At the corner of Trần Nhật Duật and Cao Thắng streets in Hanoi’s Old Quarter, the breakfast queue began before most people would call it morning. A VnExpress guide published in 2019 described a bánh mì cart open only from 3 to 7 a.m., with a line visible from a distance. Customers waited about fifteen minutes for a 20,000-đồng sandwich filled with a cooked mixture of egg, pâté, butter, ham and sausage. There were no tables; the bread was taken away or eaten beside stairs and on the pavement. This was not an ordinary commuter rush. Night-time diners and people beginning exceptionally early days met at the boundary between the sleeping city and the working one. With only four hours of business, the queue functioned as the stall’s clock.