Don’t scold me, I know, but if I have to choose between an apple and a chocolate, I choose chocolate… What can I say, I’m addicted to it!
But in Vietnam, I had a big surprise: I went without this “drug” for days! Because I entered the fruit paradise!
My God, I’ve never seen so many fruits per square meter in my life!!! Some familiar, others completely new to me. As in, I hadn’t even seen them before in my life, let alone tasted them.
Drooling like crazy, I started buying, testing, and devouring fruits from Vietnam.
And even if you didn’t want to buy fruit here, you couldn’t escape it: the streets are full of fruit stalls at every corner. Street vendors beautifully arrange their goods on improvised stands or modified carts, on large trays balanced on their shoulders, or on “stalls” built on their own bicycles.
And they roam through the city, cross your path, stop from time to time, so wherever you go, you run into them.
FRUITS IN VIETNAM
The Vietnamese have a very wide variety of fruits, at very low prices, because they grow them locally. From pineapple, pomelo, mango, and passion fruit to mangosteen, rambutan, dragon fruit, and others with names I had to spell out just to be sure I could Google them later…
In two weeks of vacation, I ate enough fruit for 20 holidays!
I tried to taste as many as possible, mainly out of curiosity. And I still missed some, so I guess I’ll have to plan another trip to Vietnam 🙂
Many of them are delicious! Others, good. And some… just not to my taste. I mean, come on, I can’t like them all.
But you have plenty to choose from, and that’s the most important thing! And the prices, even for me as a tourist, are absolutely affordable.
Several street vendors asked me for 100,000 dong per kilogram of fruit. That’s about 4 euros. Obviously, for Vietnamese people the price is much lower. The guide I had on this Asian adventure told me that, normally, fruits cost between 50,000 dong (around 2 euros) and 200,000 dong (8 euros) per kilogram. Most of them are on the lower end. The ones closer to 8 euros are rarer or out of their usual season.
In Hanoi, where I first went wild on fruits, in spring you’ll find watermelon, summer – apples, mango, lychees, plums, then in autumn and winter – bananas, apricots… Just to name a few of the fruits we’re familiar with. There are also tons of other fruits I instantly labeled as “exotic”.
In winter, the north of Vietnam buys fruits from the south, because in the south, being always warm, they have plenty!
I bought from both the north and the south :), depending on what made my mouth water or what sparked my curiosity.
Pineapple, pomelo, bananas, grapefruit, mango, and papaya – in abundance! If you don’t want the whole fruit, no problem, as the street vendors sell trays with sliced fruit, in various quantities.
Rambutan. Good stuff! I bought it several times and, noticing I liked it, the vendor added more to my bag to weigh more at the scale (sound familiar from our markets?…).
Mangosteen. My first curiosity in Vietnam, because I kept seeing them everywhere and had no idea what they were. I even asked for instructions on how the heck to eat them, and the vendor kindly cut them open so I could enjoy the white flesh inside. (Their peel is super tough – no way to open it with your nails…)
Dragon fruit. Looks really cool, I knew it from other countries too, but I wasn’t crazy about the taste even here.
It was among the breakfast fruits, so I tasted it again (middle row, left plate), just to make sure I wasn’t mistaken before. Still feel the same. It’s more pretty than tasty.
Oh, and I found out that its flesh can be either white or pink. You can supposedly tell by the peel and leaves.
Can you believe that on my last day in Vietnam, I bought 2 trays of passion fruit and carried them with me back to Bucharest?!
What can I say, I just couldn’t part with it!
I devoured passion fruit in Vietnam!!! From freshly cut fruit to passion fruit juice, passion fruit smoothies, even dishes with passion fruit sauce.
I had so much passion in me that I was thinking: “Dear God, don’t let a handsome man cross my path now, or I’ll burst into flames!” 🙂
Custard apple. Or as we call it in our language: “apple with scales.”
I was fascinated by this fruit when I saw it on the stalls, so I bought it. More expensive than others – 80,000 dong (a little over 3 euros) per kilogram.
I asked for usage instructions and found out that you simply peel off the “scales”, which is actually quite easy to do.
This is what’s left after removing the peel. Then you start biting into it. It’s like a super ripe peach, mixed with a pear – at least, that’s how it felt to me.
And you’ve got to be careful not to break your teeth on its seeds – they’re really hard and quite large.
Jackfruit. I saw an explosion of jackfruit in Vietnam! Not just on stalls, but even more in trees!
The bigger this rugby-ball-sized fruit gets, the closer it is to being picked.
And you can buy it already sliced, so you don’t have to carry a machete around. Someone else does that for you.
Rose apple. I came across it at a park vendor, but I didn’t trust it based on its appearance – it looked like a wrapped-up sock. And I couldn’t understand what the woman was saying it was.
Then I found it sliced at the hotel during breakfast. I learned it was a “pink apple”, and suddenly got the courage to taste it. It’s okay. Like an apple… mixed with a pear.
Green oranges. 25,000 dong per kilogram. That’s about one euro.
I bought some because I was craving something juicy. And I found out just in time that these green oranges are mostly for juice, unlike the orange-colored ones, which are meant for eating. So I got it right!
Longans. Small, round, brown, hanging in bunches from branches, easy to peel, and the white translucent flesh is sweet. Kind of like lychee, but sweeter.
And I came across many, many other fruits. Toad fruit, Plum-Mango, Kumquat, Baby lime.
I think I even found the Vietnamese version of our beloved sour plums (corcodușe)…
BUDDHA FINGERS
Well, even though it’s a fruit, Buddha’s Fingers are not eaten, so don’t try to devour it if you buy one… This fruit is decorative. The Vietnamese buy it and bring it as an offering to pagodas and temples.
And the more its shape resembles praying hands, the more expensive it is, because it’s like having Buddha’s hands.
It’s very interesting, and yes, I saw it in every temple, next to Buddha statues, Lady Buddha, or the kings.
DURIAN
Have you heard of “durian”? I hadn’t, until I started reading more about Vietnam.
It’s the smelliest fruit ever! Seriously! It’s known as the most foul-smelling fruit in the world. That’s what I read, that’s how it was introduced to me over there, and that’s exactly how I’d describe it after smelling it myself. Oh my God, you can’t imagine how bad it stinks! It has a smell you can detect from dozens of meters away! It’s like City Hall sent a whole fleet of septic trucks to every house in the neighborhood…
It looks like an oversized chestnut (one can weigh between 1-3 kg!), and its spikes are so hard that an army could defeat its enemy with durians as cannonballs.
Most commonly, it’s sold by the “fetus”, as I call the inner part. Because that’s what most of them look like, a fetus. A durian can have 2-4 chambers, and in each chamber there’s a pulp. The seller has to be very careful about how he cuts the shell to get the whole pulp out, which is then placed nicely in a container.
Many people hate durian! But those who love it, love it a lot! Apparently, there’s no middle ground.
It’s a fruit with tons of health benefits, considering it’s rich in vitamins (B complex, C, A), fiber, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, and… well, I could go on listing the entire periodic table.
At first, I observed it from a distance. A great distance! Then I got closer to the stalls, asked questions, touched it, but didn’t buy it. (By the way, it’s an expensive fruit!)
Then I said, “Come on, Dana, be brave, you won’t die”. I held my breath and bought a container with the smallest 2 pieces I could find. I paid 55,000 dong after long negotiations (a bit over 2 euros), while most fruits cost 50,000 dong per kilogram!
I wrapped it well in a bag and kept it in my backpack until dinner time when… I nearly knocked out everyone at the table with the smell, haha.
The reactions when I invited them to try a piece of durian were among the most diverse. Few of us actually dared to taste it.
The taste? Hard to describe. But it’s not a disaster, not at all. The worst part is the smell. If you can get past that, you can eat it. It’s kind of like mashed banana, but with the scent of dirty socks just pulled out of a city dumpster.
We even tried eating it while holding our noses and that worked much better! But if the smell sticks in your brain, you won’t be able to eat much. Proof: none of us could eat more than a small piece. (What you see in the photo is what we didn’t eat. The rest we gave to the restaurant staff, some of whom were durian fans.)
The funny thing is that some hotels forbid guests from bringing durian into their rooms! You wouldn’t think such a thing was possible, right? But they do it because its horrendous, strong smell travels through the ventilation system into other rooms and sends everyone fleeing. But honestly, you don’t even need the vents – this fruit can be smelled from tens of meters away! We were walking down the street and thought we’d found a dead horse. Turns out, it was durian on a vendor’s table, 30 meters away…
And the craziest part? I read this on the website of Bamboo Airways, the airline we flew on for a domestic route: “smelling fruits (durian, jackfruit) are not allowed in carry-on baggage!” So if you plan to pack some durian in your hand luggage, forget about boarding the plane…
COCONUT WATER
I saw many green coconuts abandoned at the roots of trees. A sign that people had drunk, or were drinking, coconut water from them. It’s simple: someone drills a hole in the coconut, sticks in a straw, and… drink ready. It’s basically the clear liquid inside green coconuts, before the white flesh we like to snack on has formed. That’s it. No sugar or anything else is added.
I read that this liquid has a ton of benefits! First and foremost, it’s super hydrating. I’m not a big fan, to be honest, but in Vietnam it seems to be one of the most popular drinks, since a large number of people consume it regularly.
If I didn’t go for the healthy stuff, I definitely went for sugarcane juice instead. Extremely, extremely sweet!
In almost every city, I found little street stalls where Vietnamese vendors make this juice. They feed the sugarcane into a pressing machine, along with half a lime (I would’ve added about 5!), and out comes a glass of juice. I paid 10,000 dong for one glass – that’s less than half a euro.
Here’s how it’s made:
https://youtube.com/shorts/EilIHdwjNJg
There’s also a banana-based drink, but that one’s wine 🙂 I didn’t try it, no idea what “banana wine” tastes like (apparently it’s similar to our Romanian țuică or palincă), but I found out that 1 liter costs 10 dollars. (By comparison, rice wine costs 7 dollars per liter.) Banana wine is said to be good for bones, hands, and back. Well, I bet it is: once you’re tipsy from a few shots, you don’t feel any pain anymore…
VIETNAMESE DESSERT
At one point, I started craving a chocolate bar or a slice of cake, after so many fruits. What can I say, old habits…
“We’re not that great with desserts”, the Vietnamese admit. Yes, that’s true, I confirm it too: I had a slice of birthday cake, tasted others’ cakes, and tried some hotel desserts, but nothing really impressed me. They were all kind of sponge cakes with cream.
I had some donuts from the street, which you find everywhere. Classic donuts, some filled with cream, others coated in who-knows-what. They’re okay if your blood sugar suddenly crashes, but it’s not like you’d miss them if you didn’t have any…
The explanation for why they haven’t stressed over making sweets is simple: they don’t need to! They don’t eat ice cream or cakes after lunch or dinner, because they have a huge variety of fruits they can naturally enjoy.
Even in stores, there wasn’t much going on in the dessert aisle. The local sweets aren’t much, and the international ones – where you can find them – are quite expensive compared to fruits.
To further convince you that Vietnam is a fruit paradise, here’s another argument: throughout the entire vacation, I walked past one of my favorite gelato shops several times and… didn’t go in to buy ice cream! Which even surprised me.
Just as surprising was the fact that I really liked Vietnamese food. Food I wrote about here, including the controversial topic of “dog meat consumption”.
