Rural decor: A group of Vietnamese guests enjoy the decor at Cuc Gach. — VNS Photos Van Dat Popular dish: Goi bon bon is made of pork and bon bon, the leaf of a water plant. Countryside staple: Tofu, the soybean curd, is a specialty at Cuc Gach. Cuc Gach Restaurant Address: 10 Dang Tat Street, Tan Dinh Ward, District 1, HCM City Tel: (84.8) 38 48 01 44 Branch: 92b Thach Thi Thanh, Tan Dinh Ward, District 1, HCM City Tel: (84.8) 93077261

I have been living in the city for more than a decade but hadn't heard of the place that serves the stuff that had been so familiar to me in the countryside.

Cuc Gach (brick) Restaurant was designed by a famous architect who also owns it.

Apparently, a popular joke is that it is the best place for the city's wealthy to go to remember how they lived during a more humble time in the past.

Is it also a sign of the city's – and, indeed, country's – growing affluence that to see poverty one needs to go searching for it?

When a close friend and I arrived at the restaurant, there was no one else. It is not a very big place and has a look of genteel poverty.

The waiters, most of whom spoke with a south-western accent, seated us at as wooden table with moth-eaten legs and offered us coconut juice. It made sense to me that at the rustic place they provide bindweed as a straw to drink the water.

All the cutlery was worn, even broken. It made me recall the time I lived with my grandmother who had used similar stuff.

People often equate a delicious meal with beautiful cutlery and decor but the restaurant's style apparently makes sense, especially to wealthy people looking for an unusual experience.

Cuc Gach only serves dishes the hoi polloi make at home but there are so many of them that we are unsure of what to order. Finally, we settle on canh chua (sour soup), thit luoc cham mam tom (boiled meat with shrimp paste), thit kho tieu (caramel pork), and bong thien ly xao toi (fragrant cynanthe with garlic).

Well, the food is not special, at least not for me. Familiarity, after all, breeds contempt. However, I've always liked the sour, sweet, and crisp goi bon bon – made of pork and the leaf of a popular water plant grown in the south-western region – and I polish off the dish.

I do not quite eat the other dishes with so much relish though nothing is bad.

The brown rice made and served in a pot leaves me impressed. For a long time I haven't had it. It is considered a poor man's food, but at the restaurant it is a big hit, according to the staff.

The place is not as expensive as I had feared a faux rustic place would be – most dishes cost just VND50,000 (US$2.5) to VND80,000 (US$4).

By the time we get the food, the restaurant fills up – there are both Vietnamese and foreigners, especially French. From all accounts, the place is always full though it does not advertise itself.

Cuc Gach has the simplicity of a small eatery as its name, brick, suggests but the style and service of a restaurant.

It uses small jars as chairs and oil tables and there are bird nests in the garden. An old-fashioned gramophone plays music made by the late, great Trinh Cong Son before 1975, making the atmosphere altogether more pleasant and relaxing.

There is a pond with turtles that sometimes climb on to the yard to take in the sun. Curious guests come to see and touch the animals as staff passing by kick them back into the pond.

My friend said he will return to the restaurant with his friends. So will I. Even if only because its atmosphere and food bring to my mind memories of childhood. — VNS