Traditional Vietnamese Desserts in Loc Tai House @ Hanoi

Many buildings in Vietnam looked about the same; tightly packed, with narrow nondescript shop fronts! Loc Tai House is a refreshing one that stands out with a brick facade and a traditional portrayal of ancient shophouses. 

Queue can be long but we were lucky to be served in less than ten minutes! Do note that you have to order first before you are allowed to step into the shop. And it's stressful to decide what to have with about 26 items on the menu!

Making payment and proceeding to the upper levels since there wasn't any available tables and seats on the ground floor. Climbing up can be a challenge for the elderly as some staircases can be so steep.

Interior on the second floor; it did have the historical feel with lacquered bamboo furniture, numerous artifacts on display and even a traditional ao dai for men! Not forgetting the modern necessity of Wi-Fi username and password. 

Six persons, six bowls of desserts! 

I am just going to review two. 

Lotus Seed with Dried Longan - said to be the recommended dish, I would say this would be similar to iced cheng tng, my favorite dessert in Singapore! Blessed with a generous serving of lotus seeds which was unfortunately a bit hard, the inclusion of grass jelly totally uprooted the goodness of the sweet soup. Saving grace was the dried longans; delicious they were although they mostly were. 

Sticky Rice Balls - literally tang yuan for us, the ginger soup was simply a tasty stomach warmer in the cool, winter Hanoi climate and I love the crunchy peanuts! Stars came in the form of the balls of goodness, which are generally known as glutinous rice balls in our beloved lion city.

Soft, sticky rice skin that protected the thick, luxurious filling within! Strangely, it wasn't as sweet as expected and I would very much prefer the sticky rice ball that had the mung bean filling. 

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Guess my family members loved what they had! Compared to most Vietnamese traditional dessert eateries, I thought Loc Tai House provided a great variety. However, I think providing small size serving of each dessert, similar to the offerings at Khánh Vy Sweets @ Ho Chi Minh City, would be beneficial for tourists! 

Address

76 Hàng Điếu, Cửa Đông, 

Hoàn Kiếm, Hà Nội, Vietnam

Map

As above.

Menu

As above.

Pricing

Lotus Seed with Dried Longan - 35,000 dong

Sticky Rice Balls - 25,000 dong

Click here for my 

summarized itinerary 

of my 3 Days trip to Sapa!