Fruit Bowl in the Alley

Alley Fruit Cocktail
Hẻm 177 Lý Tự Trọng Street
0908 407 269

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Fruit Cocktail

Fruit Cocktail – the very term makes me grimace.

Images from my youth in New Jersey of canned Delmonte geometric cubes and spheres inside a metal can, masquerading as actual edible fruit items come to mind – and they’re not a pretty picture.  Bright red half-spheres were the easiest to identify as alleged cherries.  The yellow cubes represented pineapple, I guessed.  But I never did figure out what the gray cubes were supposed to be??

Anyway, that was all in the past.  Or was it?

When we squatted on our plastic stools in a small alley eatery in District 1 last week and opened the menu, I saw those unsettling words, “Fruit Cocktail.”  My first reaction was to dash to the exit door.

Earlier this week, Duc, a friend of Hai and mine, invited us to try dessert at a new place that we had never heard of  (yes-yes, “of which we had never heard”).  I saw his invitation as an Eating Saigon! work assignment and, of course, immediately accepted.

The small alley that Duc led us to, turned out to be walking distance from our gym, a stone’s throw from tourist central – world famous Chợ Bến Thành (Ben Thanh Market.)

Mmmnn? Instantly, my anti-tourist food alarms went off.

How good could Vietnamese food be in the shadows of a million tourist hotels?  And, on top of that, Fruit Cocktail on the menu!

A wasted food evening, perhaps?  Time to question our friendship with Duc?

NO – it was excellent!  (We even returned two days later to be sure it was really as good as we first thought.)

The shapes of the fruit were actually those of real fruit hanging from a real tree or a real vine (of course, peeled and sliced – but not into perfect geometric forms.) And the fruit was varied and plentiful.  Major Yum!

Strawberries, grapes, avocado, coconut meat, dragon fruit (white & purple), watermelon, apple, mango, jackfruit (maybe more, but I stopped looking and started eating) – all fresh and delicious.

The fruit was served in a bowl mixed in a really tasty orange juice syrup. Along with each fruit bowl came a container of yogurt (sweetened) and a tall glass of crushed ice.

My first thought was – Why didn’t they simply serve the fruit, yogurt and ice already mixed together?

Silly me – this way, we could add the yogurt and crushed ice to the fresh fruit, little-by-little as we ate, exactly in the proportions that our individual taste desired.  Very smart.  No watery yogurt from the melted ice that was added too early in the eating session. And just the right amount of sweet yogurt.

What a nice dessert discovery!  Serving here for over 25 years, a real food treat!  Healthy, delicious, inexpensive and close to tourist central.

And, as an added bonus … we could have the other food treats that were available in the alley delivered to our table and enjoy them along side (before/after) our fruit cocktail.  As we walked down the long narrow alley looking for our dessert place, we passed a number of other alley food vendors – bột chiên (fried egg and rice cakes), bò viên (grilled ground beef balls), and others.  Hai couldn’t resist and had a plate of bột chiên delivered to our table.

With no obvious name for this eatery, let’s just call it “Alley Fruit Cocktail.”  Really really YUMMY!

OPEN: Noon until 11:00 pm everyday, except CLOSED SUNDAYS.

Alley Fruit Cocktail
Hẻm 177 Lý Tự Trọng Street
0908 407 269

[UPDATE – January, 2016:  Enter the small alley with the banner Khu Phố Văn Hóa, between Sanouva Hotel,177 Lý Tự Trọng Street and A& EM Hotel, 179 Ly Tu Trong Street. Walk straight ahead into the alley.  Look at the Alley Fruit Cocktail vendor on the left side along the alley. Place your order and they will set you up with a “portable table” in the alley or just outside on the street.

UPDATE – January, 2018: It just keeps getting better … I absolutely love it!

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