Egg coffee
The Vietnamese can do anything with coffee. Can you imagine “egg coffee”? It is delicious!
As astonishing as it might seem, egg coffee does have a big brother in the form of Italy’s zabaglione, a classic dessert and sauce made by vigorously whisking together egg yolks, sugar, and a sweet wine (traditionally Marsala) over a bain-marie (double boiler). The result is a light, frothy, and rich and delicious custard, typically served warm.
In a similar spirit an egg coffee is a Vietnamese drink traditionally prepared with egg yolks, sugar, condensed milk and robusta coffee. The drink is made by beating egg yolks with sugar and condensed milk, then extracting the coffee into the cup, followed by a similar amount of egg cream, or egg yolks which are heated and beaten, or whisked.
As I said, it’s delicious!
Egg coffee is served in cafes throughout Vietnam. But where does it come from?
The son of The Giang Café’s founder, Nguyen Giang. claims that his deceased father developed the recipe for the drink when milk was scarce in Vietnam in the late 1940s, replacing milk with egg yolk.
Whether this is true or not, many people seem to believe so, as I discovered on a visit to the Giang Café in Hanoi this morning.
The cafe was swarming with customers, who seemed to be mainly Chinese and Vietnamese young tourists. Tasting this egg coffee is clearly something you must do when visiting Hanoi.
I ordered and tasted a cold egg coffee. Delicious it was!
But Giang Café is decidedly uncomfortable with its tiny, miniature stools and tables. They do however give a certain antique atmosphere. And relaxfully enjoying the egg coffee with immense crowd is difficult.
All that said, egg coffee is a must, and Giang Café is the place where it must be tried.
Without wishing to put a dampener on Vietnam’s egg coffee, it reportedly does have some family members in the form of Swedish egg coffee, an American drink, egg brandy coffee from Sri Lanka, Cuban egg coffee, and Kopi Telur from Indonesia.