Xôi gấc

The rice is red because of a fruit, not because a festival required food colouring. *Xôi* is sticky rice, steamed. *Gấc* (*Momordica cochinchinensis*) is a spiny fruit whose red aril stains the grains. The skin and the hard seeds are not what you eat. The National Authority of Tourism lists xôi gấc among Tết foods: glutinous rice soaked, mixed with the fruit, steamed, then finished with a little sugar. Cooks also use a splash of rice wine and a little oil or fat so the colour stays on the grain. That is a method, not a formula this page will turn into a recipe.

The taste is mild. The grain is chewy. Sweetness, when it is there, is gentle. Coconut, mung bean or a savoury topping can appear on other xôi. They are not required for the red one. Xôi gấc is the ceremonial colour of the family — Tết, weddings, a tray that is meant to look fortunate. Red reads as luck in that setting. It is a poor assumption that every red mound in a market is this fruit. Turmeric xôi is yellow. Mung-bean xôi is often topped, not dyed through. Ask, or look for the deep orange-red of gấc rather than a painted surface.

How it is served

At Tết it sits on the family tray, often next to bánh chưng, the square sticky-rice cake wrapped in leaf. During the year you may find it at a shop that specialises in xôi, sold by the portion in the morning. That shop rhythm is not the same thing as a guarantee that gấc rice is on the board every day. Gấc is seasonal. Frozen aril and prepared paste extend the season; a cook’s use of them is their business, and a photograph cannot tell you which they used.

Eat it warm. Cold sticky rice firms up. A spoon or your fingers both appear at casual stalls; a celebration tray is more likely to be served onto a plate. It can be a snack beside tea or a sweet stop after something savoury. It is not a bowl of chè, which is a sweet soup, and it is not bánh trôi tàu, which is a rice ball in syrup.

What the homepage photograph shows

The card “Xôi gấc” is a bamboo steamer: bright red-orange grains, a green leaf lining the basket, the woven lid set beside it, and a branch of small pink flowers. A credit line is printed on the photograph itself (“Her 86m2”). This Journal does not copy that file into a new hero, and no extra derivative was generated. The homepage keeps the picture it already had. Republication beyond that frame waits on the owner.

The flowers and the leaf are in the frame. They do not prove a restaurant, a festival date, or that the leaf is the one the rice was cooked in. Banana leaf is a common liner for xôi; the photograph shows a green leaf, and that is as far as the picture goes.

What to ask, and what not to assume

Say *xôi gấc* if you want this red rice. *Xôi* alone can bring mung bean, peanut, corn or a savoury topping. Glutinous rice is the grain. Gấc is the colour. Sugar may be in it. Chicken fat or oil may be in it. Neither is visible as a separate ingredient once the rice is red. If you avoid those, ask. The dish is often free of meat, but a savoury xôi shop may use animal fat, and a celebration kitchen may set it beside pork dishes. “Red rice” is not an allergen statement.

There is no single Hanoi shop this page will name. There is no price. A private afternoon that includes a sweet can be Coffee & Sweet Traditions, and only when the written proposal includes it. The steamer on the homepage is an illustration, not a stop you have booked.