Hien Khanh Sandwich

Authentic, but not quite as good as just about any Vietnamese dessert place in Westminster / Little Saigon area. The time we went was early evening and some of the dessert was less than fresh, but there also wasn't a lot of people there so a lot of it must have been sitting a good part of the day. But, since we live close by its much better than driving all the way to OC to get some che.

This branch of Thach Che Hien Khanh serves the largest variety of Vietnamese desserts in the San Gabriel Valley. It's located within a food court in Rosemead where the rent must be dirt cheap because most of the food stalls there charge no more than $6 per item. Compared to the original shop in Westminster, this Hien Khanh location carries fewer items. For example, savory variations of sticky rice (xoi) are not offered here. Only recently has an item outside of dessert (chè), namely banh duc, been available. Hien Khanh is still a versatile traditional Vietnamese dessert shop with hot and cold options, so it's different from the popular Bambu chain that mainly focuses on modern iced chè drinks. The dessert table displays sweet xoi, flavored agar jelly, cassava cakes, and beyond, which taste more like candy than Bambu's "slush". Most of the chè at Hien Khanh are eaten with a spoon, whereas the layered slush-like desserts at Bambu are typically slurped through a boba straw. The serving size at Hien Khanh is smaller compared to Bambu's. Items are either scooped into 6 oz plastic cups or packed into styrofoam take-out boxes, so prices are manageable ($2 to $3 per item compared to $4 to $5 chè drink at Bambu). In addition, desserts at Hien Khanh tend to be significantly sweeter and more fragrant compared to the ones at Bambu. As I understand, this sugar level is more traditional and fitting to sweet-tooth Vietnamese palates. During my last visit, I ordered the chè dau trang for $2, which was wet sticky rice cooked with black eye peas, served warm. It was accompanied with some warm coconut milk on the side, for me to spoon into sticky rice to make the dessert more soupy and to control the sweetness level. The chè dau trang was a simple dessert, the coconut milk softened the beans so the contrast between chewy and crunchy textures didn't seem to be a problem. I thought that the 6oz cup was perfectly portioned, because I could not imagine eating an entire cup of rice if it were Bambu-sized. I prefer this type of warm dessert to the Bambu iced desserts because it required more effort in the preparation (cooking rice, soaking and then boiling beans). It seemed to be more genuine than scooping canned ingredients with crushed ice and coconut milk into a cup.