First published March 2014 | Words and photos by Vietnam Coracle

[*Update: this restaurant is now closed] After the horse meat scandal came to light in 2013, people in Europe discovered they may have eaten horse without knowing it. The same thing almost happened to me in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) earlier this week. After signing the contract and putting down the deposit for a house near the Saigon River, my friends and I were in the mood to celebrate. We found a decent-looking restaurant nearby and sat down, only to find that the sole item on the menu was horse. Rather than put us off, however, this only made us more excited about the meal in prospect. The restaurant offered a dozen ways to have your horse; we chose four of them: pan-fried horse meat wrapped in fresh mustard leaf and dipped in wasabi soy sauce; barbecued horse meat kebabs sprinkled with sesame seeds; horse entrails fried with Vietnamese coriander and chilli; and minced horse meat with lemongrass on sunflower seed rice crackers. We unanimously agreed this was one of the best meals of the year, which, appropriately, is the Year of the Horse. Address: Lẩu Ngựa Điện Biên, 71 D1 Street, Bình Thạnh District, Saigon [MAP].

Images from the Night of the Horse:

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