Fish bowls, explained

The fish bowl is why most people come to Market Bar. It is a big gin and tonic served in an oversized wine glass, built for a table to share as the light changes over the river.

You choose the gin first. Beefeater, Bombay, Tanqueray and The Botanist, or one of three Vietnamese craft gins: Về Để Đi Good Gin, Lady Triệu's Hội An Spice Road, and Saigon Baigur. Then you choose the style, and there are thirteen: lemon and black pepper, hibiscus and orange, a hint of negroni, basil and blue pea flower, cardamom and chili, lemongrass and star anise, chipotle and lime, cucumber and mint, organic Đà Lạt rose and lime, cured lemon and rosemary, cured orange peel and cocoa nibs, mint and cocoa nibs, mango and cucumber. Blue pea flower is the one that photographs best: it shifts colour as the tonic and citrus hit it.

Happy hour runs four to six every day, when a Beefeater fish bowl is 90,000 ₫ and a Bombay one 120,000 ₫, any style. After six the list runs from 120,000 ₫ for Beefeater to 250,000 ₫ for The Botanist or Saigon Baigur, before VAT.

If a fish bowl is more than the evening needs, the seven house gin infusions come in a normal glass: phở, strawberry with basil and black pepper, Vietnamese plum and sea salt, pistachio and fig, pear with almond and clove, mangosteen and rose, Vietnamese nectarine.