Vietnam, South Australia by Big Fil

I know it's a pretty sweeping statement given that I only visit for one week each year, but generally speaking I don't think much of the Asian restaurants in Adelaide. I tend to visit only the better known ones but even these are on the poor side, or at best mediocre. That's not to say there aren't any places that I like, and one thing these have in common is they tend to be popular but not the most popular places in Adelaide. The exception to this is Vietnam.


Vietnam certainly is popular. We got there pretty early before most people arrived, but both seatings were booked out on the Sunday night we visited. While it seemed pretty cramped to me Hungry Pete indicated that on Saturdays they try to cram even more diners in.


Hungry Pete and Ruby's young coconut juice was served in the shell, which was pretty cute. I on the other hand made the mistake of ordering the pineapple juice, which was obviously not fresh. In fact it was a pretty good example of a bad canned or bottled pineapple juice.


Hungry Pete indicated that serving sizes were pretty large so we went with two entrees and two mains between the three of us. I suspect dishes were brought out as made because we received our mains before the entrees (which arrived a couple of minutes later). First dish to arrive was the rare beef salad. This is one of my favourite Vietnamese dishes, with the chilli and touch of citrus adding a nice 'zing' to the dish.


Next to arrive was the soft shell crab, followed immediately by the rice paper rolls. This was a bit unfortunate, as while I tried the crab the others got stuck into making their rice paper rolls. This meant that while I liked this quite a lot, it was on the cold side by the time they got around to it. Probably the number one issue of the night and caused by the kitchen not cooking the dishes in the order we would have expected.


All of us are big fans of making our own rice paper rolls, even though ours never look anywhere near as good as the ones prepared by the restaurant. It should be fairly easy - wet your rice paper, lay it down flat, layer it with the chosen fillings and wrap it up tight into a cigar shaped roll. However ours always seem to turn out looking like rice paper rolls by Dr Frankenstein. Guess it just means we need more practice. Shame about that.

We went for both the skewered mince pork balls and the sugar cane skewed minced king prawns, with my favourite being the pork. These had a slightly spicy (but not hot) pork flavour, whereas I found the prawn a little bland in comparison (but still good).


The last dish to arrive was our second entrée, the barbeque quails. Hungry Pete had raved about these but while they were good, it would have been better if they'd been brought out first as they had gone a little cold. However they were still sweet with a good meaty flavour. It's almost impossible to eat these other than with your hands so the hand towels provided were much appreciated.


Overall
Good food, generally good and friendly service, in a nice if cramped suburban restaurant with prices on the higher side but not unreasonable. Not so much a place to visit everyday but somewhere I'd be happy to visit once a month or so.

Verdict
Food - 8
Service 7.5
Ambience - 7
Price - 6.5

Address
73 Addison Road
Pennington 5013
Tel: (08) 8447 3395