Huy Huy, Footscray by Big Fil

It's the New Years Day holiday. Hot, damned hot, and wherever you choose to go for lunch there is a greater than even chance it will be closed. Bearing this in mind Snooze and I headed to Footscray, as with all the options there something had to be open. The only caveat, no pho this time, as it had been a while since eating any Vietnamese food other than pho and bahn mi.

I'd tried Huy Huy with Hungry Pete a couple of years ago but hadn't been back since. I seemed to recall having a reasonable meal there so when we saw it was open we popped on in. Cool and inviting with pictures of Vietnamese scenes on the wall including rice paddies and rice paper drying, it's pretty typical in style to most places in the area but with a slightly more upmarket feel.


First impressions were good courtesy from the Auntie who served us. Softly spoken and friendly, she was like you want your real auntie to be. A quick perusal of the menu showed that most of the common favourites are available, and we were soon tucking into prawn and pork rice paper rolls, followed by the chicken coleslaw salad and squid with lemon grass and chilli.

Unfortunately the food didn't quite live up to our expectations. Not that it was bad, far from it, but despite the cheap eats stickers on the windows we didn't think there was anything which lifted it above that you'd expect to find in a randomly chosen Footscray café.

The rice paper rolls seemed quite light on for prawn. Also, the filling didn't have that fresh crunch of a really good rice paper roll.


While Snooze liked the chicken salad I thought it was fair only, mainly cabbage and quite low on for chicken. And while the squid and vegetables were nicely cooked, one quite tender and the other still crisp, it lacked the punchy flavours we expected from a chilli and lemon grass dish.



Overall

Given it’s a bit of a journey for us out to Footscray we were hoping for something a little better. It's quite a nice café and service is certainly better than par, both fast and friendly, but the food was mediocre, not bad, just middling. Punch up the flavour quotient a bit and it could turn into a favourite, as the service and fit out make it a nice place to eat. But in the meantime next time we visit we will probably check out somewhere new rather than make a return visit.

Verdict

Food - 6.5

Service - 7.5

Ambience - 7.5

Price - 6.5

Address

108 Hopkins Street

Footscray VIC 3011

Tel: (03) 9687 4130