Fish bowl challenge – do you dare?

By Kim Thuy June 27, 2016 | 12:26 am PT

The Full Month or Fish Soup Cocktail. Photo by VnExpress/Minh Hoang

Sour fish soup, a popular dish on the day-to-day Vietnamese menu, has been transformed into a cocktail.

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The soup may not an be an “easy” dish to swallow at first as it contains heartleaf, something that even some Vietnamese shrink back from because of its fishy taste.

However, if you hold on for the whole taste sensation, it is said you will be hooked. The fishy taste is light and you feel a unique sweetness when you chew it slowly.

The leaf is also the essence of the cocktail. However, with its other elements, you don’t need to worry about the fishy taste. Instead, it offers a unique flavor - if you have the nerves to try.

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Tip: You can find the cocktail at La Plume Bar&Lounge, 3rd Floor, Press Club Building, 59A Ly Thai To Street, Hanoi.

The cocktail was invented in 2015 by Pham Tien Tiep, a Vietnamese bartender, and given the name "Full Moon" after a moving story about motherhood.

Tiep sympathized with the girl in the story, and like her, Tiep lost his mother at an early age.

The story is about a motherless girl who does not know about her mother’s death. Her father tries to hide the truth from her by saying that her mother will make the fish soup for her when it is full moon, so she decides to stay awake to wait for her mother on a full moon day. Unfortunately, that day it was raining hard, cloudy and no moon. "Mom's not coming home because of the weather," she sighs with a touch of sadness. She looks at the sky and eventually falls asleep where she meets her mother in her dreams. Her mother holds her and cooks the fish soup for her.

"Mothers are immortal; mothers are always in your hearts. Mother, I love you." That's the message Tiep wanted to send when he concocted the cocktail.