Veggie Bites

I had the day off and was doing some late Christmas shopping (usually I don’t shop in December!), so Martin and I decided to have lunch together. This place used to be in Dickson and we ate there a couple of times a number of years ago, but I had not been here since it moved to Kingston. However, Martin had and he said it was pretty good. It was a hot and fairly humid day, but Martin talked me into a hot pot. Unfortunately I ordered the wrong one, so it wasn’t really what he expected, but it was still pretty good. But, back to the beginning! We started with fresh rice paper rolls which were pretty good! I would think that it would be pretty hard to get these wrong, so I will be very disappointed the day I get a bad one! Along with the Hoang Hau hot pot, we also had crispy spicy bean curd. The bean curd was crisply deep fried and smothered in lots of yummy chilli, garlic, shallots etc – one of my favourite dishes. The hot pot was a mix of veggies and bean curd with a sauce – simple and delicious. Next time I will be sure to order the correct hot pot dish as Martin says it is much better! I guess that means I will be going back!

If you are a regular veggie bites reader, then you will know that while I like the concept of Vietnamese food, I am yet to find a Vietnamese restaurant that really thrills me. I am not sure that this place thrilled me, but the food was good and cheap! I am pretty sure that Martin and I ate here a few times a few years ago, but I can’t remember whether we had a bad experience, or whether we just forgot that they existed! Anyway, some of my work colleagues really like this place, so we went here for a work lunch. We all had a veggie spring roll – they are much bigger than your standard spring roll – about 3 times the size actually, and they were really hot (temperature, not chilli). But they were really good! They came with a choice of sweet chilli sauce or hot chilli sauce – of course – being a chilli head, I preferred the later! I ordered the lemongrass and chilli veggies with tofu, while my colleagues ordered meat dishes. The meals were huge, and really quite yummy! I managed to eat most of mine by myself, while three mains were enough for the four others to share! In fact I thought mine was so good that I decided to grab a take away menu on the way out, however, it is a little disappointing as the dish I ordered doesn’t appear on it (in fact I am sure that quite a few dishes that were on the eat in menu do not appear on the take away menu!). Well, maybe I will head back there one day and try a few other veggie dishes and write them onto the take away menu myself!

I have yet to find a really good Vietnamese restaurant that I really like – maybe I am just not a huge fan of Vietnamese food – I always find it just a little disappointing – maybe I expect too much! We haven’t eaten here for a number of years, so when we had to head over that way, we decided to try some take away. We ordered spring rolls, red cooked bean curd, sate veggies and bean curd, and stir fried noodles with veggies and bean curd. The spring rolls were great, the red cooked bean curd was ok, but didn’t have a huge amount of flavour, and the noodles were very bland (especially so with boiled rice the next day for lunch – or so Martin said!). I think the highlight of the meal was the sate. I have yet to find a Vietnamese sate that I really like, but this one was great. I’m not sure that it is enough to entice me back though! There are other things I would like to eat!!

This is the second time that we have had home delivery from here – I think this place only does takeaway and home delivery, they are a tiny little ’shop’ in Ainslie shops and there is no room for tables! There are not many really good, traditional Vietnamese restaurants in Canberra, not that I have seen anyway! I wouldn’t call this one traditional, but the food isn’t bad. In fact, while eating I called it average, but Martin informed me that it was a bit better than average! The spring rolls are weird, most of the filling is mushed up, but then they also contain whole peas – explain that to me!! I don’t think we would bother with spring rolls again in the future. The veggies with bean curd and lemon grass was the highlight of the meal – when I opened the container, it looked like sweet chilli sauce had been poured on the top at the last minute, but the flavour of lemon grass was strong and sweet – just the way I like it. The sate veggies were ok, I think I prefer Thai style satay to the Vietnamese style. And finally the rice noodles were a bit bland, but certainly edible. I would like to re-try a few more of the other Vietnamese restaurants around Canberra to see if there is much difference.