My hot coffee or my morning coffee is always paired with a bread. It could be the little buns from Family Mart or the good-smelling brown bread from Tous les Jours or it could simply be the fresh loaded Vietnamese banh mi, filled with meat and vegetable.
Banh mi at an average costs 15,000Vnd in District 1 sandwich carts like this.
Typically, coffee in Vietnam makes use of a coffee filter and hot water. It is served with a jigger of condensed milk, poured with the pure, strong shot of the filtered coffee, stirred and then filled with cubes of ice. This makes for a perfect iced coffee or ca phe sua dua as it is called in Vietnamese.
So while I stay now in Saigon, I also filter my own coffee (equivalent to brewing), and preserve the strong filtered coffee in my refrigerator. In the morning, I just pour a shot of the coffee in my cup, pour hot water, I now have my cafe americano.
On other days that I am in a hurry, I get it from the mobile coffee vendor, ca phe sua dua style at 12,000Vnd.
For some people like me, strong coffee in the morning is ideal but not the cold, iced coffee. I still prefer the hot, freshly brewed or dripped black coffee. It makes me warm and really perked up.
Almost all Vietnamese would have iced coffee in the morning. Hence, most of the coffee shops would also serve iced coffee. A few would have hot americano, cafe latte or cappucino but very pricey and usually, it is for dining customers.
So one very nice alternative is Tous les Jours. There are many branches including in Vincom Center. But at the corner of Le Thanh Ton and Thai Van Lung, a Tous les Jours bakery opens early in the morning with very fresh baked breads– from soft rolls to muffins, with bean or custard filling, with bacon or sausages, all good-smelling and inviting.
In this coffee shop, they also serve fruit smoothies, iced tea, and their taro bubble tea is divine. They serve iced coffee and dripped hot americano at 40,000 Vnd, a lot cheaper from all the American coffee shops around. Just make sure when you order, tell the service crew you are getting the “hot coffee” or the “hot americano“.
Along Le Thanh Ton 