A Vietnam fruit, though Dragon fruit it is not - Milk fruit

People in Malaysia are blessed with the availability of a wide variety of local fruits. Someone at the office once commented that her diet of fruits at lunch is as effective as the best diet pills in the market. Talking about fruits, yesterday, I had the chance of tasting a fruit I have not ever tasted before.

What do you think is this fruit? A round green fruit. Seen anything like it locally? This fruit comes all the way from Vietnam, Saigon to be exact or rather Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC).

I have no idea what it's called but this friend said people in Vietnam refer to it as a milk fruit because the juice looks and tastes milky. How it's eaten over there is to sort of roll or squeeze the fruit to make the contents soft and juicy so that it can be sucked out with a straw. I tried that but to no avail as the pulp is too thick for a straw to go through so what I did was to cut the fruit into half, as in the picture, and scoop up the flesh with a spoon. Yum! It's sweet and aromatic but if you dig in deeper, it becomes sappy and you'll find sap on your lips as a result but nothing to worry about. It can be easily wiped off.

Here's how the fruits look like. The fruits are greenish with a tinge of pink at the base the more ripe they become. The skin is smooth and has a shine, almost glossy. It's round (totally) and fits snugly in your grasp. It feels like a mango, only a little softer and a lot smoother and nicer. I know, it's only a fruit.. The leaves are interesting. They are green on the top but brown on the underside. It's a seasonal fruit and they are available December onwards. It's in abundance right now. That's a Malaysian fifty sen coin for comparison.

Btw, any Vietnamese resident reading this? Would appreciate your first-hand insight on this delicious fruit.