In the morning markets of northern Vietnam there's a snack made by layering thin sheets of rice-flour batter and seasoned pork and steaming them in a clay pot. Its name isbanh hap (banh hap). What VietnamNet reported on July 23, 2026 is the morning work of Trinh Thi Phi (born 1962), who has made this sweet for nearly 30 years, and her son Nguyen Nhu Tot (born 1990). The family rises at 2 a.m., finishing several steaming trays of piping-hot cakes by 5 a.m. to carry to the market. A pack is 10,000 dong, about 62 yen at 1 yen ≈ 162 dong. What makes it hard for Japanese readers to file this away as "a story about a cheap regional sweet" is that the address of the village where it's sold was rewritten in 2025, so searching by the place name you remember no longer leads to its current location.
Work that starts at 2 a.m. and ends at 5
The VietnamNet article pins the process to the clock. The rice soaks from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., about seven hours. From there it's rinsed many times, dried and ground, then sifted. The powder is steamed once, then kneaded into dough. Phi says that for one steamer's worth,six cans of regular rice and one of glutinous riceis used, she explains. It's an old way of measuring called 'ong bo,' using a can in place of a measuring cup, and the glutinous rice goes in to bind the dough.
Kneading takes 30 minutes per batch. The original writes this step is the most time-consuming and laborious of the whole process. The kneaded dough is torn into small pieces and rolled into thin sheets. Seasoned pork is placed on top, folded over, arranged in earthen dishes and steamed. This "folding" shape is the origin of its other name, bánh xếp (folded cake).
At 10,000 dong a pack, it's enough to fill one or two people, the original writes. Since it's already seasoned, you can eat it as is or dip it in a light nước mắm, the article explains. For the filling, fatty cuts of pork are chosen and seasoned with dried shallot, salt, and MSG before being finely ground and spread directly onto the rolled-out dough, the original writes.
A cake with three names, and a village whose address was rewritten
According to the original, this snack, depending on the region,banh tai voi (elephant's ear), also called bánh tai mèo (cat's ear) or bánh xếp. The article doesn't say why the different names arose. Where it's sold is the village market called chợ Nhà, also known as chợ Thuận Vi.
The tricky part is the address. The original lists the location as both “Tan Thuan commune, Hung Yen Province (formerly Bac Thuan commune, Vu Thu district, Thai Binh Province).” Resolution 60-NQ/TW of April 12, 2025 decided the merger of Hung Yen Province and Thai Binh Province, unifying the new provincial name as Hung Yen. Taking effect on July 1, it created a province of 2,514.81 square kilometers and roughly 3.57 million people. At the same time, under Resolution 1666/NQ-UBTVQH15, three communes—Tan Lap, Tu Tan, and Bac Thuan—were consolidated into Tan Thuan commune. Someone who remembers this as a “Thai Binh specialty” won't find Thai Binh Province on a map app as an administrative unit anymore.
There are other cases where a tourist spot's name changed in the same reorganization (The former Quat Lam becomes 'Giao Ninh': how to explore Ninh Binh's new beach), noting down both the old and new names before you set off has become standard practice for traveling in Vietnam from 2025 on.
Morning-market flour sweets, listed from cheapest
Banh hap isn't the only rice-flour sweet sold at chợ Thuận Vi. We line up prices gathered on the ground by the local paper Dân Việt and the lifestyle site Eva.vn, converted at 1 yen ≈ 162 dong. Figures other than banh hap are based on reportage from around 2023 and may differ from current prices.
| Item | Local price | Yen conversion (¥1 = 162 dong) | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| banh hap | 10,000 dong per pack | About 62 yen | VietnamNet (July 23, 2026) |
| Banh cuon | about 10,000 dong per serving | About 62 yen | Dân Việt, Eva.vn |
| Banh beo | 5,000 dong | about 31 yen | Dân Việt, Eva.vn |
| banh giay gio (bánh giầy giò) | 3,000–5,000 dong for two | About 19-31 yen | Dân Việt, Eva.vn |
| banh giay do (bánh giầy đỗ) | 1,000–2,000 dong each | About 6–12 yen | Dân Việt, Eva.vn |
Conversions round the fractions. Dividing 10,000 dong by 162 gives 61.7 yen; 5,000 dong gives 30.9 yen. The flour snacks at this market top out around 10,000 dong, and banh hap sits at that ceiling. Given how long the process runs, starting from grinding the flour, the pricing has been held in line with the market rate.
The same market from three angles: the maker, her son, and local reporting
Phi's words stay entirely on describing the process; no remarks about price or business appear in the article. All she speaks of is quantity and time.
Her son, Tot, helps with his mother's deliveries while filming videos introducing the sweet and posting them on social media, the original says. Tot says, “Bánh hấp has become a familiar breakfast for me,” explaining that, made only from pork and rice flour, it's gentle on the body and clean, and its staying power makes it popular with neighbors. That said, reading the original's process description, the filling contains dried shallot, salt, and MSG.'Just pork and rice flour' is the maker's own selling line, not the ingredients the article itself statesIn the same remarks, he recalls that back when they used old rice and pounded it with a wooden pestle and stone mortar, it was softer and stickier; today machine-milled flour is the norm, but quality and taste haven't changed much, and with less time and effort, output has risen.
The market's shape can be filled in by past local reporting. Dan Viet writes that while an ordinary village market only opens on set days, Cho Tuan Vi opens every morning, and notes that by around 8 a.m. there's nothing left to buy. Eva.vn dates the market's founding to 1928 and says each session lasts about two to three hours. The reason makers push to be ready by 5 a.m. rests entirely on this short window.
Markets whose total open hours are extremely short exist all over Vietnam, some setting up only on specific days of the lunar calendar (A night market once a month, only on the 26th of the lunar month: to Trang Xa deep in Thai Nguyen). When planning your itinerary, checking “how many hours a day it's open” before the opening hours themselves cuts down on wasted trips.
The steps kept at 62 yen and the steps already handed to machines
Looking at this method through the lens of Japanese food-making, the steps cut and the steps kept split cleanly. What's already been cut is the milling—Tot himself explains that the wooden pestle and stone mortar were replaced by machines. What remains is a 7-hour soak and 30 minutes of kneading per batch. Buying store-bought rice flour would erase the soaking and sifting in one go, yet that's left untouched.
There's logic to where she draws the line. Milling the flour is a step that a machine doesn't change in the telling, and she flatly says taste and quality don't shift much. Soaking and kneading, on the other hand, tie directly to texture, so cutting them short is what first breaks down the 'soft and chewy' reputation. The 62-yen price stands as the result of sorting steps you can compromise from steps you can't. As a way to raise output without raising the price, she narrowed mechanization to a single step.
As for the selling side, they're expanding it without touching the product. What Tot did was film and post videos while making deliveries around the neighborhood—not change the recipe. A similar way of passing things on can be found at a noodle shop in Ho Chi Minh City, where a fourth-generation owner puts an 80-year-old flavor onto TikTok unchanged (Carrying on an 80-year flavor via TikTok: Saigon's fourth-generation hu tieu shop）。
There's one thing peculiar to this sweet, too. Because the rice flour and meat form layers, the cross-section when you break it makes a picture on its own. Unlike round rice cakes or soups, the structure shows up on screen without any added staging. It's an unusual setup where the makings of going viral on social media lie on the side of shape, not taste.
How far can a product that exists only three hours a day reach?
Here's the gap. The video is watchable 24 hours a day, but the real thing exists only for the roughly three hours from 5 to 8 a.m.; the other 21 hours you can't buy it. The only sales channels the original mentions are in-person sales at the market and Tot's deliveries around the neighborhood. Whether it handles courier shipping or mail order isNot disclosedso you shouldn't plan on having it shipped from far away.
For people looking at northern Vietnam for food sourcing or product development, this structure bites from the very first move. A sweet premised on being freshly steamed doesn't survive room-temperature distribution as is, so before considering export or turning it into a souvenir, you have to decide who bears the cooling and reheating steps. Push ahead without nailing that down—"because it's popular locally"—and all that's left at the end is the impossibility of putting a three-hour product onto a 24-hour shelf.
The effect of the administrative reorganization shows up in search before it shows up in distribution. Past articles written about a “Thai Binh specialty” and new ones written under “Hung Yen” are piling up separately while pointing at the same market. When asking people locally, the old name Bac Thuan, or the market name Thuan Vi, is more likely to get through than the new address, Tan Thuan commune.
What to check before visiting
| Product | Banh hap (bánh hấp). Also called bánh tai voi / bánh tai mèo / bánh xếp |
|---|---|
| Makers | Trinh Thi Phi (born 1962, nearly 30 years' experience) and her son Nguyen Nhu Tot (born 1990) |
| Price | 10,000 dong a pack (about 62 yen). Enough to fill one or two people |
| Sales floor | Chợ Nhà (chợ Nhà; also known as chợ Thuận Vi) |
| Address | Tan Tuan commune, Hung Yen province (formerly Bac Thuan commune, Vu Thu district, Thai Binh province) |
| When you can buy it | The maker finishes by 5 a.m. The market opens every morning, two to three hours each time. By around 8 a.m. there's nothing left to sell, Dan Viet reports |
| How to eat | Eaten as is, or dipped in diluted nuoc mam (per the original) |
| Access at a glance | Not stated in the original. The former Bac Thuan commune is within Vu Thu district. The distance from central Thai Binh City differs by outlet—13 km versus 20 km—so measure it on a map before setting out |
| Payment methods | Not disclosed (the original doesn't state whether anything other than cash is accepted) |
| Phone number and closing days | Not disclosed |
Where the table says 'not disclosed,' it doesn't mean we couldn't finish checking -- it means neither the original nor local media states it. Given the scale of one person making it at home and carrying it to market, it's best to assume there's no contact point for reservations or holds.
Summary
If you're actually going to eat it, the prep comes down to three things. First, put not "Thái Bình" but "chợ Thuận Vi" or the old name "Bách Thuận" into your map app to fix the location first. Next, choose your overnight base on the premise of arriving on the ground between 5 and 8 a.m. Making that window on a day trip from Hanoi is nearly impossible. Last, since neither the Phi family's contact details nor their days off are made public, decide on a second choice assuming they're sold out. Banh beo or banh giay can be tried at the same market from under 31 yen.
For someone looking at this area from the sourcing or product-development side, there's another way to read it. A household process that runs on 62 yen—handing only the milling to a machine while keeping the soaking and kneading by hand—reads as a case study in how far you can mechanize before the selling point breaks. Next time you go into this area, asking around about how other makers at the same market handle soaking and kneading will show whether this line is one shop's judgment or not.
Sources:VietnamNet／Dân Việt／Eva.vn／Báo Hưng Yên／Thư viện pháp luật／Vietnam National Authority of Tourism
