating with small sets of plastic chairs and table. The indoor seating is pretty tiny but brighter and cleaner while the pavement seating offers diners an authentic ambience of Vietnamese street food.

When it comes to highlighted dishes of Xuan Anh seafood, Snails Salad (Vietnamese: Gỏi Ốc) is among the tops. Most of its patrons order this dish as a starter without having a look at the menu. The salad is the combination of multiple ingredients including boiled snails, sliced carrots, sliced onions, several kinds of fresh herbs, mixing with garlic chilly fish sauce and topped with crushed roasted peanuts. Pick up a salad with chopsticks and put it on a crispy shrimp chips served together with the dish, then eat a large piece and feel the balance of flavor between sour, spicy salty and sweet in your mouth. Definitely an incredible taste!

Another special from Xuan Anh seafood is Spicy Steamed Clams with Lemongrass (Vietnamese: Nghêu Hấp Xả). Medium sized clams are cooked with lemongrass, gingers, red chilies and floral spires white (Vietnamese: É trắng) – a popular basil in center of Viet Nam with unique flavor leaves. So how to eat this dish as the right way? Ok, firstly forgets chopsticks, simply use your thumb and pointed finger to pick up the clam, eat the shellfish, then use its shells as a spoon to enjoy the fabulous hot and spicy broth which can warm your body in the cold nights of Nha Trang.

The next representative is Roasted Flower Crab with Tamarind Sauce (Vietnamese: Ghẹ Rang Me) – the first dish that pops to my mind each time I visit this restaurant. Big sized flower crabs are separated from the carapaces, cut in half and stir fried in hot oil with minced garlic until fragrant before adding the sour and sweet tamarind sauce plus a bit chili powder. These flower crabs look attractive with a nice smell and taste fantastic. If my stomach was bigger and my budget was larger, I thought I could eat all their flower crabs.

A small tip for you guys that do not order crabs or flower crabs in moon nights because for some reasons (which I don’t know exactly – a word of mouth folk experience of the locals) that their meat is not so great during this period. So you would do better to wait for the absence of the moon to eat these creatures.

Oysters (Vietnamese: Hàu) here are wonderful too, very fresh and yummy. Enjoy Oysters with Wasabi (Vietnamese: Hàu sống mù tạt) or Cheese Grilled Oysters (Vietnamese: Hàu nướng phô mai) are great for those who can eat raw or rare-cooked seafood. In case you prefer the well-done, I would like to recommend Baked Oysters (Vietnamese: Hàu đút lò). The oysters are grilled on a charcoal oven with cheese and egg until the cheese is melted and the egg has a good smell. All the dishes taste better when they are still hot.

One small point to note once ordering oyster in Nha Trang that we don’t serve one oyster, two oysters as in Sai Gon. The Nha Trang oysters come in a plate or kg depending to each restaurant. At Xuan Anh seafood is 500g/ plate (around 08 oysters up to the size)

And the last but not least is Roasted Sweet Snails with Garlic (Vietnamese: Sò Huyết Cháy Tỏi). Actually, I would like to change the name of this dish a bit into Roasted Sweet Snails with Garlic Sauce due to its cooking recipe. The chef here adds more sauce into the dish than other restaurants that makes it stunning and wonderful to combine with several kinds of fresh herbs like sawleaf, Vietnamese mint, fish mint, and perilla. I really love this one, my ideal choice for drinking snack.

There are so many other tasty dishes at Xuan Anh seafood but I cannot include all in a review. So I highly recommend you guys to visit there and give it a try, you will see that they all are stunning and delicious. Apart from the good food, the waiters and waitresses there are also nice, enthusiastic and sense of humor at the same time. I really like them. In the terms of the cost, it is not expensive in comparison with other sidewalk restaurants on the same street (Thap Ba is considered as the street of Nha Trang seafood) but a bit higher than some other areas of the town. But I think the cost is equal to the high quality dishes, nice ambience and a wide range of seafood for your choice. And its price is absolutely cheaper than luxury restaurants price.

Lastly, if you don’t know how to get there, I am willing to make a direction, very easy. Go along Tran Phu Street toward to the north, passing Tran Phu Bridge and turn left at the first crossroads controlled by traffic lights. You now are on Thap Ba Street and Xuan Anh seafood is on your left. The restaurant opens from 5pm till 11pm every day (except the first day of Lunar New Year, I think). Hope you guys will have a great time there.

I hope you find my review informative. If you like my content, please consider supporting what I do by like, share or buy me a coffee here. Thank you  😆

Service used: Foods and drinks
Price: 30$/ 03 person/ 08 dishes
Overall rating (for reference): 9/10
(Note: the price and service are reviewed in October 2016)
Contact info: Xuan Anh Seafood – 09 Thap Ba Street, Nha Trang
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Photos and article by Phuong Do