Written by Eileen Wen Mooney

Chè, pronounced like Che Guevara’s first name, is a popular traditional Vietnamese dessert well-liked by young and old. This explains why
there are so many chè places in town: wheeled around narrow streets of the Old Quarter, carried on shoulder poles, and served in shop fronts that spill out on to the streets and sidewalks. And the variety of combinations is infinite.

I’ve tried quite a few in Hanoi, but find Little Bowl’s chè utterly special—the taste as beautiful as its presentation.

“I don’t use any artificial flavoring in my *chè*,” said 29-year-old Pham Lan Huong, the owner of Little Bowl, who added that unlike many of her competitors, she makes all of the long list of items here in her small shop, such as pandan juice to make pandan jelly, and beet juice to make beet jelly. When I stopped by one day, she was bent over a small table slicing pandan leaves to make a new batch.

“I come here all the time,” says Tuan, a neighborhood regular at Little Bowl. “She makes everything from scratch and she does it from her heart.” Tuan likes the chè here so much, he ordered a second bowl the day I interviewed Ms. Huong.

The popular Traditional Bowl (VND20,000) includes an enticing mix of beet and pandan jelly, baby tapioca pearls as well as large ones, banana, taro, red beans, mashed mung bean, pomelo membrane coated with sugared tapioca starch. This is served in a small bowl with homemade coconut milk, with another bowl of crushed ice to chill the chè and a refreshing cup of tea.

Other popular chè includes a dollop of fresh durian, jackfruit, roofing fruit, known in Malay as kolang kaling.

In the winter, Little Bowl also offers delectable bánh trôi, a glutinous rice dumpling filled with green beans or black sesame seeds served in a ginger syrup.

Ms. Huong has loved chè since she was a child, telling me she would regularly eat chè six days a week during high school. Surprisingly, she says she seldom eats it today because she’s busy making it everyday. “I only take two or three teaspoonful when I do a sampling,” said Ms. Huong.

Making chè runs in the family. Ms. Huong learned how to make this traditional Vietnamese dessert from her aunt who had been in this trade since she was a little girl. She followed in her aunt’s footsteps in 2015 when she began selling chè on the sidewalk in front of her mom’s herbal medicine shop on Lan Ong street.

Three years ago she moved into her mom’s traditional herbal medicine shop after the police began to crack down on street-side vendors and when the herbal medicine business began to slow down. Competition within the old trade is hot on the street, famous for its herbal concoctions, which can be smelled as soon as one approaches the corner of Lan Ong Street. A large cabinet filled with herbal medicines stays in the shop functions as a divider between the kitchen and the shop.

“I lost 50 percent of my customers when I moved into the shop,” she told me. “Street food is Hanoi’s food culture, and Vietnamese love sitting outside on the sidewalk to enjoy drinks and food,” explained Ms. Huong. However, she says business is picking up again, especially after 6pm, when it’s possible to put some tables and stools outside the shop, attracting both local and foreign customers for a snack.

Ms. Huong is a proud Hanoian and a supporter of local food businesses in the Old Quarter. Trained in art while in university, Ms. Huong drew a large map of the Old Quarter on the wall of Little Bowl, marking several dozen of her favorite places to eat and drink. She freely shares advice with foreign visitors who come into the shop.

Her affinity for desserts is expressed on the walls of her shop, with quotes she says she found on the Internet. “If eating dessert is wrong, I don’t want to be right,” or “Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.”

The menu is written in both Vietnamese and English, and Ms. Huong, who speaks excellent English, is happy to answer questions as she deftly moves around the small shop serving customers and preparing bowls of chè.

Ms. Huong says she named her shop Little Bowl because she serves her chè in a small bowl, while other sellers usually offer this specialty in a tall and narrow glass.

To sum up:

Taste: - 5/5

Price - 5/5

Atmosphere - 5/5

Friendliness - 5/5

Location - 5/5

Find Tiệm Chè Little Bowl at 46 Lãn Ông, Hàng Bồ, Hoàn Kiếm.

Opening hours are 11 am to 10:30 pm.