Trop. B

Trop. B
306/4 Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai
District 3
0918016611

UPDATE – February,  2023:  CLOSED AND GONE 🙁

*****

In Vietnam, when there are 11 siblings in the family, your brothers and sisters are often referred to by the sequence in which they arrived in the family.  Thus, last night we celebrated the birthday of Hai’s “Sister #5.”

So now, I extend a warm HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Sister-in-Law #5 !

Our last minute decision to step out on the town for a short birthday treat with Chị Năm (Sister #5) was made a bit more challenging since she already had two young children in tow when we rendezvoused in front of the Saigon Opera House on our motorbikes.

Let’s all go eat some ice cream!

“Yes”, “Yes” 

“No – I don’t like ice cream” (who ever heard of a ten-year old who doesn’t jump at the mention of ice cream?)

“I want spaghetti!” 

“Haven’t you already had dinner??

“I want spaghetti!” 

After a brief three-way discussion/negotiation between defiant child and mother and uncle (all in Vietnamese – so not sure exactly what transpired), a settlement was reached.

Seems we’d be heading to Trop. B where some of us could enjoy ice cream (actually xôi kem – ice cream with sticky rice); while others could enjoy their trái cây dầm  (fresh fruit cups) and/or bột chiên (a fried rice-cake & egg treat) – as close as we were going to get to spaghetti.

It was my second visit to Trop. B in a week and I agreed it was a totally acceptable negotiation outcome.  When I visited earlier in the week, Trop. B had just run out of xôi kem and I had the fresh fruit cup as a fallback.  You might recall that a couple of weeks ago I raved about the fruit salad at Alley Fruit Cocktail.  Well, let the raving continue!  The fresh fruit bowl at Trop. B was totally delicious! 

A pile of fresh tropical fruits was served in a sculptured cup together with a separate bowl of crushed ice topped with a strawberry syrup.  The fruit – strawberries, dragon fruit, watermelon, papaya, mango, jackfruit, and more – sat in a sweetened milk, yogurt, strawberry syrup sauce.  Major Yum!  (I’d be hard-pressed to decide whether fruit bowls at Trop. B or Alley Fruit Cocktail were more wonderful – but it’s nice to have two good choices.)

But that was my first visit to Trop. B.  For this birthday celebration, I’d have my chance again to try Trop. B’s famous xôi kem.

Wow!  The visuals were striking!   A designer-shaped glass tray presented a perfect, brilliantly white ice cream sphere, sitting in a bed of black sticky rice, and topped with a small dollop of blacker-yet sticky rice.

Intriguing!

Vanilla ice cream? No, COCONUT ICE CREAM! Yum!

And the black sticky rice was perfect.  Firm and chewy, in an almost-but-not-quite crunchy kind of way.  Each spoonful of xôi and kem together (sticky rice and coconut ice cream) was a texture delight and perfectly yummy.

Then, there was that strongly-flavored jet-black dollop of xôi sitting atop the coconut ice cream.

What was that intense, sour, fruity flavor?  I couldn’t identify it.

Hai knew it as “dâu tằm”.  But, no one at the table could offer a tiếng Anh (English language) equivalent.  Even after we consulted our iPhone dictionaries, it was still a mystery to me.

Then, the young waiter came to my rescue. He explained that the flavor, in English, was “blah-blah-blah”. What?  Không hiểu (I don’t understand).  He repeated, “blah-blah-blah”.  Mmnnn? How do you spell that?

M-U-L-B-E-R-Y.

Ah, Mulberry!!  Of course – that explains the intense sour fruit flavor.  Cảm ơn nhiều (thank you very much).

We all enjoyed our individual choices.  The table was covered with heaping bowls of fruit, trays of xôi kem, glasses of ice tea, and even a plate of bột chiên from a nearby vendor (the defiant “I don’t like ice cream” child was placated).

A totally enjoyable birthday celebration.

UPDATE – January, 2018: Okay, now this is tough.  I loved the dessert here (as raved above), BUT … it seems Trop B has become a regular stop of a large tour company (a Bike Tours agency).  On our last two visits here, the place became overrun and dominated by those tours.  It’s changed the feel and the service quite a bit. The dessert is still very good, BUT …)

UPDATE – February,  2023:  CLOSED AND GONE 🙁

Open from 3:30 pm – 10:00 pm everyday.

Trop. B
306/4 Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai
District 3
0918016611

Note: The excellent bột chiên was delivered to our Trop.B table by a nearby street vendor:

Vạn Thành
302/26 306/4 Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai
District 3
(08) 38355979; 0122 419 7799

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