I was quite excited to have lunch there as I really like Vietnamese dishes.
I went for lunch with my friend Melissa Foodie . The place was busy, so we only managed to get a table on the ground floor next to the entrance with a view of the kitchen.
To start our meal, my friend ordered a tea. Unfortunately because of the trendy use of enamel glasses to serve tea in this restaurant she didn't manage to drink it until the end of her meal as it was too hot to touch.
We shared two starters : the coconut calamari with sweet chili and the Vietnamese spring rolls. Both starters were good and crispy. I didn't really taste coconut while eating the deep fried calamari but they tasted lighter than the classic ones. The sweet chili sauce was quite tasty, it came in a small tube which gave a modern touch to the dish.
Regarding the spring rolls they were pretty small andI only had a tiny bite however my friend seemed to enjoy them. She switched the classic nuoc cham sauce for the spicy red sauce available on our table.
As a main dish my friend ordered the Pho Chin which was a slow cooked marbled beef in soup. To quote my friend, she thought her pho was literally a bowl of hot water and tasteless noodles. It was the worst pho she had for a long time. I tried a spoon of her pho and it's true that it could have been a bit more flavourful. It was nothing compare to the pho I tried at Ngon Ngon.
My dish was a bun tom nurong, a massive plate of plain noodles with coriander, mint, cucumber and chargrilled fresh tiger prawns. It came with some nuoc cham sauce to pore over the plate. It was alright but there was nothing really special about it. Again it needed a bit of flavour to be better.
Overall I don't think I will go back to Viet Food and so does my friend, as apart from the starters, the dishes were flavourless. I would rather commute to get a proper good and tasty Vietnamese meal in Clerkenwell (Ngon Ngon or Banh Mi Bay) or in Shoreditch (Mien Tay).
4/10
Viet Food
34-36 Wardour Street
London W1D 6QT
Twitter: @VietFoodLondon