Traditional sticky rice cakes wrapped in leaves

One of my first posts on this blog was about popular Vietnamese sticky rice cakes wrapped in different kinds of leaves, we have typical cakes for Lunar New Year, or other festival occasions. I never check in details how many kinds of cake we have, how we name them according to the different areas, provinces, traditions...but I'm sure the list could be long enough to remember.

By chance I found this street vendor at the Hoa Binh market in district 5, not far from my place, she's selling several kinds of cakes: from the famous "bánh tét" filled with banana (my all time favourite!), with sweet green mung bean, or green mung bean with meat without fat or with fat, "bánh ít", "bánh bá trạng", bánh cúng nước cốt dừa"...I tried them all, and I have to say they are very good, very tasty and rich of coconut flavour, because this vendor from Bến Tre - the land of coconut trees, famous with their coconut candies.

          Dì Tư Hà - from Bến Tre with her cakes wrapped in leaves in Hòa Bình market, early in the morning. 

Mexican food in Saigon at Khói Thơm

I'm sorry that I don't have much posts about eating out, good food in Saigon these days. Over the past few months Saigon is burning, it's too hot, so going out, eating out is no longer a pleasure. Is it a good excuse? Or maybe I'm just lazy, especially before and after my adventure to Son Doong, the beauty of the world's largest cave still "obsessed" me probably more than any food out there in the street!

                  "Khói Thơm" - a Mexican restaurant in Saigon, it was empty during Saturday lunch time.