Viet Food

The new owner has transformed the site of a previously owned Vietnamese restaurant in London Chinatown, to give it character and providing a rustic atmosphere.
Viet Food had a range of drinks on the menu including cocktails and mocktails. They have two creation of their own juice. I tried the Wow Wow which came served in a mini milk bottle for £3.50. Although it was a cute way to present juice but it was I felt it was too expensive for the amount of juice that was served at that price tag. I thought the hot drink we tried, lemongrass tea (£1.90), which is served in a teapot was better value.
For food we tried their Tradition rice paper summer roll with prawns (£5). It was like your typical size Summer roll witu all the greens and herb that had been rolled together. A nice way to open up a meal!
We ordered two of the chef selection dishes to try and the portion size was small. These dishes are good to have with rice and give an alternative to having noodle.
From the chef selection, the tender belly pork was£7.50 for only 3-​pieces of average chopped belly pork and the portion size reminded me of House of Ho. But I did not think it was as good and thought it needed to be brasied longer as it was not tender enough.
The Chargrilled lemongrass chicken for £6.50 was nice with succlent moist chicken. Full of flavour and it wrnt well with the pickle vegetables that the chicken sat on.
There are five different phos to select from the menu. We tried the phở with the lean rare beef. The broth was fragrant as you would expect from a Vietnamese phở.
Bun is a vermicelli noodle that is served like a salad. Each one is toped with cucumber, bers, peanuts and a choice of pork, beef or prawn. They are all serve with a fish sauce which you need to pour over the dish, otherwise the dish is dry and bland.
Overall, the décor of Viet food was nice but the food didn’t stand out for me to say «Woah». I would visit again but wouldn’t rush to. However there will be some dishes I would not order again, such as the belly pork. I probably stick to their phở and bun.

I am going again tonight though my first time there was a success. Delicious Spring rolls, tasty Bun Bowl though I was expecting to be Buns filled with stuff.
Tasty ingredients, nice décor with an upstairs spot looking over the street of Chinatown, with all its red lights and asian décor. The place is and looks newish, though it is fairly successful from what I have seen. Good mix of locals and tourists (it is very central), and a quite long menu to choose from, making it a good spot while cruising in the area. Will go back today and will udpdate or not this review.

Ask for a front window seat. The people watching is spectacular in the car free street. Décor in side equally unique. Portions tiny but you are warned to order 2 – 3 itens/​person. Service was over the top and friendly.

Went on a Friday night and they were slammed with people. Ordered the spring rolls, the Vietnamese pancake, a sweet beverage with a raspberry and mint on top, beef with okra, pork chops, and plain/​lemongrass rice. The spring rolls were ok, just didn’t like how they stuck them together so pulling them apart my lead to tearing of the rice paper. The pancake wasn’t what I was expecting but reminded me of a Mexican version of it. The beverage was definitely worth a buy because it was good amount of sweetness to it. The beef was alright and the pork chops had good amounts of flavoring with the sauce. Rice was basic as it should be. I only give this place a 3 star because of the price and the environment. It can get rowdy because customers are trying to speak to their party which leads to screaming over each other. Since there wasn’t room, we had a share a table, Hong Kong style which isn’t a problem for me, especially when I’m super hungry. Food portions were tiny and the service was okay for the amount of customers they had. In the end, I wouldn’t come here again unless I wanted to experience the environment.

Viet Food is a relatively new restaurant that’s opened on Wardour Street in Soho /​Chinatown area. I’d actually only been to Wardour Street on the Soho side, and hadn’t quite realized that the street continued into what I consider the Chinatown side — that is, south of Shaftesbury Avenue — and that’s where Viet Food is. When we arrived, there was a handful of people waiting outside, who apparently had come without a reservation. One of them slightly protested when I was able to walk in without a wait for an 8:30 reservation (so I definitely recommend booking ahead). We had a table upstairs right next to the no-​longer-​operational fireplace. It’s a really nice space, not sprawling spacious, but also considerably better than the tight squeeze I experienced at Leong’s Legends Continues a few doors down. We really liked the birdcages that hang as decorations above the stairs — though thankfully they are without actual birds.
As for the food, I got the coconut calamari starter and a beef sirloin stir fry accompanied by a serving of rice. They recommend 2 – 3 dishes per person. My friend got the chargrilled lemongrass chicken and the phở tai. I thought the coconut calamari was really interesting, and liked that it was different than your typical fried calamari plate. The sweet chili sauce that accompanied it came in a very cute vial that I wouldn’t have minded taking home. The beef sirloin stir fry was tasty, and quite a decent sized portion. I don’t think I could have eaten a third dish. I tried some of the lemongrass chicken and it was wonderfully tender. It is definitely one of their signature dishes. And I didn’t try the phở, but it looked good and it was a standard sized bowl of noodles — that’s enough for a meal by itself, in my opinion! They had the cool wooden ladle spoon that some ramen places in London have.
Overall, I was very happy with the dining experience. I’d say this is a more casual, low key place, and probably not somewhere you take someone you are really trying to impress. But for Vietnamese, it’s a step above the chain food of Phở and the hole-​in-​the-​wall feeling of Kingsland Road eateries. For a quick, tasty bite after work in central London, it totally hit the spot.

Came to Chinatown for Chinese but walked by Viet Food seeing good food being eaten in window. Great choice. Small plates but amazing food allowing us to try so many different dishes. Service was good. Atmosphere was fun. Highly recommended.

Recently Dozo opened it’s new sister restaurant Viet Food, specialising in Vietnamese cuisine. The restaurant is based on the south side of Wardour street, next to the gates of Chinatown.
I was quite excited to have lunch there as I really like Vietnamese dishes.
I went for lunch with my friend Melissa Foodie. The place was busy, so we only managed to get a table on the ground floor next to the entrance with a view of the kitchen.
To start our meal, my friend ordered a tea. Unfortunately because of the trendy use of enamel glasses to serve tea in this restaurant she didn’t manage to drink it until the end of her meal as it was too hot to touch.
We shared two starters: the coconut calamari with sweet chili and the Vietnamese spring rolls. Both starters were good and crispy. I didn’t really taste coconut while eating the deep fried calamari but they tasted lighter than the classic ones. The sweet chili sauce was quite tasty, it came in a small tube which gave a modern touch to the dish.
Regarding the spring rolls they were pretty small andI only had a tiny bite however my friend seemed to enjoy them. She switched the classic nuoc cham sauce for the spicy red sauce available on our table.
As a main dish my friend ordered the Phở Chin which was a slow cooked marbled beef in soup. To quote my friend, she thought her phở was literally a bowl of hot water and tasteless noodles. It was the worst phở she had for a long time. I tried a spoon of her phở and it’s true that it could have been a bit more flavourful. It was nothing compare to the phở I tried at Ngon Ngon.
My dish was a bun tom nurong, a massive plate of plain noodles with coriander, mint, cucumber and chargrilled fresh tiger prawns. It came with some nuoc cham sauce to pore over the plate. It was alright but there was nothing really special about it. Again it needed a bit of flavour to be better.
Overall I don’t think I will go back to Viet Food and so does my friend, as apart from the starters, the dishes were flavourless. I would rather commute to get a proper good and tasty Vietnamese meal in Clerkenwell (Ngon Ngon or Banh Mi Bay) or in Shoreditch (Mien Tay).

Great Phở! Nice atmosphere. Clean and new. We were slightly hurried to leave because they were busy, but otherwise, it was very good.

This place sure is busy for lunch, lucky they have upstairs too!
Ordered myself the rare beef phở, the rare beef tasted yummy, the soup for the phở was also pretty good. Slight criticism is that the soup could have been hotter. (The rare beef taste better than warbled beef btw). Had crispy summer rolls that tasted really good with sauce, so I’m a pretty happy bunny. The portion was the fried spring roll felt a bit on the small side though, 3 small rolls on a plate.
The rice summer rolls we got would have tasted bland but with the hoi sin sauce it was not too bad. Everything kept falling out though as the roll was quite big.
Service was brisk, the food arrived fast, just the way I like it.