So it’s been five days since I’ve been in Vietnam and today I finally tried their famous ‘egg coffee’. Until this December, I didn’t know such a thing even existed.
Honestly, on first thought, ‘egg coffee’ didn’t exactly sound appealing. But most cafes in Hanoi had the word ‘bestseller’ beside egg coffee in their menus.
Little bit of googling and I realised most travellers had only good things to say about it. Plus, the Vietnamese are obsessed with their caffeine and if this coffee was a bestseller everywhere, it had to be good one had to assume.
I tried the egg coffee at a quiet residential locality not too far from the famed old quarters. It was near a lake that had the remains of a B52 bomber that was downed by the Vietnamese during the Vietnam war. It had no tourists except for us.
While husband ordered a mango shake for himself and even finished it. My egg coffee took 18 minutes to make. Since it was an open cafe run by really sweet ladies, I could see the effort they took to blend the drink.
“That takes hard work, no wonder it’s more expensive than all the other drinks,” I said while waiting for it to arrive on my table.
In fact, it wasn’t even expensive, just 30,000 Vietnamese Dong, which is about Rs 90, just a little over a dollar.
It arrived in a really pretty cup with a burner kind of a stand which had a candle in it.
I took a sip with a spoon and the texture was so thick and creamy and almost had a rum like flavour to it. The top layer was frothy and looked more like a dessert.
“This is so good, try it,” I egged husband to take a sip. Pun intended.
“It’s better than I expected,” he says surprised. (Some context – he is a vegetarian who only makes an exception for eggs, but tries to avoid them as much as he can)
“And I love this, this candle is good for slow drinkers like me, if keeps the coffee hot” I said, excited about the cup.
Verdict – Egg coffee is a must try!
Here is a picture of the cafe, it’s called B52 cafe and is across the Huu Tiep Lake in Hanoi. The women running the cafe were sweethearts and gave us star-fruit that grew in their garden for free.
