Ms. Ha's nearly 50-year-old chè shop in Binh Duong: Only buys My Tho sugar, Da Lat beans, Thai sticky rice...

Ms. Ha's dessert shop specializes in selling traditional desserts - Photo: DANG KHUONG

Every early afternoon, a small corner specializing in selling traditional sweet soups owned by Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Ha joins the hustle and bustle of the place with the urging voices of buyers and sellers.

Customers come to eat many times, word of mouth and call this place Ms. Ha's sweet soup shop.

The sweet soup stall of the hard-working days

Her parents separated when she was very young. Understanding her family's poverty and feeling sorry for her mother who had to raise 5 children alone, and being the oldest in the family, at the age of 11, Ha went to work to help her mother raise her younger siblings.

At first, she often wandered around bus stations to sell bread, cigarettes, iced tea, etc. Besides selling on the street, she also knew how to cook milk and vegetarian food.

Ms. Ha loves to eat sweet soup, so whenever she gets a chance to eat a delicious sweet soup, she will learn and imitate it to cook it. When cooking the same dish as she ate, Ms. Ha will adjust the soup to get the taste she likes.

“It’s fate, because of that, now I only know how to hold firewood to cook sweet soup, I can’t read or write. At that time I didn’t go to school, so how would I know?” - Ms. Ha laughed and shared.

Customers lined up to buy tea - Photo: DANG KHUONG

Ms. Ha felt lucky in her early days of working. She said: “When I was selling at Dinh market, I sat on the ground and put the sweet soup basket in front of me. Customers sat on small chairs. When they finished eating, they threw some coins into the basket for me. But it was crowded.”

Not only sitting in the market, ignoring the harsh midday sun, Ms. Ha also carried the sweet soup to each house to sell, diligently collecting every penny.

Sharing with Tuoi Tre Online , Ms. Ha tearfully said: “Back then, I was like a dry tree standing in the middle of a field, having to stand up after failure. But I am happy that all my children were able to go to school. Now, all of them are successful, have stable families and homes. If I could choose again, I would still want to follow this path.”

Cooking sweet soup is putting all your heart into it.

Every day, Ms. Ha wakes up at 4 a.m. to prepare the sweet soup. After lighting the fire, she meticulously washes and boils the beans in salt water, simmers the sugar water with pandan leaves, steams the sticky rice… then starts cooking the sweet soup. She cooks everything on a wood stove.

All ingredients are hand-selected by Ms. Ha every day - Photo: DANG KHUONG

Ms. Ha said that when cooking with a gas stove, the beans easily “burnt” and were not soft. Therefore, she used a wood stove to make the beans softer, more fragrant and flavorful.

"I put all my effort into making any kind of sweet soup, so making each dish is hard, no one dish is more enjoyable than another" - Ms. Ha said.

She said that from the past until now, she has only cooked sweet soup by herself, without letting anyone help her. The reason is: “I am very picky, I am not satisfied with other people cooking. There is a person who has helped me sell sweet soup for 10 years, but I still do not let them cook.”

The current sales assistants mainly serve, clean, pack tea bags for customers...

Ms. Ha also makes coconut water at home and cooks it before selling - Photo: DANG KHUONG

She also carefully selected the ingredients for the dessert. The sugar must be My Tho granulated sugar, the beans are Da Lat beans, and some other beans from Long Xuyen. The sticky rice must only be Thai sticky rice, and the roasted peanuts must be cinnamon peanuts. She has been sourcing from these places for decades.

Currently, Ms. Ha's shop sells more than 10 types of sweet soup including: green bean sweet soup, mixed sweet soup, Ba Ba sweet soup... Besides, some dishes change daily such as taro sweet soup, corn sweet soup, floating rice balls sweet soup...

Dishes here start from 20,000 VND a cup. The most expensive dessert is 25,000 VND.

The most popular dish at the restaurant is chè bà ba - Photo: DANG KHƯƠNG

Ms. Ha said that she used to have nothing. Now that she has overcome the poverty, she always treasures food and drink. She confided:

“When I eat out, if I find it not delicious, I still appreciate it, because it is the work of the cook. If the customers at the restaurant don’t finish the food, I will scoop more sweet soup into bags for them to take home.”

When talking about the fact that for nearly 50 years, her regular customers still line up to buy chè, she confided: “Cooking a pot of chè means putting all your heart into it. Many times I starved myself to finish cooking a pot of chè.”

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/quan-che-co-ha-gan-50-nam-o-binh-duong-chi-mua-duong-cat-my-tho-dau-da-lat-nep-thai-20240715121519602.htm