Saigon Lotus

Came here for my brothers birthday meal. It’s located in the emerging viet town along Oldham street. The food is authentic and tasty. I found it interesting that it is run by Vietnamese people compared to some other places. It was nearly full when we were there I think it shows how popular the place is considering its location. The only negative point was we had to wait 5−10mins before it was actually open. Service was a bit choppy but I think this was due to it being busy. Make sure you bring cash as the card machine wasn’t working !

This is one of the Unilocal events organised by Michael. Ten of us went to this Vietnamese place on Oldham Street. It’s just opposite to the Royal Mail and the Chinese Supermarket –Wing Yip.
I arrived on time and found Emily and Calvin were already in. We started chatting and people kept coming in the next half an hour. I really enjoyed the pleasant conversation with the Unilocalers next to and around me. We all like Asian food and that’s why we were all there and therefore part of our conversation was about Asian food in Manchester.
The restaurant is a small cosy family run business and there is no much space for you to turn or move around. The service is friendly, attentive but fairly inefficient but it wouldn’t bother you since you are in such a relaxing and lovely place. They might have challenge to handle such large group order in one go so it took a while for our drinks to arrive. Like other Unilocalers already mentioned, they took starters and main course orders separately.
The food was really nice. I have the summer rolls, just like most Unilocalers. They were fresh and refreshing. There were six summer rolls including king prawn and pork in each of them. The starter is a good portion in such a good value. As for the main course, I had the fried rice noodle over the most classic Vietnamese Phở. I had that default impression that the fried noodles were all Cantonese style. My main course had changed my impression and it has different taste from the nuts, leaves they had put into the cooking. Overall, it’s a large portion of healthy food with loads of veggies and protein in it. They were also tasty but not greasy or heavy at all.
I recommend this place as a friendly and relaxing gathering occasion with close friends or family.

A group of nine of us came here on a Thursday eve — we’d booked in advance but the place wasn’t full. We probably took up a third of the dining spaces as they aren’t that big a restaurant. The staff were warm and friendly and did their best to accommodate our requests (it was too hot in there so they happily turned off the radiator and opened the front door for a bit).
All seated and reviewing the menu, they took our drinks order first — recommend the pot of Jasmine tea if you’re not drinking alcohol — though they do sell wine and beer. It seems as though it’s no longer a BYOB restaurant.
The service was a bit hit-​and-​miss at times, we got the impression they weren’t used to catering for large groups, as we found when some of what we ordered didn’t arrive and we had to make a couple of enquiries. They also only took our orders for starters at the beginning, bringing them out one by one — this was by no means an issue, as each dish was freshly prepared and delicious — but whilst we were finishing they then took our order for main courses, and by then we figured we’d be in for an even longer wait.
Service efficiency issues aside, I thought the food I had was gorgeous. The menu had a range of Vietnamese dishes that most of us hadn’t heard of before, all sounded tempting. In the end I went for the pork and prawn summer rolls (which I’d eaten before at Viet Shack (
) and knew how tasty they could be. I wasn’t disappointed from SL’s own, they were fresh and satisfying, with a mint leaf in each and accompanying dipping sauce.
For the main course I chose what was the biggest bowl of Phở (broth-​based noodle soup) with beef brisket I’d ever seen in my life. It comprised flat rice noodles, spring onions and a side plate of fresh herbs, sliced-​up chillies and lime. It was refreshing and every last drop was slurped.
I have to say that Vietnamese is probably one of the healthiest and most delicious cuisines I’ve come across and I’d definitely come back for more.

Food: very delicious for the price point! I highly recommend the phở which was good.
Atmosphere: very intimate small little restaurant. Staff was extremely friendly
The only downside is the speed of the service but I don’t think they are used to serving 10 customers on a table.