Tay Do

Ever since I moved to London, I've been hankering for some good Vietnamese food. Alas, that doesn't exist here, and Tay Do is the best you can get.

Food

The menu is quite extensive, even for a Vietnamese restaurant. We ordered some starters to share:

• Vietnamese Spring Rolls (£4) - made using the traditional wrapper. It was a bit too heavy, but the filling was fresh and tasty, and went down well wrapped in lettuce.
• Traditional Vietnamese Pancake (Prawns & Chicken/Pork) (£4.50) - a bit big and hard to share. It was nice but not overly so.
• Green Papaya Salad (Pranws/Pork/Prawns & Pork) (£5.50) - my pick for the night. I had been hankering for papaya salad ever since Thailand. This one was fresh, with a killer sauce to boot.

For mains, I, for once, decided to forgo the usual pho to try the intriguing sounding Hot & Spicy Crab Special Rice vermicelli Soup (£6). The result is much more boring. The soup is a tomato based broth that has all sorts of herbs and spices added to give it flavour, but it wasn't really very hot and spicy. And the crab? Well, I didn't expect to get anything much for a soup that price, and I didn't get anything. Still, the soup is pleasant enough, enough for me to want to come back in the future and try that pho.

Rating - 6.5

Atmosphere

It was quiet on this Tuesday night. Obviously another family run affair, with modest and very homely and mish mash decor. The whole family seems to have fronted up tonight.

Rating - 1.5

Service

I would describe it as strange, and I don't even mean that in the Asian way! Some things they did so well, but they were kind of aloof, and had to be asked several times before they poured us any tea.

Rating - 1.5

C-factor

As far as London goes, it's cheap enough. Just don't convert the prices on what you could get in Vietnam or even Australia, and you'll be right.

Rating - 1

Brownie Points - 10.5

Info

65 Kingsland Rd
London
E2 8AG
Phone+44 (0) 20 7729 7223