Many diners come to Mr. Hoa’s restaurant on Bach Dang Street, Hanoi, for peach cheek meat sticky rice, but few people can buy it due to limited quantity.
At around 9am, when customers were already lining up, Mr. Ho Van Hoa (white shirt), 67 years old, started selling. It took him 20 minutes to “return goods” for a batch of 5-7 customers. Just like that, customers lined up continuously from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., causing the shop owner to work tirelessly until all 22 kg of sticky rice was gone.
Mr. Hoa’s sticky rice restaurant has only been open for two years. It is famous for its peach cheek meat (pork butt meat), which almost everyone who comes here orders. However, every day he can only serve more than 20 servings of sticky rice with peach cheeks, the part considered “quintessential”, only 200 – 300 g per pig. This meat has many soft tendons and is not as greasy as fat. The price is about 180,000 VND per kg.
Each portion of sticky rice ranges from 25,000 VND to 50,000 VND. Besides peach cheeks, the restaurant also has other side dishes such as soft-boiled eggs, braised eggs, pate, sausages and sausages.
Mr. Hoa said he used to sell pho but stopped in 2002 due to health problems. After nearly 20 years, he returned to selling. Initially, he sold it from morning until 10pm, but recently, the shop had more customers so it ran out of goods around 2pm. Customers who want to eat peach cheeks must text in advance to “keep their portion”.
Mr. Hoa said this sticky rice restaurant was originally opened by his wife, but he personally cooked the sticky rice and prepared the side dishes, except pate or sausage. At first, his wife could only sell 1-2 kg of sticky rice per day, but the amount of sticky rice gradually increased, up to 5 kg, 7 kg, 10 kg and currently 22-24 kg.
Every day, Mr. Hoa wakes up at 3 a.m. to prepare ingredients and sticky rice.
A full portion of sticky rice as shown in the photo costs 50,000 VND. If you order sticky rice with peach cheeks separately, the price per bowl is 35,000 VND. Mr. Hoa said many customers asked the restaurant to import more peach cheek meat and increase selling time. However, he refused because he did not have the strength to do it.
Mr. Hoa’s two children and a grandson also help serve and prepare ingredients.
Mr. Hoa placed the small pot of peach cheek meat in a separate corner, not mixing it with regular braised meat. Mr. Hoa said that in Hanoi there are rarely any sticky rice shops that use peach cheek meat.
A bowl of sticky rice like in the photo, including soft-boiled eggs, two pieces of pate sliced lengthwise, two pieces of peach cheek meat, costs 45,000 VND. Sticky rice, fragrant, pate is not too special but smooth, not mushy.
The highlight of the bowl of sticky rice is the peach cheek meat. The meat is soft and low in fat so it’s not greasy, just use a spoon to gently roll it up to separate it. The seasoning is seasoned to your mouth, when you eat it, you can clearly feel the aroma, the sweetness, not the salty taste like ordinary Chinese braised meat. Because the meat is delicious but small, many customers do not eat it all right away but choose to “save the essence for last”.
Mr. Hoa said that he used no less than 17 kinds of ingredients to make this “special peach cheek”. Some of the scents that can be clearly seen are the five flavors, the slight sweetness of honey, tomato, basil, and oyster sauce. He does not use fish sauce when marinating meat because he is afraid that the strong smell from the fish sauce will drown out the faint sweet scent of the other ingredients.
Many diners coming here were impressed with the way Mr. Hoa made soft-boiled eggs. The peach heart is fried just right, not too cooked and not too thin. Just take a bite, diners will feel the aromatic taste from the yolk. The white part is also fried to the right degree, crispy but not too old.
Many guests are delighted with the “hundreds of eggs as one” egg trays. Mr. Hoa did not say much about how to fry, but revealed that eggs must be of good quality, otherwise, just cracking the yolk will break. The shiny yellow color of the egg is made up of fresh turmeric.
Two diners from Bac Tu Liem (Hanoi) traveled more than 15 km to eat sticky rice. Both rated this as the most beautiful bowl of sticky rice with soft-boiled eggs they had ever tried. In addition, the soft peach cheek meat and sticky sticky rice make them satisfied. The minus point of the restaurant is that customers have to wait for a long time, sometimes 20 minutes.
($1=24,000 VND)
Photo,Video: Internet (Vinlove.net)