LondOntheinside really like Cay Tre so imagine our delight when we found out they owned another restaurant, just around the corner on Kingsland Road. Viet Grill is a lot bigger than Cay Tre which is great because it means you hardly ever need to queue. The décor is nice, the staff are great but the food is the real winner here!
Fighting off stiff competition from their neighbours the Viet Grill still manages to be bustling every night. We started off with the Mango salad and Beef Vinh both dishes recommended by the chef. The Mango salad served with Sun dried squid, mint, smashed nut, julienned mango and sweet chilli sauce was fab. This was the first time we had tried mango salad usually opting for Papaya but it won’t be the last! The staff kindly shared their recipe so watch this space…
The Beef Vinh a roll of five-spice charcoal-grilled beef filet was cooked to perfection, the meat required minimum chewing (always a plus!) and the spices worked well with the meaty flavours.
For main we opted for Seabass Chien Gion, a personal favourite from our visits to Cay Tre, Bong xao sup lo, egg fried rice and plain noodles with bean sprouts and onion. First up the Bong xao sup lo, pork with tiger prawns, shitake mushrooms, cauliflower, wood ear mushrooms and Thai celery, what a dish! For £9 you could literally feed a family of four on this, we had never come across a dish that listed tiger prawns as an additional ingredient and actually contained more than three. Great value and a big thumbs up!
The Seabass served with mango in fish sauce was tasty, a good piece of fish with a light, sweet sauce. Like we said this is one of our favourite dishes so it never fails to impress. The noodles and rice were good, both none greasy and massive portions that we struggled to finish. There is also a good wine menu which you don’t often get in Vietnamese restaurants.
We finished with a glass of Thanh Mai , fermented plum apricot wine, on the rocks, a Hanoi local drink. A little too strong for us but worth a try.
All in all a quality meal and great value. Before you ask, yes we will go back, we are even contemplating reserving a table for our birthday. Especially now we know it stays open until 1am Friday and Saturday, perfect for those evenings when you want to have another drink but don’t want to move on to a pub.
Viet Grill, 58 Kingsland Road, Shoreditch, London, E2 8DP
http://www.vietnamesekitchen.co.uk/
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