Friday, October 03, 2008

Best Martini in HCMC

The best martini in town (HCMC) is served at the Park Hyatt lobby level lounge.  

I first grabbed a drink here months ago because a friend of mine who was holed up in the Park Hyatt on business told me that the live lounge act was pretty good.  I went one night, grabbed a drink to test out the bartender's skill and waited for the solo act to start.  

After a bit of waiting, I asked the bartender if the music act was on tonight, and if so, when it would start.  The person sitting near me chirped up and said it will start soon - because she was the act.  I guess that's one reason for drinking tea in a bar.

She - Jen Woodhouse - was pretty good - a nice mix of familiar covers of singer-songwriter material and original stuff.  The performers have gigs of 6 months at a time, and, interestingly, they are recruited off of Myspace!  The Saigon Park Hyatt management uses Myspace, how odd is that?  

One funny thing is that the Park Hyatt is very Vietnamese in overstating the truth when advertising their lounge acts.  The Park Hyatt ran week-long full page adverts stating that the act following Jen Woodhouse - Kat Parsons -  was from Austria.  I met her briefly and it turns out that she was merely born in Austria and grew up in the DC area.  Heck, we even went to the same schools.  I guess I'm Austrian too!       

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