The day I arrived in Quy Nhon, this already supremely chilled out seaside town was in the process of shutting down for the New Year celebrations, meaning that the vibe was so laid-back it was almost horizontal. Almost nothing was open, nearly everyone was at home with the family, and one's options for eating and drinking were severely limited. So thank god that, as I arrived in town on the back of a motorbike taxi, I glimpsed the Kim Dinh through the palm trees on the seafront.

Though nothing more than an open-front unit with chairs and tables on the pavement out the front, something about the place immediately appealed to me, and sure enough, it became my default hangout for the duration of my stay in Quy Nhon.

Like all the best cafes in Vietnam, the Kim Dinh does not make a song and dance over its operation. The only things sold here are coffee, tea, sinh to, and the classic central-coast region snack, banh beo. All of which were done to perfection.

The banh beo, above, came bathed in a unctuous, vinegary (in a good way) sauce, which worked wonderfully with the glutinous chewy texture of the pancakes. Great with an iced coffee, but even better with the Kim Dinh's signature sinh to, which, like the amazing sinh to that made up The Best Breakfast of my Life, was a combination of fruits rather than just one or two, including avocados, papayas, and dragon fruit, among others.

What took this sinh to to even greater heights, however, was that the fruits were not blended as is usual with sinh to, but arrived at my table roughly chopped, along with crushed ice and - oh my - a generous dollop of condensed milk.

The photo above is of the many glasses of the fruit, minus the ice and milk, which the Kim Dinh staff prepare in advance for when there's a rush of customers (because almost EVERYONE orders the sinh to). The opening photo is of after the whole lot has been mixed together into a delicious mess and is waiting patiently for me to devour it.

Just the thing before a stroll along the seafront at sunset.

Kim Dinh
18a Nguyen Hue,
Quy Nhon,
Vietnam.

The boat cuts through the calm water like a knife, sending symmetrical ripples out towards the trees that line the narrow canal. Above me, the rotund coconut fruits are gathered in crowded clusters, the palm fronds cast lazy shadows, and the sun shines hot on my back. I am blissfully happy, and can't think of anywhere I would rather be.

This was the scene when, almost exactly 3 months ago, I went on a boat tour of the the Mekong Delta in Ben Tre Province, Vietnam. It was probably one of the best things I did in Vietnam, because not only was I the only passenger, but also because my wonderful guide (and fellow durian-lover) Dai at my request made the tour as food-oriented as possible.

The day was punctuated by many little snacks of tropical fruit, including my first taste of milk fruit, but it was coconut that was the real star of the show. In Vietnam, Ben Tre Province is famous as 'the island of coconuts', and it seems as if the whole local economy revolves around these trees and their many products.

Something that surprised and impressed me was how much of the tree is used. The fronds are used for roofs, the husks are used for firewood (more on this in the near future), and the fruit, of course, is used for food - coconut oil, coconut milk, coconut cream, shredded fresh coconut, and the famous Ben Tre coconut candy.

Like most of the boat tours of the Mekong Delta, mine included a trip to one of the local workshops that make this candy, and though it was of course a bit of a tourist trap, by the time Dai and I rocked up (sleepy mid-afternoon) we were the only visitors. Dai happily explained to me in great detail the process involved in making the candy, most of which, sadly, I've now totally forgotten, but I did manage to take a few good photos of it: here is the lava-like, pre-cut (peanut variety) candy...

...here the simple but effective contraption used to tease said lava into neat squares...

...and here, the finished product itself.

But though the candy factory was undoubtedly interesting, my favourite coconut moment of the day came when we were out on the boat, meandering through the countless, tranquil waterways that crisscross the land, and I saw this:

This is, Dai told me, the fruit of the water coconut, which is not harvested commercially. I've tried verifying this info via Google but with no luck, except for this photo, whose Vietnamese caption I put through an online translator with hilarious results ('Coconut water, broken, collecting firewood, food such as jelly dua. Neu Bui bui quazzzz pale, slightly more for the road. Jueju delicious cat' - Kent, if you're reading this, can you shed any light???).

Anyway, the fruit of the water coconut actually bares very little fruit as it turned out. After hacking it off its stalk with some difficulty, Dai separated each of the spiky kernels one-by-one from the rest. He then decided, by eye and weight, which ones were likely to contain any fruit (the smaller, lighter ones were discarded), and those deemed worthy were sliced in half...

...to reveal this:

That little translucent white thing in there is about the size of a quail's egg and is the only edible part of the whole pod (no wonder they're not grown commercially). Taste wise it hinted rather than screamed its membership of the coconut family, and textually was an intriguing blend of glutinous and rubbery - like a cross between jelly and mochi. I wasn't an instant convert, I have to admit, but the novelty of eating something that you can't really buy, and not 10 meters away from where it had until just now been growing, was pretty cool.

And here's the man who made it all happen! Huge thanks to Dai for a truly memorable day, and look out for more tales from Vietnam in the coming weeks...

Isn't this cute?!

As I was cycling along a tiny road in Ben Tre Province a few weeks ago, I came sight after sight to make a foodie's heart sing. This was the first: a whole family, packing up longans grown probably just down the road.

The longans arrived in large baskets, still on the stalk and accompanied by abundant leaves.

Each little round longan would then be plucked free, and packed like a jigsaw puzzle into large white crates.

The family thought it completely hilarious that I wanted to take photographs of their work, and laughed even harder when I started to photograph the baby - but who, honestly, couldn't resist such a sight?

More from that amazing bike ride coming soon...

As I wrote some months ago, one of the things I was looking forward to most about Vietnam was the chance to eat lots and lots of durian. I imagined that the spikey fruit would be everywhere once I'd crossed the border from China, and thought also that they'd be so cheap that I would feast on them every day.

Crushingly, as I quickly discovered, this was not the case. In Hanoi, vendors sold sickly-looking durian for almost as expensive as in China, and everyone I questioned on the subject told me I'd have to wait till I got down south to indulge my durian fantasies.

Luckily, they were all right. On my very first day in Saigon, I saw more durian being sold than I had in the entire rest of my time in Vietnam, and it was in Saigon that I found the bounty pictured above. As well as looking fantastic they were cheap too (30,000 dong - around $1.50 - per kilo), and so I bought a lovely little one-person sized specimen and retreated in glee to the shady environs of the botanical gardens.

From Saigon, I went to Ben Tre, a region of the Mekong Delta famous for its fruit. One of the main reasons I went there was to see durian trees, and though I wasn't successful in this mission (frustratingly, only because of time constraints), I did get to eat another two in the space of 24 hours. This was the first:

eaten on a boat as the sun set gloriously over the Mekong; and the second, the very next morning, from a roadside vendor as I waited for my bus back to Saigon, which, incredibly for a 1kg fruit, yielded 11 portions of fruit (usually you only get 5 or 6 in a durian of that size).

It's often noted that durian tends to inspire a love or hate reaction. But what is not so often related is how those that fall into the former camp tend to feel themselves part of a sort of exclusive club, one whose pleasures only its members fully understand.

That's how it feels to me anyway, and especially in Vietnam. Everytime I ate durian or talked about it with a fellow lover, their whole face would light up like a christmas tree. I saw it in Dai, my guide in Ben Tre, who told me about the different types of durian, the best season to eat them, and where they grow. I saw it too in the eyes of the old woman who walked past me as I ate durian in a Saigon park, who doubled back to ask me 'it good?' with a beaming smile. And I know also that it shows on my own face, as when the vendor in Ben Tre cracked open the amazingly bountiful durian and laughed hysterically at my reaction.

It might be a while before I get to eat as much durian as I've eaten in the last week - but I have these memories to sustain me till then.

Gia Loi Dried Fruits Shop
8 Hang Duong
Old Quarter, Hanoi