Align 3D – The snazzy end of the spectrum…

I was initially curious about Align 3D after reading about its indoor waterfall in The Word. Arriving at its new location at 6 Đường Thành, I peered down a narrow lane I the obviously swanky interior and realized I had better check the prices to make sure I had enough cash.

Align 3D is obviously in that category of cafes that serves a middle-class status-oriented crowd, which cherishes an air conditioned and comfortable place to smoke their Marlboros and work in their laptops, and maybe have a bite to eat. Never mind that coffee is twice as expensive as a regular cafe (my cà phê sữa chua ran me VNĐ 38K or about two bucks). Although the waterfall seems to have been a casualty of the move, they did feature quite amazing decór – for example, the best khoi pond I have see in Hà Nội graced their indoor bamboo-lined courtyard. A 15 foot mobile of khoi was the centerpiece inside, and upstairs they somehow managed to put a tree!

The walls were lined with these elaborate paintings of traditional Vietnamese scenes – were these somehow computer generated, the 3D graphics that are the places namesake? I will never know… Auditorially, the ambience was completed by a series of not quite Enya english musak tunes – I swear they played Greensleeves at some point.

The place was certainly popular – a number of tables on both chairs were crowded with folks. It was the kind of place that Arabica, where I ended up yesterday, was desperately trying to imitate… but without the over the top decor, comfy chairs.

Overall, the experience was antiseptic – it left me cold. However, there was remained a certain odd eclecticism that is perhaps the hallmark of Hà Nội cafes. While Align3D replaced the natural lakeview of other cafes with its own khoi pond, or the odd paintings of other places with its own strange and stilted 3D art, the combination still seemed oddly reminiscent of the spirit of the street cafe, where a few plastic chairs, a pot of coffee and bucket of ice can be turned into an entrepreneurial success.

Lost and Found: Café under the Banyan

At times I am hesitant to review cafes already reviewed by others. I feel like I am retreading old territory, rather than generating new content. But invariably, there is a new discovery involved – further insight into this crazy city and its caffeine scene.

Today I set off to review one of food blogger StickyRice’s favorite cafes – a nameless place under a banyan tree that sounded rustic and special. It was also very close to my house, and perhaps chased a bit by yesterday’s meanderings, I figured the better part of valor was to stick close by, on foot.

I arrived however, to find that the steamroller of development had come first. The tangled power lines were still there, but the banyan tree was replaced by the massive skyscrapers I mentioned in a previous post.

Bunker Cafe – Closed! Eva Club – Open!?

The category “wanderings” on this blog is for when the (fairly frequent) times that I take a wrong turn or end up some place unexpected. But today’s foray was such a colossal deviation that it belongs in a category all of its own…

Lulled into a false sense of security by momentary cloud cover, I decided to embark in an expedition to the Bunker cafe – a cool destination in an old French blockhouse on the lake that I have been meaning to explore.

Café Popeye: Surrealism and Cartoons

I was intrigued by Café Popeye on a previous expedition to Triệu Việt Vương – the obviously over-the-top decor combined with the fact that it was completely empty piqued my curiosity.

When I returned today, it was still completely vacant. Decorated with a combination of Popeye memorabilia with sugary sweet cups and plates with pictures of pretty women. Odd. Booths have pairs of pink hearts on the backs, and tables play old Chaplin shorts subtitled in Russian.

L’Espace: Café as Art Form

In search of some A/C on a hot day dedicated to museum expeditions in the heart of downtown Hà Nội, my Mom and I stopped into L’Espace (24 Tràng Tiền) for some lunch and relief and were pleasantly surprised.

Cafe JOMA: All English!

It’s amazing how the same ingredients – coffee, sugar, milk, coffee – differently interpreted make a completely different beverage. I guess part of the appeal of coffee has always been its flexibility, its ability to morph into a thousands different forms and retain a sophistication of flavor. But the JOMA iced coffee and cà phê nâu đá despite being both “iced coffee” are almost unrecognizably different from each other.

The Black and White: Photos on the Lake

So today I had little time to devote to coffee today, having committed to my school-weary daughter to do a “surprise” pickup.

So I stopped by one of the more eye-catching spots on Ho Truc Bach, whose chiaroscuro decor makes it pop out from the lakefront row of coffee shops, lẩu places and ice cream parlors. The Black And White (86 Trấn Vũ) is so named for the beautiful photography and photographic equipment that lines its walls – the place was a gallery before it turned to the (probably more profitable) coffee and fruit juice trade.

The “Communist” Cafe

Everyone I have queried about coffee joints in Hà Nội has mentioned this place – you know if you have attracted the attention of everyone from food bloggers like StickyRice to the Word, you are popular. So I felt obligated to return to Triệu Việt Vương street, the capital of the café scene in this city, to check out what was supposed to be its crown jewel.

Cộng Café at number 152D has taken the cool-ironic-hipster thing about as far as it can go. From the Tracy Chapman playing softly in the background to the faux-commie kitsch on the walls, the place drips with too-cool. One painting details babies at a party meeting, another photo features scenes from the cultural revolution.

All half dozen tables were filled when I arrived, so I was shunted to the loft upstairs – all the better perch to observe the young and hip crowd below.

The menu was scrawled in Volume 12 of the collected works of Lê-nin (covering 1907-1908 – a crucial period of his battle with the Bogdavites during the Stolypin backlash against the 1905 revolution). Other volumes were piled around – a full set in the US retails for six hundred dollars – but they are probably cheaper here thanks to state subsidies.

Ironically, the prices scribbled on over Lenin’s polemics about boycotting the Duma were remarkably high (35K or US$1.75 for a cup of expresso about equivalent to Starbucks) – style has its costs I guess, and you have to pay to be cool (aside from providing customers with an aura of hipness, Cộng has AC).

There is quite a bit of Commie Kitsch around Hanoi. The Old Propaganda Posters shop on Hàng Bạc has dozens of imitators around the old quarter, all hawking reproductions of Stalinist exhortations for greater crop yields, or a stronger war effort. I am the somewhat guilty owner of a set of Hồ Chí Minh postcards in my backpack waiting to get inscribed to friends (whatever my criticisms of Uncle Hồ’s politics – he brutally repressed his Trotskyist critics here in the 30s, among other things – he remains an anti-imperialist leader of his nation).

But the Cộng Café seems to be of a different variety, deliberately and flagrantly thumbing its nose at the country’s political traditions. In some ways it is the logical extension of the entrepreneurial spirit which dominates here. Việt Nam has long since given up any pretensions of a state-directed economy, opting instead for the Chinese model of unfettered capitalist growth backed by a repressive state (not to mention socialism, which I would argue was never in the cards here, given the complete absence of workers democracy). But you can only go so far encouraging unfettered free enterprise and calling it by an opposite name, before somebody calls you out on it. And I guess this role is often ascribed to those sitting in cafe (as even the exiled Lenin did once or twice as he railed against the Czar’s faux-democratic Duma). Something tells me though, that the reason Café Cộng is tolerated in its blatant mocking of communism is because there is little that is actually political in its critique – just the desire for a good laugh and to make a buck from overpriced drinks.