Grilled banana sweet soup is a rustic dish and is especially loved by Da Nang people on cold days. You will be definitely attracted to a bowl of sweet soup with grilled banana wrapped in sticky rice and soaked in rich coconut juice at the first sight.

Bowls of grilled banana sweet soup at a stall in front of a house at 392 Hoang Dieu Street. Photo: H.L

What makes this dish so special is the sweet, fragrant flavour of grilled ripe banana. The ripe, soft banana flesh is wrapped in a layer of sticky rice, then grilled over hot coals until the outer layer turns golden brown and has a faint aroma of charcoal and smoke.

The dish is best enjoyed by cutting grilled banana into bite-sized pieces and pouring a layer of rich coconut juice over it. Each grilled banana slice is half hidden, half visible in the coconut juice topped with fried peanut. The dish should be eaten in hot to be at its tastiest.

Each piece of hot grilled banana blends with rich coconut juice, roasted peanuts, and shredded and dried coconut, to create an unforgettable flavour. To cook the dish, evenly ripe bananas are often used because they have the right amount of sweetness and chewiness when grilled over charcoal.

On cold days in Da Nang, grilled banana sweet soup at sidewalk stalls has become a dish chosen by many people. Top places for tasty grilled banana in Da Nang include stalls in front of house at 392 Hoang Dieu Street, or in an alley at 190/1 Ong Ich Khiem Street. The similarity of these sweet soup stalls is that they are nearly 20 years old and are the "childhood" of many local residents.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hanh, who lives next to the sweet soup stall in an alley at 190/1 Ong Ich Khiem Street, says that this simple dish both warms the heart on rainy days and evokes memories of her childhood when her family gathered around the fire to wait for bowls of hot banana sweet soup to give off aroma.

Reporting by HUYNH LE - Translating by M.DUNG