Sugar cotton candy
A cotton candy bike.
Wandering
around Hanoi’s Old quarter, Hoan Kiem Lake, you can easily catch the sight of
cotton candy made on bikes. The candy is called ‘kẹo bông gòn’ in Vietnamese
which is a form of spun sugar confection with dashes of colour and flavour
which change from place to place.
However,
like other countries, in Vietnam, the candy is made by heating and liquefying
sugar and spinning it out through a minute hole with a centrifuge. Once in air,
thin molten sugar strands re-solidify as cotton candy, which mostly contains
air.
It
is sold on a stick or in a poly bag. The machines in Vietnam are small and
automatically produce single-servings of sugar cotton candy in which the
spinning head moves at a speed of several thousand revolutions per minute. Most
tourists have Vietnamese sugar ball candy to get nostalgic about their
childhood experience.
Bánh rán (fried
rice ball)
Bánh
rán is a deep-fried glutinous rice ball from northern Vietnamese cuisine. In
Vietnamese, bánh is a category of food including cakes, pies, and pastries,
while rán means "fried." Its outer shell is made from glutinous rice
flour, and covered all over with white sesame seeds.
Its
filling is made from sweetened mung bean paste, and scented with jasmine flower
essence.photo Traditionally, the filling should be separated from the shell so
that if one shakes the bánh rán, one can feel the filling rattle against the
inside of the shell. Many of Hanoi children keep this kind of sweet gift in
memory. In the past, bánh rán ‘s often the gift from their parents for a great
performance at school.
Kẹo kéo (stretch
candy)
This
candy made from malt, peanuts, sesame. The seller pull until the length of the
rods is exceedingly perfect, he cuts the rob of candy by his hand, which brings
about delighted sound.
A phase in making "kẹo kéo".
Now
the candy is on your hand is pretty sticky, have fragrant smell from nuts and
sesame. It seems that how long the vendor take, the more interesting the buyers
interested in. Nowadays, children hardly know about this candy, but you can
have “a ticket to childhood” when strolling around Hanoi’s night market to seek
for vendors selling this sweet gift.
Cháo sườn - rib
porridge
Spare
rib porridge is made of two main ingredients: white rice and spare ribs. The
ribs are first stewed for one hour. The cook then takes them out, put the rice
in the broth and cook until it turns into porridge. Next, the ribs are deboned
before being put back into the porridge pot.
A
perfect bowl of spare rib porridge is the combination between the sweetness of
the broth, thanks to ribs stewed for hours, and the tenderness of the pork and
porridge. Lingering in many Hanoian childhood’s memory, rib porridge is served
as the “afternoon-meal” after school for
them.
Tràng Tiền ice
cream
Kem
Tràng Tiền is nothing fancy but everything about it is extraordinary. Lying in Trang Tien Street (Hanoi), the ice
cream street shop has been famous for more than half of century.
Though
it looked like everyone was fixing their motorbikes, on closer inspection I
realized that everyone was sitting aboard their motorcycles, slowly
chitchatting, waiting for another round of the treat that was making everyone
so happy. With nearly 60 years of history, the ice cream here remains in memory
of many Hanoians' generations.
By Hanoitimes