After egg coffee, coconut coffee, and salt coffee, is the next coffee trend going to be peanut butter coffee?
Probably not, but it should be!
The concept is evident in the name: add rich and creamy peanut butter to a familiar cà phê sữa đá, or cà phê sữa tươi. The earthy oils of the peanut cut through some of the sugar while adding a bit of complexity.
Given peanut butter and peanut milk’s general presence here, it’s a bit surprising one doesn’t see cà phê đậu phộng more often. I had never encountered it until earlier this year, at Suối Tiên, of all places. While delicious, that version was made with an extra-heavy pour of sweetened condensed milk that led to a severe sugar crash. Since then, I’ve been scouring menus for a version that might fit my preferences a bit more.
After one disastrous rendition at a cafe I won't name, Saigoneer got targeted by an Instagram ad for a place named Mardoll Coffee. We ordered from Grab and were pleasantly surprised to find the cà phê đậu phộng was smooth, milky and subtly nutty without being cloyingly sweet. Luscious and refreshing, it warranted an in-person visit.
“I don’t know if the coffee is any good, but people keep coming to that shop to take pictures,” we overheard an elderly neighbor exclaim in Vietnamese when she saw us outside Mardoll, located down a busy District 3 hẻm. The apparent trend of people visiting Mardoll to take photos is baffling, because it's not really a coffee shop; it's a nail salon that happens to have a barista counter that makes terrific peanut butter coffee. There is no possible way to drink it there comfortably amongst women getting butterfly and flower gel designs, but it’s certainly worth ordering for delivery or takeaway.
As Grab orders pinged in on the barista’s phone, we watched him make our cà phê đậu phộng. The process is simple, with the ubiquitous Golden Farm peanut butter applied around the edges of the cup and allowed to seep into the milk before the coffee is added on top. He said he wasn’t sure why it appeared on the menu recently or where the shop’s owner had gotten the idea. While I will likely order from here again, the true takeaway was that the recipe is one worth experimenting with. What’s stopping me, or you, from having peanut butter with your fresh milk and sweetened condensed milk for sapid start to the day?
Mardoll Cafe
399/2A Nguyễn Đình Chiểu, Ward 5, D3, HCMC
