Nha Trang Guide
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8 snail and shellfish places in Nha Trang

Rating: 4.3 / 5 — Our own score, not an average of guest reviews

Our own score, not an average of guest reviews

The city's real drinking food. 8 places, prices read off their own boards, one open until 3am

City centre

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Address
Five in the central cluster: Nguyễn Thiện Thuật, Mê Linh, Trần Nhật Duật, plus Song Hào, VCN Phước Hải and Tháp Bà
Opening hours
Three open only from 14:00–16:30; the latest is 48 Nguyễn Thiện Thuật, to 3am
Price range
30,000 – 120,000₫/dish
Best time to go
From 18:00. The kitchen is in rhythm, the room fills and the heat has gone

Overview

Snails are the default drinking food in Nha Trang, and it is not the same meal as a seafood restaurant: you order small plates by the shell, each cooked a different way, and you sit for a long time. Four people usually order five or six plates and spend 300,000–400,000₫ including beer, because a plate here typically runs 30,000–120,000₫. It is a different way of eating from picking a fish out of a tank, which is why this page is separate from the seafood one.

Four of these have a price board up at the shop itself, so the figures below are the shops' own, not an estimate. The cheapest is Ốc ngân at 64 Song Hào, 30,000–66,000₫ a plate, with a single grilled oyster on the board at 8,000₫. The lowest figure anywhere here; a can of Saigon beer is 15,000₫. Ốc Phủi at 27 Mê Linh runs wider, 40,000–120,000₫, with big whelks, garlic snails and Japanese scallops marked "market price". Ốc Zàng 96 in the VCN Phước Hải estate runs from 15,000₫ for pickled mango to 140,000₫ for oysters in sauce with bread.

Opening hours decide where you go tonight, and they differ more than people expect. Three of these open only from the afternoon: Ốc ngân from 16:00, Ốc Zàng from 14:00, Tiệm Nhà Ốc from 16:30. Turn up for lunch and you find a shutter. At the other end, Quán Ốc Ngon Nha Trang at 48 Nguyễn Thiện Thuật runs to 3am, the latest of all, with Tiệm Nhà Ốc at 68 Trần Nhật Duật to 1am. If you have just left a beer place at midnight, those are the two still lit.

One thing worth saying plainly, because it sends people to the wrong door: there are four near-identical names on Nguyễn Thiện Thuật. Google keeps three separate records for the same shopfront at number 48. "Quán Ốc Ngon Nha Trang", "Ốc Ngon Hải sản tươi Làng Biển" and "Hải Sản Ốc Ngon Nha Trang", and their coordinates sit less than 10 m apart. Meanwhile "Quán Ốc Ngon" at 34/2/15 Nguyễn Thiện Thuật is a different shop, up an alley, the busiest snail house in the city, its sign reading "Saigon Special. Ốc Ngon". Navigate by house number, not by name.

Four sit in the central cluster and are walkable from the beachfront hotels; the other three need transport. Ốc ngân on Song Hào and Ốc Zàng 96 in the VCN Phước Hải estate are both south-west, 2–3 km from the tourist quarter, and quán ốc Xuân Anh at 25 Tháp Bà is north, near Hòn Chồng. Xuân Anh is on the list because it is the one busy snail place on the northern run, not because it cooks better than the shops in town.

If this is not quite what you want: snails are small plates for a long evening, while picking a live fish from a tank and eating a proper meal is the seafood and draught beer page; grilling at your own table is the grill houses; and if the drinking is the point and the food comes second, that is the beer places.

Some shops, with addresses

  • Quán Ốc Ngon

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    34/2/15 Nguyen Thien Thuat, Nha Trang, Khanh Hoa

    4.4★ Google · 3,513 reviewsOpen 10:00 – 23:0030,000 – 70,000₫

    Up the alley at 34/2/15 Nguyễn Thiện Thuật, signed "Saigon Special. Ốc Ngon", open 10:00–23:00. This is the busiest snail house in the city and the only one here open from ten in the morning. The board at the shop gives a tight range: 30,000–70,000₫ a dish, with every grilled clam at a flat 40,000₫. Every skewer: beef and mushroom, chicken, frog, goby, pork belly, is 70,000₫. Do not confuse it with the three records under the same name at number 48.

    Reference photos from sources on the internet.

  • Quán Hẻm Ốc Vân Đồn

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    89 Van Don, Nha Trang, Khanh Hoa

    4.2★ Google · 1,555 reviewsOpen 14:00 – 23:00

    89 Vân Đồn, open 14:00–23:00: afternoons and evenings only. The live shellfish sits in aluminium trays at the entrance, so you choose before you know what you are eating, which makes this the most old-fashioned snail place on the list. What comes out most is oysters and green mussels grilled with spring onion oil, and sea urchin with cheese, the urchin is seasonal, so ask first. The neon "Eat in Love" sign out front is easier to find than the house number.

    Reference photos from sources on the internet.

  • Quán Ốc Ngon Nha Trang

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    48 Nguyen Thien Thuat, Nha Trang, Khanh Hoa

    4.6★ Google · 1,043 reviewsOpen 11:00 – 3:0099,000 – 399,000₫

    48 Nguyễn Thiện Thuật, open 11:00 to 3am: the latest on this page. This is the most tourist-facing of them: the menu is printed in five languages (Vietnamese, English, Korean, Russian, Chinese) and the sign advertises lobster alongside rice, fish noodles and congee. From that menu: mud crab 99,000–399,000₫ by size, seafood salad and taro salad with beef 149,000, beef salad and snail salad 120,000. Note that Google carries three records for this one door under slightly different names, any of them lands here.

    Reference photos from sources on the internet.

  • Quán Ốc Phủi

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    27 Me Linh, Nha Trang, Khanh Hoa

    4.9★ Google · 930 reviews40,000 – 120,000₫

    27 Mê Linh: the fullest price board on this page, twenty-four kinds of shellfish set out by how they are cooked. The range is 40,000–120,000₫ a plate: clams and sweet snails at 40,000₫ at the bottom, sweet whelks at 110,000–120,000₫ at the top. Big whelks, garlic snails, and Japanese scallops are "market price", ask before you order. It shuts in the afternoon: 10:30–14:00, then 16:00–23:00, so 14:00–16:00 is a closed door.

    Reference photos from sources on the internet.

  • Ốc ngân

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    64 Song Hao, southern Nha Trang, Khanh Hoa

    4.8★ Google · 177 reviewsOpen 16:00 – 22:308,000 – 66,000₫

    64 Song Hào, open 16:00–22:30. The cheapest here, and its board says why: 30,000–66,000₫ a plate, starting with the small clams and mussels at 30,000₫. One line stays in the memory: a single grilled oyster at 8,000₫. The beer is posted too, a can of Saigon at 15,000₫. Yellow plastic stools, a pavement shop, about 2 km south-west of the tourist quarter.

    Reference photos from sources on the internet.

  • Tiệm Nhà Ốc

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    68 Tran Nhat Duat, Nha Trang, Khanh Hoa

    4.7★ Google · 127 reviewsOpen 16:30 – 1:0089,000 – 279,000₫

    68 Trần Nhật Duật, open 16:30 to 1am. The name says snails but the menu leans firmly to hot-kitchen drinking food, and the prices follow: 89,000–279,000₫ a dish, from a plate of chicken feet to a whole bantam chicken. A newer place with a yellow front and a big neon sign. Easier to spot from down the street than by number.

    Reference photos from sources on the internet.

  • Tiệm Ốc Zàng 96

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    2 B2 street, VCN Phuoc Hai, Nha Trang, Khanh Hoa

    4.7★ Google · 71 reviewsOpen 14:00 – 22:3015,000 – 140,000₫

    2 B2 street inside the VCN Phước Hải estate, open 14:00–22:30. The board is taped to the wall and prices everything: 15,000–140,000₫ a plate, from pickled mango at the bottom to oysters in sauce with bread at the top. Note the counts as well as the prices: oysters at 45,000₫ means five to a plate, mussels at 35,000₫ means six. A neighbourhood shop with yellow plastic stools and no pretensions.

    Reference photos from sources on the internet.

  • Quán ốc Xuân Anh

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    25 Thap Ba, northern Nha Trang, Khanh Hoa

    3.9★ Google · 270 reviewsOpen 11:30 – 0:00

    25 Tháp Bà, open 11:30 to midnight: the one busy snail place on the northern run, handy if you are near Ponagar or Hòn Chồng. The shellfish is laid out in trays at the front, and the kitchen handles both grilled sea urchin and crab in tamarind. It fills up and the kitchen slows when it does, if you are not in a hurry it is still a decent plate of snails in the north.

    Reference photos from sources on the internet.

Addresses come from each shop's own Google Maps listing, and the Open map button opens that shop's pin rather than running a search. 18 shops on the site have no listing we could confirm, so they have no button: the address lookup returned a different business, and a button that points at the wrong place is worse than none. A Google score appears only when Maps carries both the score and the number of reviews — a bare average cannot be weighed, so this page leaves it out. Street-food stalls change hours and close without telling anyone; call ahead if you are travelling across town.

What to order

  • Four legible price boards: a plate of snails runs 30,000–120,000₫
  • Ốc ngân posts a grilled oyster at 8,000₫ and a Saigon beer at 15,000₫
  • 48 Nguyễn Thiện Thuật runs to 3am, Tiệm Nhà Ốc to 1am
  • Four near-identical names on one street, navigate by house number

Practical tips

  • Order a few plates at a time and reorder; shellfish goes dull as it cools
  • Ốc ngân, Ốc Zàng and Tiệm Nhà Ốc open afternoons only. Do not go at midday
  • Ask the price of anything marked "thời giá" before nodding, especially the big whelks and Japanese scallops
  • For four people, five or six plates is right; ten at once means half of them go cold

Frequently asked

What does a plate of snails cost in Nha Trang?

From four boards at the shops: 30,000–120,000₫ a plate is the norm. The cheapest is Ốc ngân, where several small clams are 30,000₫ and a single grilled oyster is 8,000₫; the dearest snail is the sweet whelk at 110,000–120,000₫ at Ốc Phủi. Large mud crab at 48 Nguyễn Thiện Thuật reaches 399,000₫, but that is crab, not snails.

Which one stays open latest?

Quán Ốc Ngon Nha Trang at 48 Nguyễn Thiện Thuật, 11:00 to 3am. Then Tiệm Nhà Ốc at 68 Trần Nhật Duật, 16:30 to 1am. The rest close between 22:30 and midnight.

Why are there several places called "Ốc Ngon"?

Google keeps three separate records for one shopfront at 48 Nguyễn Thiện Thuật, their coordinates under 10 m apart. There is also a "Quán Ốc Ngon" up the alley at 34/2/15 on the same street, about 200 m away and a different business. The reliable way is to go by house number.

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