The last stop on our Hanoi foodie tour will be at a coffee shop that specializes in egg coffee. I like eggs and I like coffee, but I don’t know if I want my eggs in my coffee. There’s only one way to find out.
Coffee is a big deal in Vietnam. Vietnam is second only to Brazil in coffee production. They produce it, but they also love drinking it. Here in Hanoi’s Old Quarter, we’ve been seeing coffee shops everywhere.
Vietnam produces robusta coffee beans. They’re more potent than arabica beans, and the Vietnamese like their coffee that way.
Cà Phê Sữa Đá
The most famous Vietnamese coffee concoction is probably coffee with condensed milk over ice – cà phê sữa đá. The first two words sound kinda like “coffee.” The next word sounds like a guy with a thick New Joisy accent saying “sewer.” The last word sounds like a Russian guy enthusiastically agreeing with you.
For obvious reasons, we won’t be getting into Vietnamese pronunciation very often, but this term is a good one to know. If you don’t say it this way, you might end up something other than cà phê sữa đá.
On our last trip to Vietnam, I tried salt coffee. It’s strong coffee topped with salted cream. It’s almost like having a coffee dessert. So good. But we’re on a foodie tour. We should be trying new things, so it’s going to be egg coffee for me.
All of our previous stops were at sidewalk food stalls where both preparation and consumption are done out front. But at the coffee shop, and at others that I’ve noticed, people go inside, sit down, and relax. One might think it’d be the other way around, eh?
Egg Coffee
Egg coffee is another Hanoi specialty. To make it, they gently heat a mixture of egg yolks, condensed milk, sugar, and vanilla until they turn into a smooth, creamy concoction. They spoon it on top of a cup of strong coffee, and it’s ready to serve.
Take a spoon and mix some or all of the cream down into the coffee, then enjoy. It’s kind of like a coffee milk shake or smoothie. The taste is reminiscent of tiramisu. And of course, it’s really good.
All Foodie Tours Must Come to an End
And so our foodie tour came to an end. We were all satisfied, stuffed-to-the-gills customers. We unanimously decided to make the short trip back to the hotel on foot.
By the time the foodie tour was over, rush hour had passed and things in the Old Quarter had settled down. Well, not settled down, exactly, but the level of chaos was no longer pegging the chaos meter.
Or were we just getting used to it? I don’t know. But we only had to walk two blocks to reach quiet shoreline of Hoan Kiem Lake, and the contrast was evident. So quiet and peaceful.
To be continued…
Credit for the photo of an egg coffee at the top of this post: istockphoto/IndreJeg
