Vietnamese Summer Eats!

We should indeed keep calm in the face of difference, and live our lives in a state of inclusion and wonder at the diversity of humanity.

George Takei

Well, it’s scorchio in London again this weekend, clear skies, 30° and a real summer feel – welcome, it’s been like this all week but I’ve missed most of it as I’ve been working nights… grrrrrrrr… I love eating out at this time of year, especially restaurants with a far eastern flavour, it’s just so evocative of the places they represent. I’ve not done a favs list for a while and I know many of you like to spend some time in London so, here’s a list of my favourite Vietnamese restaurants in town.

Sông Quê – Hoxton – literally just around the corner from the Hoxton Overground

Friends of pho make a beeline for the excellent Vietnamese noodle soups here – always on song at Sông Quê!

This is still the star of the Kingsland Road Vietnamese scene. Big, light, airy, buzzy (if slightly resembling a school canteen), Song Que is constantly packed with happy customers including many families and a good showing of Vietnamese locals. There’s usually a warm welcome from one of the many staff, who deliver prompt, efficient and friendly service.

Food is almost always first class and highly authentic – and really good value. Flavours are full and true, and textures perfect, bringing the best out of each dish.

As well as the pho, Their starters are excellent also, they include a skilfully executed cross between a prawn toast and a banh mi: what seemed like a butterflied whole king prawn on a baguette slice beneath the minced prawn mixture – a real texture treat, yummy!!

Banh Banh – Peckham – Nearest station, Peckham Rye, ten minutes walk!

Now happily embedded in Peckham, this former street-food outfit serves up classic Vietnamese dishes in a modest, neutrally decorated, plywood-clad setting. Classics such as summer rolls, pho and noodle salad share the billing with more unusual ideas including the house special – bánh khot pancakes filled with prawns and topped with spring onion.

The restaurant is run by five siblings of the Nguyen family, who have based their menu on recipes left behind by their grandmother, who worked as a chef in Saigon in the 1940s.

Granny Nguyen was clearly a bit of a trailblazer. As well as the classic Vietnamese dishes you’d expect, (summer rolls, pho, noodle salad) there are plenty that you may not, such as the house special banh khot pancakes – gob-sized eggy hemispheres filled with juicy prawns and topped with spring onion, served still-cooking in a cast-iron skillet, with leaves and dipping sauce on the side.

Green Papaya – Hackney – Not far from London Fields Overground

Located halfway down Mare Street behind an apparently run-down façade, Green Papaya feels like a quiet club. It’s a charming little place: long-established, family-run, simple and well loved. Customers are a mixed bunch, from American hipster tourists to dapper older-generation Caribbean couples in their Sunday best, complete with hats.

Service is laid-back yet efficient and welcoming, and the food simply superb. Soft-shell crab with salt and chilli is exactly as it should be, with discernible chunks of flavoursome, well-textured crab in a crunchy, tasty batter. The food here seems to come from a slightly different tradition from that of most London competitors: grilled spicy lamb with cumin, a rarity on most Vietnamese menus, was a revelation – the flavour of the lamb highlighted rather than masked by the treatment. Lamb slow-cooked with lemongrass, galangal and coconut milk is an enticing alternative.

Cây Tre – Soho – Not far from Leicester Square Tube, about five minutes’ walk.

The original branch of Cây Tre gave many Londoners their first taste of pho and helped to crank up London’s Vietnamese bandwagon, the younger Soho sibling of the original Hoxton restaurant, offers just about everything you might expect – from chic, minimalist decor and impeccably smart staff to beautifully served food. The freshened-up interiors blend cool white tables with bamboo wall art, while the menu is big on carefully sourced ingredients of impeccable provenance – witness grilled oysters with shallot oil and peanut topping, lemon-cured beef salad with knotweed or wok-fried lamb with chilli and sweet onions. Singletons can bag stools at the front and slurp bowls of pho while listening to the throbbing soundtrack – perhaps with a cocktail on the side. The owners also run Kêu (a bánh mì pitstop in Soho) and the Viet Grill on Kingsland Road, perfect little place for my SL bestie Deep!

Banh Mi Bay – Holborn – nearest tube, Chancery Lane.

Most of London’s Vietnamese restaurants are clustered around Shoreditch and Hackney, so it’s a bonus to find a more centrally located venue in which to load up on pho (rice noodle soup), summer rolls, banh xeo (pancake) and other Viet classics. At lunchtime, many local workers pop in for takeaway banh mi: a crisp baguette stuffed with pickled carrot and daikon, cucumber, coriander and chilli, plus a filling of your choice – perhaps chargrilled beef or prawn, or spicy pork.

Pho comes in beef and chicken variants, plus a vegetarian option that’s packed with tofu, mushrooms, carrots and daikon; the broth doesn’t have the depth of flavour it could, but is a decent enough rendition. For a zingy starter, go for the goi: crisp, shredded vegetables in a chilli-citrus dressing topped with crushed peanuts, with prawns and pork as optional extras.

City Caphe – slap bang in the city – nearest tube – Bank.

Long before you see this charming little Vietnamese café, you’ll smell some enticing aromas wafting down the street. At lunchtime, you can expect to see a line of City workers at the door; staff are calmly efficient, so don’t baulk at the length of the queue – it disappears in no time.

The menu is easy to follow. Choose from lightly spiced noodle soups (bun hue or pho), Vietnamese baguettes (banh mi), vermicelli salads, jasmine rice dishes and spring rolls. Most options are available with beef, pork, chicken or tofu – and there’s a prawn soup. The ‘classic pork’ banh mi comes with a succulent cold cut of pork, earthy liver pâté, fiery chilli, crunchy veg and fresh coriander, all in a light crispy baguette. Vegetarian rice-paper summer rolls, with a hint of lemongrass, are delicate and refreshing.

Just a few of my favs, if you get chance and you find yourself not far from one of these, I can recommend all of them very highly!

What’s on this week?