Viet Hoa Cafe

Waited 45 minutes and never got our food! Terrible service. Mien Tay, on the same street, is much better.

After the disaster of Clutch being closed for lunch despite me having a confirmed reservation via Opentable, I wandered down to Shoreditch
Viet Hoa was offering phở, a perfect tonic to lift me from my disappointment. The beef broth was satisfying rich and deep though I I wished they offered the option of more beef combinations. I went with the rare beef, which was nice
The crispy pork belly was nice without being super memorable. It was served skin side down on the plate, which was the first time I’ve ever seen it presented that way
A good solid meal to get over my disappointment

Although the inside of this place is nicely decorated and the idea of BYOB is appealing we had a terrible meal here on Friday mid December.
We had booked a table and when we turned up were shown downstairs where it was empty.
It took forever for the waiter to bring menus and then even longer to bring glasses for our drinks. We had to go and find him to order our food.
All the starters we had were bland and cold (of which we sent 2 back). After this complaint — with barely an apology — we thought the mains would be hot at least but a few mains came out cold again!
The only thing I can recommend is the duck main which was hot and yummy!
We got the service removed and the cold main dish but that was all that was offered and actually came to quite a pricey bill seeing as we brought all the wine and beer with us!
Not impressed and will not be returning

I went in because I liked the look of the lighting. What I got was some of the tastiest modern Vietnamese I’ve had in London. The vegetable starter for two was heaping with some tasty, salty fried tofu and a variety of wraps and tempura; the ca tom (stuffed aubergine) sounded great on the menu and tasted even better. There’s a long communal table down the center which is great for groups. Service was slower than I’d like, but it was the end of the night. Would definitely go again!

Good food, definitely above average Vietnamese food. Appetisers were delicious. We had the crystal rolls and the paper wrapped prawns: both were excellent. The paper wrapped prawns were particularly good, but the satay sauce which came with the crystal rolls was exceptional.
For our main course, my two friends had phở. The broth was delicately flavoured. The belly pork phở was reported to have been really good. Unfortunately, I had the mixed seafood spicy phở. The flavour was not as fully developed as the basic phở and it came with three prawns instead of other seafood (I asked about this and they changed it and the new soup came with mussels and calamari as well). It was ok in the end, but it should have come like that to begin with.
The Vietnamese beer was great too!

Really yummy Vietnamese in the heart of the east end. Not too pricey and not too noisy/​busy. Our starters came out really quickly. Not pretentious. A good option for a quick phở!

Stumbled Across this place when I was meeting 5 friends for dinner in Shoreditch. It’s a traditional vietnamese restaurant with contemporary flare. They have big
Round tables, as well as bar leaners. Great for groups
And children.
The menu is extensive with heaps of options. There are so many yummy options it almost makes it hard to choose what to eat!
We started with the prawn summer rolls and chicken satay. Both were delightful. The summer rolls were fresh and light with traditional peanut sauce to match. The chicken satay was very crispy, yummy, tender, and the satay sauce crunchy and pretty yummy!
For my main I had the sizzling salmon, it was super hot but very yum, it almost tastes like teriyaki salmon, its done with eggplant and bean sprouts, I had coconut rice and morning glory greens to match.
I had a Margherita cocktail which was also perfectly made. My friends had Beef & Prawn Phở, and the duck, they all licked their plates clean.
This place was a great find and I would definitely recommend coming here.

Great food. As fresh as can be. Clean décor. Friendly staff. Phở tai was of the Northern Vietnam style (not sweet). Spring rolls and summer rolls were fresh and light. The coffee was truly Vietnamese coffee. Reasonably priced, especially compared to other London Vietnamese restaurants. Simply the best phở in UK.

Went for the shaking beef, aka Bo Luc Lac, typically with the garnish of slices of tomatoes, however in the vinegar dressing, the tomatoes become soggy and sour — not a good taste or texture in the mouth. The beef was not full of flavour, hence the soy sauce with chopped chilli on the side. The beef was slightly chewy, but not tough, so I guess thats OK… Moving on, the salad in Viet Hoa for the shaking beef dish is always lettuce. The water from the lettuce mixes with the dressing and by the last piece of beef you are wondering if it is dressing or water that is at the bottom of the plate. (Warning: if you are not a fan of coriander, inform the waiter — this dish is meddled with plenty of it!) Also watch out of the red chilli, but they are not super spicy.
The morning glory, which is like a fibrous spinach, is strongly flavoured with garlic, very oily, topped with fried onions and red chopped chilli. Its a nice additional side, but I am tempted to try another veg side dish.
Also went for a chicken curry. I guess a mistake on our part for choosing such a boring dish at a Vietnamese restaurant, and a mistake it was when we had a first bite. The chicken was overcooked, the sauce had a coconut milk flavour and it was more closer to that of a dish from Thailand than Vietnam. A curry from a can would’ve tasted better — Awful! I think there were boiled carrots in there which tasted like carrots from you would get from Homerton Hospital up the road !
Lesson learnt — order authentic dishes, and hope the restaurant follows through !

Since the change of management a couple of weeks ago this place has gone seriously downhill. Many of the old favourites are no longer on the menu and what’s left is overpriced and not very good. I had a tofu dish which had no flavour, a beef dish which was 70% bones (and overlooked), and a ‘half duck’ which must have come from a midget bird. I’m not going back.

Um, yeah, grand. Smallish and expensiveish and indifferent service. It’s fine, but I feel like you could walk a bit further on and not be bothered. Has the hallmarks of a place that’s just decided to posh up and it isn’t going particularly well. Short, one-​page menu, but mostly with the boringish things on it.
And no shaken beef. Seriously. What on earth?

I honestly don’t understand the poor reviews this place has been getting (well, to be fair, the bad reviews are going back more than a year).
I’ve been here 4 – 5 times, and every single time, these guys have hit it waaaaay out of the park. Home run, each and every time. Ok, enough with the sports metaphors.
Before I get into the food, let’s talk about the décor for a minute; this place looks sleek, it’s all wood, looks super modern, and it’s got this long communal bar height table in the centre… which is usually where I like to sit if I’m with a +1; larger groups might want their own sit down table. Little tip… the bathroom is hidden against the right wall… the door is seamless blended into the décor. Clever. And disturbing.
The food here is excellent; I’ve had a fair amount of Vietnamese food, either on Kingsland Road, or in Highbury, and this place has got it right. In my multiple trips here, I’ve had the:
— Fresh prawn summer rolls: nicely balanced, good size prawns, the rice paper is not too thick that it sucks all the saliva out of your mouth, and not too thin that it falls apart the moment you pick it up with chopsticks. Always a nice choice.
— Prawns & Pork Crispy Pancake: not too greasy, and just so good with that fish sauce, sweet chili and vinegar dressing… just needs some bigger pieces of lettuce and some more mint leaves for garnish.
— Grilled Beef in Betel Leaf: for me that is the star of the menu… this dish is totally out of control, the explosion of taste from the betel leaf, which is not overbearing and blends so well with the barbequed beef, I’m drooling on my keyboard as I write this. This dish is a MUST HAVE.
— Grilled Seabass with Sweet Chilli Sauce: This dish looks impressive, unfortunately for me this was the most disappointing thing I’ve had; not because it doesn’t taste good, but more because it is not deboned, which makes this a difficult one to eat. I love fish, but have always had a thing with fish bones. But it comes wrapped in a banana leaf, is soooo fragrant, and the pieces you do get without bones are soooo good! So if you’re fearless, you’ll like this. If you’re like me, you might pass or ask for them to fillet it for you (don’t know if they’ll do that).
— Shaking Beef: Pretty good, nice little pieces of steak, but nothing out of the ordinary.
— Stir-​fried Rau moung — morning glory with garlic sauce: interesting vegetable, never had it before; it looks and tastes healthy :)
All this washed down with a 12£ bottle of sauvignon blanc. Not too bad.
If you ask me, this place is awesome with appetizers… the mains are a bit hit and miss… but I usually order so many appetizers that the main doesn’t usually ‘take over’ the meal.
I’ll keep coming back here, for sure.

The GO to spot in shoreditch for Vietnamese Food! Once a little funky hole in the wall and now this massive open space. Salt & Pepper Prawns is my fave and well the whole menu! To go too! AND the Fried Ice Cream is EVIL! ;-D

I was seriously impressed with the mock duck here — massive portion and loads of pancakes. Would happily just go back for these! The aubergine and black bean curry was also phenomenal. I am getting hungry just remembering what this was like.
I’m having trouble recalling other dishes but there was a tofu satay which was OK and a very odd deep fried aubergine dish.
Overall would return and focus on the stand-​out dishes :)

I like Vietnamese food. I like eating Vietnamese food at the many places on Kingsland Road. I hadn’t yet been to the newly revamped Viet Hoa, so I cajoled my willing bestie into taking me there for an evening of tastiness.
UGH.
Don’t bother. The food was mediocre to poor — lacking in flavour, and certainly not as fresh as it should be, and the service was appalling. We were put in the corner and ignored for the majority of our meal — at one point I had to raise my hand and wave it around to get someone to notice it, after 5 fruitless minutes of attempting to catch someones eye (very obviously I may add).
When I told the waitress we would not be paying the automatically added service charge, she looked very surprised — I explained why and also pointed at the almost uneaten, tasteless oilfest of a vegetable pancake sitting in front of me. She wandered off mid sentence and returned with a half hearted apology, informing us she’d mentioned it to the kitchen. Right.
Maybe it was a bad day for them? Even so, there are many far superior restaurants seconds away — any one with a Time Out award sticker in the window tends to be good — trust me, go to one of those instead!

(Note: review written a year ago on another site) I went there on a Friday and we were told the wait for a table would be a few minutes. There was only one couple in front of us. We waited and observed some very inefficient and disorganised service amongst the waiters/​waitresses. I think there were about 4 tables ready to pay but ended up taking more than 30 minutes for our table.
We sat down but had to call a waiter to order our food after waiting a long time. Food was fairly quick as it was already 9:30pm but did not taste authentic compared to others I’ve tried. I had the lemongrass and chilli chicken and was surprised at how small the dish was (probably half a chicken breast). The dish tasted more like teriyaki chicken and was too sweet. Spring rolls came burnt and the vermicelli and grilled prawns with salad was bland. Overall a bad experience and we won’t be going back again for sure. I’ve tried two others on the same street which were miles better.

Being Vietnamese myself, I can say that the food here is fairly authentic, but by far no means the best Vietnamese cuisine in London.
The portions are fairly decent, but the prices are bit more than other surrounding Vietnamese restaurants. The interior, however, is much nicer than other restaurants. You won’t find any random dragons or lotus flowers emblazoned on the walls or listen to terrible cai luong that seems to be omnipresent in many Vietnamese establishments here.
The service was a bit slow, and it took around 15 minutes for us to receive our food, which was odd since there was only one other customer at the time.
The goi tom has good flavoring, although I wish there was some lotus in it. The prawns were fresh and sweet. The salt and pepper squid was also good but lacking in the spice category a bit for my taste. I also ordered the phở bo (beef) and it had decent flavor but I wish there was a bit more nuoc mam. Also, the beef should be cut a bit thinner and put in the last second so the beef is still rare when served. The beef came thoroughly cooked to my disappointment.
All in all the food was decent, and I would return when in need of a less crowded Vietnamese restaurant with a nice ambience.

Super restaurant vietnamien en plein cœur de Londres.
Leur soupe phõ est très bonne et bien que la présentation de leur banh cuõn soit un peu déroutante, c’était excellent.
Le service est bon et les tarifs sont abordables (selon le cours de la Livre Sterling, hein), puisqu’ils sont un tout petit peu plus chers que dans nos restaurants du 13ème arrondissement de Paris.
Le rez-​de-​chaussé était bondé lorsque j’y suis allée, mais ils ont un sous-​sol spacieux et très calme.
Je vous recommande ce restaurant si vous passez dans le coin!

A friends leaving do brought me back to Kingsland Rd on Saturday night to another Vietnamese restaurant. I was hoping it would be just as good, if not better than the Viet Grill nextdoor. We were very disappointed.
The décor wasn’t as vibrant as nextdoor and felt a little clinical downstairs. My friend had reserved the whole of the downstairs — and although there were other peripheral tables, we did not expect any one to be sitting on them as there were around 30 of us. This led to very poor service from the staff as they struggled to cope with our large party and the other tables filled with more hungry customers. I can see no reason why they would do such a thing other than greed! Empty dishes from each course were not cleared away before the next and bowls weren’t given out to eat rice with. The worst part was the skimpy portion sizes, many of us were left wanting despite 3 starters to share, 5 mains to share with side dishes of rice and 1 dessert each. The food also didn’t come all at once with each course but in dribs and drabs. So we had a couple of main dishes turn up long after all the rice had been eaten when people had more or less finished.
The one redeeming factor for me was their cocktails which were very well made (if a little slow on the make). I don’t think I will be hurrying back anytime soon, much rather pop in nextdoor to the Viet Grill.

Viet Hoa has recently undergone a complete transformation taking it from a basic looking restaurant indistinguishable from the dozen others on Kingsland Road to a chic wood clad streamlined space with a beautiful logo and front.
That however is the only thing that can elevate it above it’s competitors. The food is well priced and decent, but the service is appaling. In the last 3 months I have been 5 times (unfortunately) and each time the service has been worse than the last. Menus weren’t given to us, drinks and starters were forgotten, and a dish containing coconut milk was substituted for one containing tamarind. The staff appear to be totally clueless and due to the din are generally unable to hear anything you say unless you shout.
Next time I’ll think about the average 15 minutes I’ve waited to pay my bill and go somewhere a little less pretty.

Kingsland Rd is famed for it’s Vietnamese restaurants, of which there are many. I have sampled them all, a lot when rather tipsy, and this is my favourite by far.
Décor is very simple, with plastic tables and table clothes. This gives the impression that food will be dirt cheap too — it’s not, but it is quite reasonable. Main dishes cost around £8, but you can get noodles for as little as £2.50, so good for budget eating.
A fantastic thing about this (And other) Vietnamese is that it’s a BYO, so you can pop into the off licence next door and load up on cheap cans or wine, and take it in with you. The pleasure will cost you £1 per person (corkage charge), if you’re not a drinker then stick with tap water, but for drinkers it’s inevitably way cheaper than buying alcohol in house.
I absolutely love the chilli sauce that’s on the tables, it’s so nice and males the meal. The menu features lots of veggie dishes, although i find they tend to overcook the tofu a little.
This is a fantastic place for large groups, go here for a meal and then continue into the East End night. Oh, and Viet Hoa is open until WELL into the night, midnight on a weekend, so perfect if you’re peckish on your way home. Does get busy though, especially around ‘peak’ hours.