Que Viet

We found ourselves in Shoreditch on a rainy Saturday night, so decided to venture to the Kingsland road strip for a quick meal. Que Viet, formerly Au Lac, was buzzing with people, so we gave it a go.

Food

The menu is quite varied and covers a mostly Vietnamese, but also other Asian influenced dishes as well. Since we were testing out the new restaurant, we opted for our standard tester. Vietnamese Spring Roll was not my favourite. Instead of your usual spring roll filling, you get a dumpling stuff minced meat filling, so felt like you were eating a big meat ball coated with some oily pastry. The redeeming grace is only the nicely balanced nam chun sauce.

Pho with well done Beef Flank flared better. The soup was not too bad, in that it was not too salty, but was quite light in flavour. Not a notch on Café East, but much better than Song Que. After putting in all the herbs and chilli, you finally got some taste. The noodles were well done though. The Lemonglass Pork also suffered from a lack of complex flavour, with although the texture of the pork was very pleasant. All in all, not a bad meal, but really not somewhere where I can’t wait to go back.

Rating - 5.5

Atmosphere

They really squashed us in. We were sitting so close to the next table I could hear every word in their conversation. The décor is very cheap, and their Christmas decorations even cheaper.

Rating - 0.5

Service

There were lots of waiters hanging around. One opened the door and sent you off. They folded all your umbrellas for you, and there is always someone there to clear your plate. So the place is great for a quick feed, and the waiters are efficient, if intrusive.

Rating - 3

C-factor

£19.03 altogether. Very cheap for a quick feed.

Rating - 2

Brownie Points - 11

Info

104 Kingsland Road
London
E2 8DP
Phone +44 (0) 20 7033 0588