Saigon Taste

Rating: 2

We ate dinner here in April 2023.

Beef and vegetable stir fry with crispy noodles
Vietnamese pancake with tofu, mung beans, mushrooms, and salad

Saigon Taste? More like Saigon waste-of-our-time, Saigon make-you-wait, Saigon hope-you-weren’t-in-a-hurry. If it isn’t clear, we were displeased with the wait, which was 15 minutes to order, and then 45 minutes for our food. The table behind us loudly complained that they had been waiting over an hour. Yes, the restaurant was full, and yes, they were doing a fairly steady takeaway trade, but if you’re going to make people wait that long, either warn them or just turn some away.

When it did finally arrive the food was a bit of a mixed bag. The pancake was huge, crispy, fresh, had a nice sauce, and was really fun. It came with a salad, if you can call it that. The ‘salad’ was a layer of undressed lettuce, a whole lot of unwelcome mint, and a few lonely slivers of carrot. What a trudge, and what a black mark on what was otherwise a pretty good meal. The stir fry did the bare minimum, token vegetables, average meat, and an okay sauce. Crispy noodles was a mistake. There were three options, and crispy noodles sounds good, right? Wrong! They were super crisp and super stuck together like an edible bird’s nest. And if you thought that the noodles would soften down a bit in the sauce, you’re in for the same surprise that we were. They were crispy as all hell, and splashed sauce everywhere to the bitter end.

Bookings recommended.