Seventh House has a feminine touch

Customers relax at the Seventh House coffee shop - Photo: Thanh Hang

I discovered the Seventh House  (Ngoi nha so 7) Coffee Shop one year ago and have since visited it alone or with my friends regularly. Words like “sophisticated” or “heartwarming” come close to describing it but the best description is definitely “feminine”. The word does not refer to pink wallpaper or “chick lit” novels, but the overall impression that it created on me.

‘Mysterious’ is the first feminine character of this café. Situated at the end of a small alley in HCMC, the coffee shop is a challenge to find the first time. Even though I know the way well, it’s hard to give directions to my friends. They think I’m joking when I explain, “The coffee shop is on Ngo Thoi Nhiem Street and down an alley across from the back gate of Marie Curie high school. There is a motorcycle-wash in front. Go straight to the end of the alley and go in the small white door.”

It’s not easy to approach a beautiful woman, but once you do, she’s a real fountain of pleasure. So it is with the Seventh House Coffee Shop. She is such a picky chick you will want to give up on her, but if you persist she’ll give you more than you expect.

Ring the doorbell and you enter a big room full of light from the giant windows above. Amazingly for a congested city, there is a small grassy field outside the house. I doubt that it belongs to the coffee shop owner. Sometimes a cat wanders over to a coconut tree there and rubs itself. Just imagine yourself lying on a soft cushion, drinking a strawberry smoothie, reading The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and observing a cat playing on the field, and you will know where the café’s femininity lies. And then the last sunlight will fade away outside, and there you will be listening to a love song coming from the guitar of a young boy sitting near you. This coffee shop really knows how to touch a woman’s heart - mystery, beauty, surprises and romance.

The Seventh House Coffee Shop is at 7 Ngo Thoi Nhiem Street, District 3.

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Seventh House has a feminine touch

Customers relax at the Seventh House coffee shop - Photo: Thanh Hang

I discovered the Seventh House  (Ngoi nha so 7) Coffee Shop one year ago and have since visited it alone or with my friends regularly. Words like “sophisticated” or “heartwarming” come close to describing it but the best description is definitely “feminine”. The word does not refer to pink wallpaper or “chick lit” novels, but the overall impression that it created on me.

‘Mysterious’ is the first feminine character of this café. Situated at the end of a small alley in HCMC, the coffee shop is a challenge to find the first time. Even though I know the way well, it’s hard to give directions to my friends. They think I’m joking when I explain, “The coffee shop is on Ngo Thoi Nhiem Street and down an alley across from the back gate of Marie Curie high school. There is a motorcycle-wash in front. Go straight to the end of the alley and go in the small white door.”

It’s not easy to approach a beautiful woman, but once you do, she’s a real fountain of pleasure. So it is with the Seventh House Coffee Shop. She is such a picky chick you will want to give up on her, but if you persist she’ll give you more than you expect.

Ring the doorbell and you enter a big room full of light from the giant windows above. Amazingly for a congested city, there is a small grassy field outside the house. I doubt that it belongs to the coffee shop owner. Sometimes a cat wanders over to a coconut tree there and rubs itself. Just imagine yourself lying on a soft cushion, drinking a strawberry smoothie, reading The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and observing a cat playing on the field, and you will know where the café’s femininity lies. And then the last sunlight will fade away outside, and there you will be listening to a love song coming from the guitar of a young boy sitting near you. This coffee shop really knows how to touch a woman’s heart - mystery, beauty, surprises and romance.

The Seventh House Coffee Shop is at 7 Ngo Thoi Nhiem Street, District 3.

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Saturday coffee for Saigon intellectual set

Patrons enjoy some intellectual conversation at Ca phe thu Bay coffee shop - Photo: Tuong Vi

Where do you go on Saturdays? Some spend time with family, while others share their weekends with friends or see movies. But if you want to talk about what’s going in the world, or just in your head, you are welcome to join the other intellectuals for a deep and meaningful’ at Ca phe thu Bay (Saturday Coffee). The cafe was designed to meet the demands of intellectuals who want a space to talk about music, literature, books, architecture, arts, cinema or theater.

Located at 37 Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street, HCMC’s District 1, Ca phe thu Bay has become a weekend regular meeting place. The café was given its name because every Saturday morning, it hosts programs on different aspects of the arts. Every Sunday at 8.30 p.m., the coffee shop screens a couple of good Vietnamese or foreign movies. Late evenings on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, are for chamber music featuring pieces by Bach and Mozart etc.  

The manager of Ca phe thu Bay is a famous musician, Duong Thu, who is known for Vietnamese love songs. “I choose the music for Ca phe thu Bay,” he said. The selection  is mostly easy-listening. There is also a library containing over 200 book titles covering subjects such as philosophy, fiction, research, literature, arts, cinema, music, science and architecture. The library has a collection of 4,000 compact discs of Vietnamese classic films.

Thu said, Hanoi has Lam coffee shop for artists, while HCMC has internet cafés, book cafés at Phuong Nam bookstores, and Ca phe thu Bay. It’s a celebration of the Saigonese art of conversation. The shop is decorated in Vietnamese style with wooden furniture and a lotus pond at the entrance.

Dang Le Nguyen Vu, chairman of Trung Nguyen Corporation, which cooperates with the café, said he was considering setting up more such spaces in town.

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Saturday coffee for Saigon intellectual set

Patrons enjoy some intellectual conversation at Ca phe thu Bay coffee shop - Photo: Tuong Vi

Where do you go on Saturdays? Some spend time with family, while others share their weekends with friends or see movies. But if you want to talk about what’s going in the world, or just in your head, you are welcome to join the other intellectuals for a deep and meaningful’ at Ca phe thu Bay (Saturday Coffee). The cafe was designed to meet the demands of intellectuals who want a space to talk about music, literature, books, architecture, arts, cinema or theater.

Located at 37 Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street, HCMC’s District 1, Ca phe thu Bay has become a weekend regular meeting place. The café was given its name because every Saturday morning, it hosts programs on different aspects of the arts. Every Sunday at 8.30 p.m., the coffee shop screens a couple of good Vietnamese or foreign movies. Late evenings on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, are for chamber music featuring pieces by Bach and Mozart etc.  

The manager of Ca phe thu Bay is a famous musician, Duong Thu, who is known for Vietnamese love songs. “I choose the music for Ca phe thu Bay,” he said. The selection  is mostly easy-listening. There is also a library containing over 200 book titles covering subjects such as philosophy, fiction, research, literature, arts, cinema, music, science and architecture. The library has a collection of 4,000 compact discs of Vietnamese classic films.

Thu said, Hanoi has Lam coffee shop for artists, while HCMC has internet cafés, book cafés at Phuong Nam bookstores, and Ca phe thu Bay. It’s a celebration of the Saigonese art of conversation. The shop is decorated in Vietnamese style with wooden furniture and a lotus pond at the entrance.

Dang Le Nguyen Vu, chairman of Trung Nguyen Corporation, which cooperates with the café, said he was considering setting up more such spaces in town.

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Fairy tale telling café in noisy town

A view of The Princess and the Pea Café - Photo: Tuong Vi

It’s not difficult for Saigonese to find a coffee shop to escape the noise because there are a variety of cafés including those featuring live music, soft music and comedy performances. But a fairy tale telling café in the heart of a modern city like HCMC is quite new.

The café going by the name of The Princess and the Pea was opened in August by two film directors, Lam Minh Khoi and Vo Thi Thach Thao, as they were inspired by the well-known fairy tale of the same name by Danish author and poet Hans Christian Andersen.

Since it is in a very small alley on the crowded one-way street of Pasteur in District 1, it may take you some time to spot it. Car or bike parking is recommended at the HCMC Exhibition House, 92 Le Thanh Ton Street, and the coffee shop is just across the street. Entering Alley 85 for some meters and looking left, you can see Princess and the Pea sign and go up an old apartment building.

On the walls along the stairs there are many pictures featuring Western folk culture. The dark purple-painted café covers over 40 square meters on the third floor.

This is like a private world for the princess and is divided into three compartments. Given the limited space, the owners arrange low tables with cushions and pillows for guests. All cushions, pillows, curtains and even menus are made from flowered cloths.

At the window is the little smiley doll statue in a blue dress with a basket in her hands. She is a naive countryside girl who sings and dances in the yellow rice field as the tale tells her story.

At the end of the room, there’s a small bed piled with many mattresses reminding guests of the tale. Beside the bed are a mirror and a long red and black gown of the princess. Next to her bedroom is a place for the princess to entertain with the old stories and listen to music.

If you come there, don’t forget to taste a dish called burning rice. Dip a piece of burning rice into a small bowl of fatty onion and roll it with shrimp and salted dried meat, then dip it into chili sauce.

Visitors come to the place because they are curious about The Princess and the Pea tale by Andersen. Once upon a time, there’s a prince seeking a perfect princess for marriage and he goes many places but he finds no perfect lady. On a stormy night, a girl knocks on the door of his palace begging to stay there for a night. She says she’s the perfect one the prince is looking for. To check it, the queen leaves a pea on the bed and piles 20 mattress layers on the pea. In the morning, the queen asks the girl whether she sleeps well or not. The girl says she could not sleep well because of something hard under the bed. The queen smiles as she finds a true wife for her son.

On Friday, from 8:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., guests can listen to live music performed by amateur singers with famous movies soundtracks. Moreover, a monologue comedian nicknamed Cucumber performs there and tells guests about daily life stories. Because so many guests come on Friday but the room is small, for a maximum of 60 guests, you need to make reservations by Thursday by phone 0907.703.159 or 0907.010.192.

If you wish to stay away from the noisy streets and enjoy a fairy tale atmosphere after a day of hard work, don’t hesitate to go there.

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A coffee shop of recycled paper

A corner of Giay Café - Photo: Thanh Hang

As its name points out, almost every piece of furniture and all the decorations in Giay (Paper) Cafe are made from recycled paper and cardboard. The three-story coffee shop by the Nhieu Loc Canal can’t be missed with a floor to ceiling window showing the huge word COFFEE made from paper.

Visitors to the coffee shop will be amazed that paper was not only used to make the furniture, but literally used to construct layout on the first floor. There is a whole room that is walled by thousands pieces of paper. The shoe shelf outside the door leading into the air-conditioned room is also made from cardboard.

However, the most astonishing things are the many chairs and coffee tables in different shapes on the second floor – which is the main floor of the coffee shop. According to Nguyen Van Dung, a member of the group that designed the coffee shop, these chairs can hold up to 300 kilograms, depending on the chair. These chairs are constructed mainly from cardboard spools, cardboard and cloth.

Nguyen Van Dung, Truong Quynh Anh and Nguyen Le Thanh Nam were the three members of the designing team. All in their early twenties they came up with the idea to use recycled materials when Dung’s older brother asked him to design a coffee shop that was both cheap and unique. They had collected and experimented with many materials before choosing paper and paper spools. It took them two months to make the café once they had the idea.

Nguyen Van Dung told the Daily, “I have been interested in the environment and recycling for a long time. I have been making stuff from the things we threw away since I was a kid. So the ideas of a paper coffee shop came to me naturally.”

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