Vietnamese Street Food

I needed a warming meal after getting drenched in the rain, looking for something cheap and cheerful. Unfortunately, my old favourites in Lisle Street have long gone and everthing has gone a bit glitzy and shiny.
MIght as well go for something that isn’t even Chinese … VSF looked like the best bet for dining by myself with a few seats dotted along the windows. Orders were taken superfast and the food arrived in no time — perhaps a bit too quick as the onions in my stir fried duck with green papaya were still raw.
Actually, the dish would be better names as stir fry of spring onions and red onions with a bit of duck and a garnish of papaya. Very disappointing at £8, which didn’t even include the rice, the latter was nice and sticky but not even salted (no wonder they tried to upsell me the lemon grass variety).
Looking at the other reviews, I must have caught them on a bad day. The place was packed out.

Food is not that authentic, but for the area, that is excusable. If you are looking for real Vietnamese food, go somewhere else. For food that’s ok, this is pretty safe.

We chose this restaurant after a lot of deliberation. This is a highly competitive situation, and we took our time walking around to see what else was there. It was absolutely the right choice.
The food is amazing. We had two versions of the usual vermicelli bowls and spring rolls. The spring rolls blew us away – maybe it’s normal over here but we have not found any like this in Canada. Super crispy, with a weird lattice kind of structure instead of the common wrapper you normally find. The vermicelli bowls were better due to their attention to detail in the vegetables and freshness. It’s all chopped with finesse and includes fresh basil and mint. Again, seems obvious but looking back, a lot of similar restaurants don’t have as much work put into those aspects.
I don’t care about anything else in that situation – the cash only thing has no bearing on the food.

Vietnamese Street Food (creative name) has just popped up in the location of the old «Vietnamese Restaurant» on Wardour Street, just off the corner of Gerrard Street. I have no idea if it’s run by the same people and it’s undergone rebranding or if it’s totally new, but I went here the other day as, well, there was space there on a Thursday evening.
VSF has an odd feel to it — its interior is now creamy beige (formerly deep red) and seems to be aiming to be a bit more upscale (classical music, menus printed on that kind of rustic brown paper) but really it’s just the paint. Still, I never go somewhere for the ambience and this just amused me more than anything. Unfortunately it’s a cash-​only place, so be prepared for that. Yes, that shouldn’t be happening in this day and age but what can you do?
The menu is pretty straightforward and there’s nothing out of the ordinary here — a few phos, buns, starters, about 8 – 10 main dishes. We had the pork-​stuffed baby squid and some spring rolls to start, and I had a garlic beef phở for mains. The starters were fine — the baby squid was nicely charred on the outside, but the filling was ever so dry and probably needed a little more flavour (garlic and stuff). Still, not bad by any means. The spring rolls were ok too, I was happy with them. I do like a good garlic phở as it’s a little different — Que Viet on Kingsland Road do my favourite rendition of this. The one here wasn’t bad — they claim that the soup’s prepared over 16 hours, but the broth doesn’t have a particularly amazing depth of flavour. Still, it’s not insipid like a lot of places, but I find that it really does need a little something extra. The noodles were a liiiittle bit squishier than I’d like, but that’s me being picky. I did think the beef was done nicely.
I wasn’t really expecting the world when I went in but the dishes I had were pretty good and it earned a solid 3*. I’m tagging on an extra star for the fact that I left my umbrella behind and the waitress chased me 50 metres down the road to give it back to me. I was feeling pretty shitty and that really made my day better — I can’t be anything but pleased with that kind of service.