For nickels, you can get this explosion of texture and taste on most street corners in Hanoi. Crunchy sugar cane and sweet coconut, sprinkled with black sesame seeds, all wrapped in a paper thin, airy wrapper. This is unlike anything you've had before.
Bo Bia is a dessert sold by women on bicycles who ride around Hanoi in the afternoons looking to tempt your sweet tooth. If you’ve got two minutes and a few thousand dong, all this can be yours. The woman assembles the wrap right in front of you, so you get to see the weird bunch of ingredients in all their glory.
The best place to find this tasty treat is on the road stretching between Truc Bach Lake and West Lake, Thanh Nien Street; but you can sometimes find them in the old quarter as well. Just look for a bicycle with a white box on the back sporting “Bò bía” in red lettering.
A word about language: Bò bía is the dessert we are all talking about.However, in Vietnamese, Bò (with the upward tone) means “beef”, and Bia (with no tone) means “beer”. Although the words are spelled with the same letters, the accent marks give the words different meaning. Therefore, many newcomers, myself included, imagine Bò bía is some combination of beef and beer. While that would probably also be awesome, this is an entirely different thing.
Thanh Nien Street, Ba Dinh
Price: ~5,000 VND per piece
Hours: Usually in the afternoon or evening
