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| Customers came to the night food quarter on Truong Dinh Street |
At nearly 11 p.m., the night food corner on Truong Dinh Street (Hue City) is more bustling. Amid a few drops of drizzle on a Hue slightly cold day, the smoke from the stove grilling eggs, corn, and potatoes rises, making many customers feel excited. There are no neat tables and chairs like in restaurants, but only with small plastic tables and chairs does the night food street attract customers. Through chatting, we learn that the regular customers here are mainly young people, students, and tourists who stop by for a late-night snack.
Modern life has led to a change in the pace of life in Hue by night compared with many years ago. The need to work by night and dine late at night has also become a daily routine of many people, especially young people, tourists, and night workers. I pulled a table and sat next to a female owner of a snack cart. While grilling food, she said that every year Hue welcomes tens of thousands of students who come and stay to study.
The characteristic of many young people is that they live by night. There are such regular customers that, every week or a few days, they invite each other to come here to eat some potatoes, corn, some grilled fish to chat and then go back to bed. Each dish here is cheap and suitable for students’ pocketbooks, so they are less worried. Therefore, her snack cart also has customers.
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Currently, Hue has many late-night dining spots for young people. In addition to the night food quarter on Truong Dinh Street, the well-known sleepless Quarter for foreign tourists (including Chu Van An, Pham Ngu Lao, Vo Thi Sau streets) or the Han Thuyen noodle street, the stalls selling gourd-braised eggs and dishes made from eggs on Ly Thuong Kiet and Nguyen Khuyen streets are also packed with customers. Another street corner on Phan Chu Trinh Street, near Kho Ren Bridge, also draws customers for snacks, from grilled chicken feet, grilled chicken wings, and mixed rice paper... to soy milk, bean milk, pumpkin milk...
I have experienced many late-night snack spots, and in this narrow space, I have met a few "addicts" of late-night dining in Hue. Nguyen Hai An, a university student, shared, "The food is not necessarily the best, but late-night dining in Hue still has enjoyable features. Sitting in the middle of the city at night, amid the falling mist, by the stove grilling potatoes and corn, and chatting and watching the streets with my lover and friends, I feel something very nice. Therefore, for many young people, dining late at night is not to full up, but to find a warm feeling on days away from home to study in Hue”.
Tourists who eat late-night snacks in Hue do not mean that they haven’t had dinner, but most of them desire to experience a very different Hue. Tran Thi Thien My from Phu Yen, shared, “The hotel still has instant noodles and food, but after reading online reviews, I decided to find a corner of Hue that doesn’t sleep early. Sitting for nearly 2 hours at a late-night food stall, I have to admit that Hue by night is more dynamic than before.”
Late-night food stalls can sell until 2-3 a.m. as long as there are still customers. In both summer and winter, customers always come. In the era of technological development, each dish ordered is a photo born. Eating while taking photos of the "coordinates" of late-night eating and the dishes to post on social networks is gradually forming a trend of late-night dining among young people.
Sometimes, at late-night snack stalls crowded with customers, many customers who come in later have to wait. It takes dozens of minutes for the food. However, many young people do not show any irritation or boredom to go out; they still laugh and talk. Time for them seems to stop. The night on the street corners of Hue therefore seemed more vibrant and extraordinary.
Some say that Hue has now changed. Hue no longer sleeps early. More and more tourists to Hue look for late-night food stalls and night food streets not to have a snack but to learn more about a cultural feature of Hue.