As the summer starts to settle in, Aaron Joel Santos takes a stroll south of the Old Quarter to satisfy an overwhelming craving for ice cream.
May in Ha noi is a hot, brooding month. The sun comes back bringing with it new ripe fruits and unrelenting rays. Days get longer and brighter, insects swarm and streets swell with tourists and locals alike. Renewed life and vibrancy soak into the city as everyone shakes off the grey winter. The rain returns.
It’s summertime. And as dusk throws its last beams, the streetlights glow brighter and more golden. The heat settles and crowds converge on their favourite outdoor venues, basking in the warm night. Across the world, sweet tooths stretch and wake.
And there’s something about finding that perfect spot, a place to sit, relax and enjoy one of the season’s most revered and quintessential treats: ice cream.
Not specific to Ha Noi or Viet nam or even Asia in general, ice cream is one of the world’s great unifiers, something we are all born to love and to embrace wholly and without question. Ice cream. The Nabokovian cadence alone can be enough to send even the best of us in search of a savourous scoop.
Such love has not eluded Ha Noi. From Fanny’s and Trang Tien to Mondo Gelato and the several storefronts lining many of the city’s streets, ice cream in all of its various incarnations has found a favourable home here. There are near limitless places to find a fix, but nowhere does it feel better, more fun or familiar than at 29 Lo Duc in Hai Ba Trung District.
Just south of the well-trodden path and nestled amongst a few shops and charcoal grills, with tables and stools and contented bodies all expanding outward from the shop’s cool fluorescent centre, 29 Lo Duc is a simple, unpretentious and easygoing operation.
There’s little more here than an open door and a few freezers of ice cream, frozen yogurt and other select sweets. For a couple of hours each night there’s a lady selling thit xien nuong (grilled meat) off to the side, but on the whole, desserts are what’s on the menu. Judging by the nightly crowds and motorbikes parked out front, this doesn’t seem to be a problem.
Twenty-nine Lo Duc is the kind of place that a person can quickly become obsessed with. It’s small enough to call your own, yet quirky and interesting enough to introduce to your friends. The prices are modest, the flavours are mellow and the atmosphere is always pleasant. There’s a sign strung across the ceiling wishing you a Happy New Year and a family dog usually resting on the steps. It’s an innocuous space on an unassuming street in a neighbourhood that’s pretty quiet after dark. Yet it glows and shines perhaps because of these things.
There’s nothing very unique as far as tastes are concerned either, but that’s kind of the point. Twenty-nine Lo Duc’s strengths lie in its familiarity, its common, plainspoken take on things (it’s named after its address). The flavours here weren’t conjured in a New Jersey laboratory or founded by food scientists. It’s got way more soul than that.
It’s chocolate and vanilla and taro and young rice ice cream in thin wafer cones, coconut and green bean on a stick, orange and strawberry and durian frozen yogurt, silky creme caramel and smooth nep cam. A true Hanoian best-of list.
The menu is posted on the wall to your right as soon as you walk in, and ordering is as simple as telling the owner what you’d like and forking over a few thousand dong. It pays to know a little Vietnamese walking into the place, since there are no English translations, but lacking this the experience can be an adventure for the intrepid eater. In the end, you can’t go too terribly wrong as it’s all pretty sweet and delicious. Just remember, sau rieng means durian. In case that’s not your bag.
Of course it’s the place as much as the product that keeps people coming back. And as the evening passes the seats fill up with young and old alike all enjoying glasses of frozen yogurt, ice cream cones and other desserts. The cool faint scent of sugar hangs in the Air People mill about and others leave with tubs full of take-away. Kids run around. Bikes buzz. Teenagers flirt. Lovers linger.
It’s as close to an ideal summer spot as you’re likely to find in Ha Noi. Sans swimming pool and free beer. It’s good clean fun and the best way to shake off any stale winter blues still sticking around. So take a walk and eat a few scoops. It’s the season. — VNS
Tag: Asia , Ha Noi , Hanoi , Old Quarter , Tour , Tourist , Viet Nam , Vietnam , Vietnamese Savouring the small things on Lo Duc - Ha Noi cuisine
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