In my book, longans have always taken the back seat – about twelve million rows behind – to lychees. I have the sweetest memories of the juiciest lychees, bought on a sidewalk in Hong Kong or up an overpass in Bangkok then viciously attacked in the privacy of my hotel room – way before they became available in local markets in the recent years.
To me, longans were the poor, pale sisters that came in season long after the lychees have peaked and faded away... well, until that fateful morning when a blue boat took us to an unassuming island along the Mekong River.
Venturing no more than twenty steps into the island, we came upon this bucolic sight:
A Vietnamese woman, guarded by her sleeping son, was leisurely sorting out longans, bunching them in kilos and loading them in bushels! On the ground surrounding her were thousands of ripe fruit, freshly picked by hand just minutes ago. We were floored. No one had told us about this lovely surprise. Immediately, spontaneously, we fell in longan love.
We asked the woman if we could have a taste of the longans. One kiss and we went bonkers. These were not longans, these were longan concentrates! Each tiny fruit exploded in our mouths, like a teaspoon of exotic sugar we couldn't get enough of.And at 4 thousand dong per kilo (roughly 14 pesos), it was most definitely true love.
Later that morning, we motored back to the city carrying bunches of our longan bounty. And thus began a romance with a fruit previously labeled a lychee-wannabe.
Uhh... what lychee?
And after a meal in Vietnam, you do as the Viets do---have drip coffee, that is. Hot, and iced. At La Dolce Vita, coffee was both bold and sweet. Evocative of the huge dichotomy that is Vietnam: Rich and poor. Lush and barren. But nonetheless lovely every step of the way.
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