Vung Tau Dessert Tour: 5 Stops from Che to Mooncakes

Vung Tau gets most of its food attention for seafood, but the city has a quietly serious dessert culture — one that spans decades-old "che" stalls, bakeries turning out handmade mooncakes, and a new wave of cafes doing creative things with coconut milk and pandan. This route covers roughly 4 km and works best done in the late afternoon, when the heat drops and the street stalls open properly.

Stop 1 — Che Ba Muoi, Nguyen Trai Street

"Che" is Vietnam (베트남 / 越南 / ベトナム)'s catch-all term for sweet soup or sweet porridge desserts, and Ba Muoi on Nguyen Trai is the kind of place locals point you toward without much explanation — it's just always been there. The menu runs to fifteen or so varieties: "che ba mau" (three-colour bean dessert with shaved ice and coconut milk), "che dau xanh" (mung bean soup), and "che khoai mon" (taro in coconut cream). Portions are generous and prices sit around 20,000–30,000 VND per bowl. Go for the ba mau if it's your first time; the layered textures — soft beans, jelly, crushed ice, that thin pour of coconut milk — are the reference point for everything else you'll try tonight. The stall opens around 2 PM and sells out of certain varieties by 7 PM, so don't leave this one for last.

Stop 2 — Banh Tieu and Banh Bo Stalls, Phan Boi Chau Market Area

A five-minute walk toward the Phan Boi Chau market area brings you into the zone where small-batch traditional cake vendors set up on plastic stools. The two things worth stopping for here are "banh tieu" (hollow sesame-crusted fried dough rings, still warm, eaten by the piece for around 5,000 VND each) and "banh bo" — the honeycomb rice cake that's slightly sweet, slightly fermented, and oddly addictive once you understand what it's doing. These aren't dessert-course items; they're the kind of thing you eat standing up, slightly greasy fingers and all. A few vendors here also sell "banh it la gai" — dark glutinous rice cakes stuffed with mung bean paste, wrapped in banana leaf — which are worth trying if you haven't had them before. Budget 20,000–40,000 VND total for a sample of two or three things.

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Stop 3 — Mooncake Bakeries, Hoang Hoa Tham Street

Vung Tau (붕따우 / 头顿 / ブンタウ) has a legitimate mooncake tradition that surfaces fully around the Mid-Autumn Festival but operates quietly the rest of the year through a handful of family bakeries on and around Hoang Hoa Tham. The mooncakes here are handmade, with a baked lotus-seed paste filling being the classic — denser and less sweet than the commercially produced versions flooding supermarkets. Some shops also offer a salted egg yolk version and a mixed-nut filling that skews more savoury. Outside of the Mid-Autumn Festival season, you can usually find fresh stock on weekends; call ahead if you're visiting on a weekday. A single mooncake runs 35,000–80,000 VND depending on size and filling. They travel well if you're heading back to Saigon the same day.

Stop 4 — Kem Bao Loc, Near the Front Beach (Bai Truoc)

Vung Tau's ice cream culture is its own thing. The city has a long history of small ice cream shops serving "kem oc que" — wafer cone ice cream scooped from metal canisters, in flavours like durian, coconut, corn, and jackfruit. Kem Bao Loc near Bai Truoc is the local benchmark: the coconut flavour is made with fresh coconut milk and is noticeably less sweet than anything chain-produced, and the durian — if you're there on a day when they have it — is the real-deal variety, not the flavouring-extract version. Cones are 15,000–25,000 VND per scoop. The view across toward Bai Truoc makes this a natural break point in the route, especially around sunset.

Photo by Tuan Vy on Pexels

Stop 5 — Ca Phe Muoi and Dessert Cafe, Le Loi Street

The final stop is a newer-style dessert cafe on Le Loi, part of a cluster of places that have opened in the last few years serving the post-beach, early-evening crowd. The menu includes matcha-based drinks, coconut milk dessert jars layered with grass jelly and sago, and "ca phe sua da" done well alongside the sweeter options. The standout is a pandan coconut jelly served in a small clay pot — it's simple and not trying to be anything other than what it is, which is refreshing when the surrounding cafes are all serving desserts stacked to photograph. Prices here run 45,000–75,000 VND per item. The space fills up by 7 PM on weekends, so arrive slightly before if you want a table.

What to Know Before You Go

This route works on foot if you're staying near the Front Beach area; otherwise, a xe om or Grab between stops keeps it comfortable. Most stalls are cash-only — bring small bills in the 10,000–50,000 VND range. The che stall and market-area vendors are typically closed Monday mornings, so Tuesday through Sunday works best for the full five-stop run. If you're visiting around the Mid-Autumn Festival period, the mooncake stop expands into an event in itself, with multiple bakeries setting up display tables along the street.