Coconut ice cream at Nguyen Huong, District 10, Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

Coconut Ice Cream in Saigon

First published May 2018 | Words and photos by Vietnam Coracle

This post was last updated 6 years ago. Please check the comments section for possible updates, or read more on my Updates & Accuracy page.

INTRODUCTION | GUIDE | MAP | RELATED POSTS

In the heart of one of Saigon’s best street food neighbourhoods, Nguyen Huong offers up a colourful, textural, tasty, Thai-style coconut ice cream. Occupying the shopfront of one of Saigon’s fast-disappearing old apartment complexes, Nguyen Huong is the perfect sweet treat to end a night of street food exploration along the buzzing sidewalks of Su Van Hanh, in District 10. This coconut ice cream is a classic Southeast Asian dessert dish: creamy and crunchy, sweet and savoury, fun, young, and pretty enough to attract a substantial amount of ‘likes’ on your social media timelines.

Coconut ice cream at Nguyen Huong, District 10, Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

The coconut ice cream at Nguyen Huong in Saigon’s District 10 is a colourful, textural, tasty, sweet treat

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GUIDE: COCONUT ICE CREAM, SAIGON


I first stopped by Nguyen Huong with a couple of friends after a night of savoury delights on Su Van Hanh Street. Full as we were – having feasted on Chinese-style duck noodles in a medicinal broth, and stacks of mini-bánh xèo pancakes filled with pork, squid and bean sprouts – we still found room to try the coconut ice cream at Nguyen Huong. At number 029 on Block H (Lô H), Nguyen Huong is only a few metres from Chè Khánh Vy, a famous, much-loved Vietnamese dessert stall, full of gooey, syrupy, beany treats. Nguyen Huong, too, is a good dessert stall in its own right; offering everything from filling glasses of bean-based chè to coffee-soaked crème caramel, among other sweet (and savoury) snacks. But it’s the coconut ice cream that you should come here for: their signature dessert.

MAP:

Coconut Ice Cream at Nguyên Hương, District 10, Saigon

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From the outside, Nguyen Huong appears to be a chain: another in a growing list of generic bubble tea-oriented outlets, either home-grown or established brands from Taiwan, China and other East Asian nations. However, despite the familiarly garish signage, I’m told that Nguyen Huong is a one-shop business; not a chain (không có chi nhánh, in Vietnamese). Strange, then, that on their business card there are two addresses (the other being in Go Vap District, way out beyond the airport). Either way, it’s safe to assume that Nguyen Huong outlets won’t be popping up all over Saigon, like the giants of the Asian desserts world are at the moment.

Coconut ice cream at Nguyen Huong, District 10, Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

Although Nguyen Huong looks a bit like a generic dessert chain from the outside, it isn’t

Little, white-painted, wooden tables and chairs are scattered over the sidewalk outside the apartment shopfront where Nguyen Huong is located. Take a seat and order kem dừa Thái (Thai-style coconut ice cream). They’re 30,000vnd a pop (less than $1.50). Sitting out on Su Van Hanh Street is good for people-watching: there’s a constant flow of street food vendors, with diners and local residents pulling up on their motorbikes, hunkering down to some food and then zipping off again into the sultry Saigon night. Unfortunately, the unpleasant odor of an open drain wafts over from time to time, but the meat-scented smoke of all the roadside eateries tends to overwhelm it pretty quickly.

Coconut ice cream at Nguyen Huong, District 10, Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

Take a seat outside on the sidewalk (good for people-watching) and order kem dừa (coconut ice cream)

When the kem dừa arrives on your table, it’s happy-snapping time: Instagramable dishes are all the rage in Vietnam and across Southeast Asia, and this coconut ice cream has got the “it” factor. Most customers at Nguyen Huong (especially the teens and twenty-somethings) reach for their smart phones and snap away for a few minutes before digging into their ice cream. And it is, indeed, a beautiful thing…

Coconut ice cream at Nguyen Huong, District 10, Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

A very pretty dessert: ‘Instagramable’ dishes like this coconut ice cream are all the rage in Vietnam

What you’ll have in front of you is: a coconut shell with its white flesh carved out into a curl (making it easier to eat) and filled with a scoop of white and creamy coconut ice cream. On top is a miniature artist’s palette of color and texture: purple sticky rice, crisp, toast-brown, roasted coconut shavings, bright yellow sweet corn kernels, luminous-green, gooey pandan-leaf flavoured pounded young rice, and little matchsticks of sweet potato. Served alongside the coconut is a glass of the naturally sweet and nutritious water from your fruit.

Coconut ice cream at Nguyen Huong, District 10, Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

There’s a lot more than ice cream in that coconut shell: sticky rice, sweet corn, sweet potato…

The combination of all these shapes, colours, flavours and textures (not to mention the very Vietnamese marriage of sweet and savoury) works extremely well. When I first tried the kem dừa at Nguyen Huong, I was a little confused by the savoury elements of this dessert. But it wasn’t long before I began to get it. At first it was the sweet corn that made sense to me, and then it was the gooey, chewy sticky rice. Each time I went back, a new aspect of this initially odd combination started to fall into place as my palate began to appreciate the different parts. The only thing that I still find baffling is that the coconut ice cream itself isn’t very, well, coconutty. Certainly, other coconut ice creams in Saigon win on the coconut flavour front. But for presentation, fun, location, creativity, artistry, and dining pleasure, the coconut ice cream at Nguyen Huong in District 10 has got it goin’ on.

Coconut ice cream at Nguyen Huong, District 10, Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

The combination of sweet & savoury & all the colours, flavours & textures works extremely well

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Questions, updates and trip reports are all welcome. However, please keep comments polite and on-topic. See commenting etiquette for details.

  1. Quang says:
    July 16, 2018 at 12:37 AM

    Hi Tom,
    Yours is a very interesting blog I randomly found. Beautifully written and informative. I was born in VN. But left when I was really young (6). Just booked my flight to HCMC this Nov (2018). I only have a week on this first trip back. Any advice? Recommendations? Thanks for the beautiful blog!

    Q

    1. Tom says:
      July 18, 2018 at 3:18 PM

      Hi Quang,

      Good to hear you’re going back to visit for a week.

      It’s difficult to give general advice – that’s quite a broad question 🙂 But it depends whereabouts you are planning on staying (a week is not very long) and whether you prefer to visit the tourist sites or the more local places. If the latter, then browse through some of my posts and articles and see what takes your fancy, then jot some of the places down and visit them when you’re here.

      That’s a start, at least,

      Tom

  2. Jolie says:
    May 21, 2018 at 4:24 PM

    I love Thai Coconut Ice Cream. Thx for sharing a place in District 10. I will check it out. There’s a place close to District 1 called The Coconut – Saigon that serves this ice cream in addition to many other choices. Really good creamy ice cream in a coconut, a pineapple, and other fruits and toppings too.

    1. Tom says:
      May 21, 2018 at 5:15 PM

      Hi Jolie,

      Great. I’ll try to find The Coconut. I hope you enjoy this one, too.

      Tom

  3. WESLEY says:
    May 18, 2018 at 5:35 PM

    I have been reading through your adventures and blog for the past few months and I’m planning a trip in October. I haven’t seen anything like this, but do you have any sort of checklists of what to pack for a motorbike trip through Vietnam (i.e. how to pack light enough)?

    Wes

    1. Tom says:
      May 19, 2018 at 3:47 PM

      Hi Wes,

      I haven’t written a packing guide yet, although I’ve been meaning to for a while.

      In general, packing light is sensible, of course. And remember that you can find most things in Vietnamese towns and cities if you need them.

      Apart from all the usual things – clothes etc – you should remember to bring a couple of pairs of decent sunglasses (and night glasses too) to keep the sun and also the dust and pollution out of your eyes; a rain suit; big plastic bags or a big dry bag to keep your luggage dry when it rains; a flash light, a USB charger for your phone and camera etc.

      There’s no big secret to packing for a road trip, really. One thing to bear in mind is that your day clothes (the one you’ll be wearing on the bike) will get pretty filthy: it’s a good idea to have a couple of sets of day clothes (shorts, T-shirts etc) and a couple of sets of (clean) evening or downtime clothes for whenever you’re not riding.

      I hope this helps,

      Tom