Monday 8th March 2010
Restaurant: Viet Grill, Kingsland Road
Price per person: £15 per person inc service
Rating: 4 out of 5
Currently Munching: Baxters French onion soup with lashings of grated Leerdammer! (yes this is the second time i have mentioned Leerdammer in my blog...)
I have found the best Vietnamese food in London, so good that I can still taste it thinking back which is always a good indicator in my books! The location and name is Viet Grill on Kingsland Road, a place previously recommended to me by a colleague and a recommendation that was totally lived up to. Me and my mate Jen arrived at nearly 3pm on a Friday to grab a late bite and were happy to see a few tables meandering (nothing worse than an empty restaurant!). The menu is big and has a massive variety of dishes; I would defy anyone not to find something to their tastes. The little smiley faces next to dishes indicated the most traditional dishes which was a great touch as I personally like to know when I am eating something authentic. Jen and I were lucky enough to get there just in time to order from the ‘One Dish Meals’ menu where selected dishes were £5 instead of £7 and upwards. We ordered 3 dishes, enough for 3 people but we (or I) were feeling like greedy pigs and wanted to try lots of stuff. We went for Com h¬i s¬n xào rau (Scallops, prawns and squid with vegetables and rice), Bún Nem ‘Spring Bowl’ (imperial and prawn spring rolls with rice vermicelli and fresh herb salad), and Min xào tôm cua (sea crab and tiger prawn with cassava vermincilkli and knot weed). The salad was so fresh and vibrant, crunchy and great range of textures and the noodles were al dente and slick - the rolls were outstanding, the one wrapped in a leaf was especially good with its sweet/hot/sour filling. The rice dish was a little boring for me but Jen loved it, and it was certainly full of massive prawns and huge pieces of well cooked squid. My favourite was the Min xào tôm cua and if someone handing me a bowl of it right now I would gulp it down. I had been desperate to try cassava noodles after learning that they are like 11cals a portion (god bless cassava). Again, the seafood was plentiful and the creamy hint of coconut milk in the sauce gave in a rich and luxurious flavour but was not too heavy, balancing perfectly with the freshly chopped knot weed - a totally winning dish. There was a good range of beers and wines too; we both had a Vietnamese lager just to keep in the spirit of things!
The only down side was the over vigilant service, for example we asked for a drink menu and before it was even in my hand the waitress was demanding I order my drink; when I asked for a couple of minutes she literally returned in ten seconds and hovered until I chose something. I think though this can be taken with a pinch of salt though, because it is fair to expect this kind of service in this sector of restaurants, the same with Thai and Chinese establishments, and she was very good natured when I told her to go away twice! all our left over’s were happily wrapped up for us, and for £13 a head I will be running back there as soon as I can for more cassava noodles! It really was a pleasure.
