Drink egg coffee where it was invented, at Cafe Giang
Cafe Giang, Hanoi
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Three things you can only do in Vietnam
Egg coffee at the cafe its inventor opened, a noodle bound to one well and one island, and an arena built for elephants and tigers.
Drink egg coffee at the cafe its inventor opened
Egg coffee was invented in Hanoi in 1946 by Nguyen Van Giang, a bartender at the Metropole hotel who whisked egg yolk into coffee because a wartime dairy shortage had taken milk off the shelves. The drink was popular enough that he left and opened his own cafe, and that cafe is still there, still run by his family.
It is a small glass of strong coffee under a thick, sweet, whisked egg-yolk custard, set in a bowl of hot water so the custard does not stiffen before you finish. The entrance looks like the corridor into somebody's flat, and most people walk past it. Go down the alley; the cafe opens out at the back and continues upstairs.
Order it hot. The iced version is on the menu and loses the whole point, which is the temperature contrast between the custard and the coffee underneath.
Eat the noodle that cannot be made anywhere else
Cao lau's traditional method is tied to two local inputs in Hoi An: water from the Ba Le well, an old Cham well whose mild alkalinity gives the noodle its chew and its colour, and a lye made from the ash of wood burned on Cu Lao Cham, about 15 km offshore. Take either away and it is a different noodle.
One honest qualification: the family that makes the noodles moved off the Ba Le well years ago to their own well with comparable water. So the claim is about a tradition and a place, not about the provenance of every bowl.
It is a dry dish, not a soup. A small amount of dense broth sits at the bottom under thick noodles, sliced pork, greens and croutons cut from the same dough and fried. Eat it at a street stall rather than a restaurant with a laminated English menu, and go at lunch, which is when people here eat it.
The only one on Earth
Eat the noodle that cannot be made anywhere else
Cao lau stalls, Hoi An Old Town, Hoi An · Free
Stand in the arena built for elephants and tigers
In 1829 the court at Hue staged an elephant-and-tiger fight on the Perfume River and a tiger swam towards the royal dragon boat. A walled arena was built the following year, by Emperor Minh Mang, so the spectacle could be watched safely. The last combat was held in 1904.
The fights were never a contest. The tigers were defanged and declawed beforehand, because the elephant was the emblem of royal power and had to win.
It is almost always empty. It sits away from the tomb circuit and no coach stops here, so you will very likely have the ring to yourself. Go in the morning: there is no shade inside the ring, nothing to buy, and nothing interpreted, so bring what you need and know the story before you arrive.
The only one on Earth
Stand in the arena built so elephants could kill tigers safely
Ho Quyen, Huế · Free