Antiques Street (Le Cong Kieu St.) is regarded as one of the oldest streets in Saigon and for a long time has been the go-to place for people hoping to stumble across valuable antiquities or unearth pieces of “treasure”.

Mostly what you will find, however, is bric-a-brac.

Still, it’s worth the short 200m walk if only it’s to capture a sense of what Saigon was like in the middle of last century, but get in quick before development in the area swallows it up some time soon.

At its western end across Pho Duc Chinh Street is the Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts (97A Pho Duc Chinh). A highlight of a visit here is that it's set across three captivating colonial-era mansions that were built in the late 1920s and early 1930s by one of the city’s wealthiest families.

Those who delight in the supernatural might also get a kick out of the urban legend that the building is haunted.

As for legends of a different kind, true crime lovers will froth over the story that 1960s underworld kingpin Dai Cathay spent his formative years at the intersection of Nguyen Cong Tru and Nam Khi Khoi Nghia Streets  shining shoes and selling newspapers.  

By the time he was 20, Cathay had risen the ranks to top dog status of the Four Great Kings “club” of Saigon’s criminal underworld and had the city eating out of his hands, controlling every racket imaginable from gambling to prostitution to drugs.

And then he disappeared, believed to have been hunted down and killed after escaping from a Phu Quoc prison in 1967 at just 27 years old. 

I spent some valuable staycation time trying to pinpoint the exact location where the theatre, after which Cathay was eponymously nicknamed, once stood. 

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And I’m glad I did.

Down a small residential alleyway at 68/3 Nguyen Thai Binh Street, I happened across Anhouse Cafe which serves up ca phe trung, otherwise known as egg coffee. 

Egg coffee is said to have originated in Hanoi and has its roots at the famous Giang Cafe, but it isn’t as widely consumed in Saigon. I’ve heard of just a handful of cafes in Saigon that brew it up, including another nearby called Little Hanoi Egg Coffee at 119/5 Yersin Street. 

It’s typically made with egg yolks, sugar and coffee, while at Anhouse Cafe, they add a small dollop of local honey from Dong Nai Province to replace the sugar. 

This surprisingly delicious drink is brewed in a glass coffee siphon then gently drizzled over the fluffy whipped egg and honey. Finally, it’s topped off with a dusting of cinnamon.

It’s not a coffee to grab and go, however. 

The process of watching it brew has staycation written all over it, especially given the story behind its creation which came about when a young bartender (the eventual founder of Giang Cafe) at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi in the 1940s innovated on their regular coffee by trying egg yolks as a replacement for milk when it became scarce.

You can also learn about the inspiration behind this delightful cafe which showcases fabrics and knick-knacks woven by H’mong artisans from the northern region of Vietnam near Sapa. 

By the time I had revelled in my discovery and Instagrammed and Facebook "Lived" the living hell out of it AND actually drank the egg coffee, the sun reflecting off the walls of the small but lively alleyway outside told me it was time for my midday check-in at The Odys Boutique Hotel at 67-60 Nguyen Thai Binh Street, but my belly was telling me otherwise.

Mon Ngon Xin Ga Po (Tasty Singapore 170 Nguyen Thai Binh) had been on my hit list for a while after I’d noticed it on some of my recent forays into the area. 

Open since the end of last year, Tasty Singapore serves up all the Singaporean dishes that we non-Singaporeans know and love. 

For VND138,000, the mi xao gion (crispy noodles) is a nice change-up from my habitual order of Vietnamese-style “wet” noodles like pho and hu tieu, but it’s their hoanh thanh chien (fried wontons) – golden, crunchy bite-sized crinkly wrappers encasing a tender and fragrant pork mince served up with a tangy and spicy sauce at just VND68,000 – that will have me going back.

Two other memorable dishes here were the delicate mi hoanh thanh nuoc (wonton noodle soup) for VND98,000 and the sweat-inducing forearm-sapping cua rang me (tamarind crab) for VND468,000.  

With lunch done and the sagging monsoonal clouds overhead bulging as prominently as my belly, it was high time to check into my digs for the evening at The Odys Boutique Hotel (67-69 Nguyen Thai Binh).

After one of the best dining experiences I’ve had in years, I weighed up my options, which included on one hand continuing on into the night at Saigon standouts like Biker Shield (158/10 Nguyen Cong Tru) for beers, bands and bikes; The Iron Bank (47 Ton That Dam), Snuffbox (14 Ton That Dam) and Drinking & Healing (25 Ho Tung Mau) for some of the best cocktails in town; Bam Bam (41-43 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia) to rub shoulders with one of Saigon’s hottest crowds, including upstairs at Commas where I could put a full-stop on the evening after more drinks and DJs; and Envy (74-76 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia) for the full Vietnamese club experience.

While on the other hand, I had a massive bed in my room at The Odys promising me the best sleep of my life. 

It was an easy decision, this time round the nightlife could wait.