kêu

The noodle soup with pork bone broth is the one of the best I’ve had in a while. Wholeheartedly recommended.

Love Vietnamese baguette you must come here. Other dishes were ishh and quite pricey.

I was really disappointed with this place, from the outside, a promise of warming Vietnamese food beckons, Communal tables and aloof service don’t put me off, I am sure the food will be good. Silly me for assuming any place with a short menu will do everything well.
I ordered the lime soda drink, this was close to 4 quid for minimal fresh lime, flavourless mint leaves, sugar which wasn’t mixed in and a mini can of branded soda water. Joke.
For food, I ordered braised beef noodle bowl. What a poor representation of, well, anything! A small handful of boring, poor noodles, braised beef that wasn’t soft, broth not flavourful.
Overall, a truly disappointing shame. I wish I had eaten at a high street sandwich chain instead. Never again.

Don’t let this store Bahn-​you if you’ve never had these sandwiches before.
Got the Bahn Mi classic and the pork belly. The baguettes were crispy but the meats inside of the bahn mi could be crispier. The classic had meat that looked like tofu. The Pork Belly meat was soft instead of crunchy.

The Bahn Mi was pretty boring and tasteless. I would suggest to who runs the menu to step up their game flavourwise. The pork belly needs to be juicy and crunchy at the same time and the one we got was soggy and bland.
The staff is attentive but the food is so so…

Typical Vietnamese food with a large choice of sandwiches and Vietnamese soups. Unfortunately the service is not so good.

One of the few Banh Mi (Vietnamese baguette sandwich) places in London. Not the best I’ve had — the best I’ve had was in SoCal where a lot of Vietnamese immigrants setup home.
I ordered online. Would say the food was ok. The baguette was not the traditional one with rice and wheat flour which adds that «crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside» structural density. Typically these sandwiches have enough dressing made from white vinegar and juices from the pickles in addition to the mayo, butter and pâté (or the Sriracha or Maggi or BBQ sauce depending on s’wich). This one did not. As a result the s’wich was very dry. The meat was also quite dry — like a really dry brisket. Also not a fan of how the red chillies were cut chunky. They got in the way of rather than helped the flavor.
The Vietnamese sweet iced coffee was also dark and burnt with very little condensed milk added to it as is usual.
I think the restaurant has potential to improve, though.

Small but good menu. Great for lunch!

Keu’s Soho outpost has been open for about 8 months and the London street food revolution continues. They are about to open another branch in Bank
They do Vietnamese street food — think phở, sandwiches, Vietnamese iced coffee, sometimes with a slight twist
I’m generally not a huge fan of sandwiches but I make an exception for banh mi. It’s a fine triumph of fusion cuisine — French crusty baguette and pâté marrying perfectly with Asian barbecued meats and pickled vegetables
I opted for the Ken classic banh mi, which contained mortadella, pork floss, chicken liver pâté, spiced pork belly, ham terrine, pickled vegetables and coriander topped with spicy mayo
You know, sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. The best banh mi I’ve had is at Saigon Sandwich in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. For those of you unfamiliar with SF, Tenderloin isn’t the most savoury of areas. The banh mi at Saigon Sandwich is simple, classic and dirt cheap but the key is that they’ve got the balance right
The Ken classic had a lot going for it. Proper crusty roll and good ingredients but too many for my palate as they all just turned into a flavour smorsgabord whereas I like to taste individual components. I would also have liked more pickled veg and pâté to balance the flavour and add creaminess
Not bad though, Keu

Came in for a light afternoon meal on a Saturday, after walking around shopping a bit.
I am kinda over banh mi, and rice noodles after spending a lot of time in Little Saigon (in San Jose, CA), so I went for something I hadn’t seen on a menu before — Com Cà Ri Bò. This is described a rice bowl with beef dumpling. When I read dumpling, I mistakingly thought this would be similar tp a potsticker, but the meat is not wrapped in anything actually.
The beef is actually very similar to a meatball, and seasoned nicely. The cilantro garnish was very fresh. There is fish sauce, nuts and red chili peppers in the bowl too. I thought the dish was simple, something I could make at home, but unique — I’d never thought about, or seen, Vietnamese beef meatballs over rice. Yum. The best part — they didn’t skimp on the meatballs at all — there was plenty (7 or 8 good sized).
The food was mega quick, as it’s more of a casual street food kinda place. My friend had a steamed bun, which was okay but lacking some flavour. I will just rate based on my yummy dish.
Price was decent, service was very friendly, and I walked away pleased.

What bad service! I waited in the counter for 10 minutes waiting to order a take away banh mi and the two people in the counter
Couldn’t be bothered. The person who I thought had ordered before me was similarly waiting to order. All the servers saw us waiting but wouldn’t take our orders. ???

So fantastic. I just spent £8 on a large bowl of chicken curry, with loads of meat in, all white meat, free range, corn fed. On top of that chunky veggies and plenty of rice. Ready to takeaway in less than 5 minutes. In Soho! How is such a wonder even possible?

Since moving to the Soho/​surrounding area with work, I’ve been trying to find somewhere that does Banh Mi. Good Bahn Mi. Bahn Mi that doesn’t require queuing for several hours or mortgaging the house. I don’t even have a house…
That was in November 2013 and I had given up hope. Unilocal returning nothing within walking distance, and Google just kept sending me back to City Caphe near our old workplace in the City of London. No good at all. But then, my colleague alerted me to Keu. which has a location in Old Street with a favourable looking menu, and which apparently opened in Poland Street, right under my nose, without warning. I absolutely had to try it.
Now I am in serious danger of spending all my wages in 2015 on Banh Mi. Not because it’s so good I can’t stop eating it, but simply because it’s there. It IS good though… I’ve only tried the classic but it was everything I expected: tasty pickled goodness on a pâté and meat baguette. Crucially, as with all of the best sandwiches, the bread is key and the baguettes here are deliciously soft on the inside and crunchy outside. Warmed to perfection. At £6 a sandwich it’s not the cheapest thing in the area but the goods are worth it: you find yourself wanting more but I think it’s due to the savoury goodness rather than the amount of filling. One criticism of the taste I can give is the lack of «punch» in the sandwich: friends prefer a lot of heat throughout the sandwich, but here it’s tame unless you grab a mouthful of seeds along with the raw chilies they include — at which point it’s near deadly! But I enjoy the danger.
Frankly, it’s been so long since I was at City Caphe so I cannot quite remember their sandwiches to compare, but I’m more than satisfied with the Vietnamese classic here at Keu. When the novelty of simply having Banh Mi for lunch wares off, I will branch out to some of their other sandwich varieties on the menu; the BBQ pork and the duck versions sound lovely, and the aforementioned colleague is a big fan of the pork buns. They do ramen & other soup-​type dishes too, and the restaurant has that new, fresh feel should I ever want to sit in. Service is swift — if you’re after takeaway go straight to the counter — but at peak lunch times you’ll have a little wait. I’ve found that avoiding 12.30−1.30 is best.
So: tasty vietnamese food, especially the sandwiches, for the price of anything else going in the area, but vastly superior in taste. I may well upgrade to 5-​stars once I’ve tried more of their menu!