Trieu Minh Hiep 赵明合 Teochew bakery in Ho Chi Minh City's Chinatown (Cho Lon) really doesn't need anymore introduction. Many people including tourists know about the century old Trieu Minh Hiep and come to buy their traditional hand made bakes for gifting.
Trieu Minh Hiep is in the fourth generation now (mum 陈莉, dad 赵家安), transiting to the fifth generation (赵学勤).
赵学勤 has a university degree in business and was in the civil service before he decided that he has to play his part in preserving his family's century old legacy. (I've heard the same about heritage food businesses in Singapore and Malaysia too.)
I have tasted Trieu Minh Hiep's bakes a few times before thanks to friends who bought them for me and they were simply marvellous.
This was my first time visiting Trieu Minh Hiep 赵明合 in Ho Chi Minh City.
Trieu Minh Hiep have both yam and mung bean biscuits 膀饼.
The yam and mung bean pastes are hand made daily fresh at the shop. The paste is smooth, soft and at just the right sweetness level for me. The paste's sweetness is balanced by the savoury flaky golden brown, lard washed pastry shell and umami savoury salted egg yolk.
The amazing traditional sesame seed sweet 芝麻糖. I have never seen sesame seed sweet, this generous with sesame seeds before.
Trieu Minh Hiep's cakes, biscuits and sweets have a short shelf life - don't last long because they don't use any preservatives at all. They need to be consumed within 10 days.
I joked that that is a gross exaggeration. Trieu Minh Hiep products cannot last 2 days in my hands - mine are always eaten within 2 days because we all couldn't resist them 🤣
Trieu Minh Hiep's peanut cake 花生糖 is equally fantastic. What's the secret?
Actually, there's no secret.
Trieu Minh Hiep still crush their specially selected Vietnamese peanuts by hand. Obviously, a machine can do the work faster, simply at the press of a button. The Trieu 赵 family has tried it but machine crushed peanuts just can't match hand pounded peanuts in taste. Now, the machine stands idle at the bakery while the gentlemen build arm muscles by crushing peanut by hand everyday 😂
The traditional hand craft methods are like casted in stone because any change in recipe or process will produce a different product that tastes and feels different.
That's why Trieu Minh Hiep insists on upholding and preserving tradition with all the culture, heritage, stories and memories that come with it. It's a huge challenge to stay the same as the economy and customer profile have changed, and will keep changing.
On a side note, traditional bakeries are central in communities even though that is not obvious. Its community role parallels church and temple, because there is a different traditional biscuit or cake for birth, special birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, i.e. from cradle to grave. So bakeries and their traditional bakes play a very important role in the community and its heritage.
When we lose a traditional bakery, we lose a whole block of collective memory.
Back to Trieu Minh Hiep 赵明合 - officially registered in 1948 when they opened the little side lane bakery, the brand has a longer history. It was founded by 赵坤内 in the 1920s in Swatow, the Teochew heartland in Guangdong province, China.
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| Cholon 1930. Wikipedia Commons photo |
When 赵学勤's great grandparents came to Saigon from Swatow in the 1940s. They hand made the cakes and biscuits, and great grandma peddled them near the central market at Cho Lon, Saigon's Chinatown. Great grandpa 赵海光 used the name 赵明合 in Saigon.
Fourth generation 赵家安 said great grandma sold Trieu Minh Hiep biscuits from two baskets from a bamboo pole across her shoulders at Cho Lon Market.
Known today as Cho Binh Tay, the old market is still the heart of Bangkok's Chinatown. Today's Trieu Minh Hiep bakery, a far cry from its itinerant two-basket hawker days is just a stone's from here, it's birthplace.
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| Photo credit Flickr |
Ho Chi Minh City's Chinatown known as Cholon is said to be the largest Chinatown in the world by land area.
Cholon was once a city on its own.
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| Wiki Commons Photo |
The Chinese first settled here in 1778 due to wars between Trịnh and Nguyễn dynasties following the decline of the Le dynasty. Cholon was designated a city in 1789 (the year the Le dynasty fell).
In 1931, Cholon and the adjacent city of Saigon merged to become the city of Saigon-Cholon.
The name Cholon was dropped in 1956, and the city became known only as Saigon.
Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in 1975 with the end of the Vietnam War.
When you come to Ho Chi Minh City, do make a pit stop at Trieu Minh Hiep bakery.
At Trieu Minh Hiep, they make their biscuits in small batches so you always get fresh bakes which are still warm in your hands.
There're also lots of traditional food at HCMC's Chinatown which I need to explore more in future visits and share with you. Get away from the tourist belt 😬
Address: 123/23 Đ.Bình Tây, Phường 1, Quận 6, Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, Vietnam
Tel: +84 283 855 7134 (pre-booking is advised as the cakes are sold out everyday)
Hours: 7am - 7pm
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Written by Tony Boey on 8 Mar 2024
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