Back in Manila, we’d schedule our cafe or bar dates at least once a week. The prospect thrills us and the actual experience is always a delight. On our trip to Sapa in Northern Vietnam, we spent an entire afternoon for our post-lunch cafe crawl. We haven’t had a proper dessert since we got here but first off, we just had to try the popular egg coffee and coconut coffee.

Cong Cafe
Coconut Coffee now tops my list of iced coffees

This is our first time to try coconut coffee. Cong Ca Phe is 👍that we recommend it — iced! More dessert than coffee, actually. Back in Hanoi, we tried egg coffee but it wasn’t the best so we went in search of good egg coffee here in Sapa. Found one in Le Gecko. In both coffee shops, we took “front seats” to appreciate the street scene. People-watching can be habitual if I were to live here. The cars and motorbikes with passengers or cargo (unbelievable!) passing by is what life is all about here. Sapa may be 6 hours away from cosmopolitan Hanoi but it certainly isn’t a sleepy town or ghost town. Sure, it’s in the boondocks but commerce and tourism has touched this mountain town and even the hill tribe folks are quite comfortable plying their wares in the streets here.

The street scene from Cong Ca Phe.
Inside Cong Ca Phe

Cong Ca Phe is in a two-storey building, but the best seats in the shop are those in the porch. There is even a resident fur baby who seems so “at home” here. As for Le Gecko Cafe, it’s in another busy section of this mountain town near the pond area. Again, we took the “front seats” from where we enjoyed our egg coffee and an apple crumble pie. So yum! The egg coffee here is more dense, foamy and frothy than the one we tried in Hanoi. So so good that we actually thought of heading back after our dinner!

El Gecko
Egg Coffee
Oh, that apple crumble!

P.S. We actually trooped back the following day for another iced coconut cafe and to try the Cot Dua Com Xanh or Coconut Green Rice Coffee. So so refreshingly good!

Iced Coconut Coffee and Green Rice Coffee