Banh troi is available every time of the year. But to Hanoi people, the hot sweet dish is special in the winter and that’s why some vendors stop selling it the other days.
The dish literally translates to “floating cake” as it is glutinous rice balls in a mild, sweet liquid flavored with coconut milk and ginger root. The balls are made by mixing glutinous rice flour with some water. The big balls would be stuffed with ground coconut flesh of ground mung beans but the small ones are not.
“If one wants to enjoy all the tastes of the dish, one has to eat it at the right season. So when I check the calendar and see it’s the beginning of winter, I start selling,” said Dung, who sells banh troi near Chuong Vang Theater located in the middle of Hanoi’s Old Quarter.
The former music teacher said her mother often took her to eat banh troi when she was a kid and she loved the cry of the vendors. “So now I sell the dish to recall my joy from my customers’ faces.”
Dung said preparing banh troi is very complicated.
The amount of powder has to strictly follow the ratio of three sticky rice: one ordinary rice as a little too much of ordinary rice would make the balls tough, she said.
And the rice must be soaked in water over the night before being grounded to make the flour the next morning. Good balls are made from flour of the day, not the leftover from previous days, the woman said.
Dung sells from 5 p.m. to around midnight. Most of her customers are frequent visitors, sometimes there’re visitors from the south and they also found the dish delightful.
The dish is served best by tasting the sweet liquid flavored with ginger root to warm up first, and then having a bite on the cover of the ball to feel its softness, and finally enjoying the fragrant tasty bean stuffing.
Most che (a sweet desert usually made from beans, sugar and coconut juice) shops in Hanoi add banh troi on cold days.
It only takes a big pot on top of an oven and everything put inside a bamboo basket. Customers will sit down on a small chair and ask for a small bowl with a couple balls. That really makes an attraction of the city.
Many banh troi vendors are spotted at the Old Quarters, and night markets around the city.
Hanoi people eat banh troi until the spring rain starts to fall. The vendors will put their banh troi pot away and wait for the next winter.
