Vietnamese in HK

I have to say, this trip is probably the first time I've eaten Vietnamese in Hong Kong. But, from recommendations from a foodie magazine, and from a honky friend, I visited Viet restaurants twice this trip.

The first one was recommended by a magazine - New Paris Vietnam Restaurant (新巴黎越南餐廳). Yes - weird name. When I think "new paris", I'm thinking French restaurant. Housed in a building full of restaurants in Island Beverly at Causeway Bay, it is a slightly dicey looking place - with lots of youngsters visiting because of the price and the quality (or perhaps, quantity).

My uncle rarely listens to me when I tell him that I'm not hungry, so as per usual, we had too much food on the table. We ordered the 2 person set menu (which was less than HK$200 ie. around AUD$25 ish), and this is what we got...

First - the house soup was watercrest and pork soup. Amazingly, this is not super oily like a lot of soups you get from other honky cafey places. It's quite clear and flavoursome and with lots of watercrest (which I love). So not too bad.

watercress and pork bone soup

Contrastingly, we had a plate of mixed greens with like, MAX oilage. It was soooooo oily that I think it made the veges unhealthy. I think my uncle saw past the oil and polished the plate off.

mixed veges

There was also the steamed rice paper rolls. Whilst rice paper rolls in Sydney tend to be served cold with salad, I think they modified this to suit honky taste. It's steamed - meaning it's warm. There's veges inside. And it's kind of like the steamed rice rolls that you normally get at yum cha (with the BBQ pork or the prawns or the beef) except with more filling and all this flavoursome stuff on top (e.g. the dried shrimpy things and deep-fried onion flakes).

steamed rice rolls

We also got housemade lobster balls. These were actually really really good. Tender and sweet on the inside, deep-fried slightly crispy/crunchiness on the outside. Mmm... The chicken wings were... chicken wings? My partner would have appreciated these I think. Deep-fried crunchy skin, again - tasty and flavoursome.

lobster balls and chicken wings

On top of all this, we also got a pho each! My one was with combination meat (like, porky artificial stuff but not quite spam) and my uncle got a chicken pho. To be honest, I think that the pho was actually pretty good but because I was so full by the time this came, I didn't get to eat much of this at all.

combination meat pho

chicken pho

The most disappointing thing must be the pineapple ice. I was expecting pineapple shaved ice but what I got was glucose water with pineapple bits, ice and red/orange food colouring... *sighz* I wanted like a slurpy style normal pineapple shaved ice!!! >.<

pineapple ice

The viet place that our honky friend took us to was Nha Trang (芽莊) at Ocean Terminal, Tsim Sha Tsui. Pretty busy on a Saturday - and the waitress weren't the most friendly - but the food was actually pretty decent. My friend claimed that it had better pho than Sydney.

Whilst waiting for our friends to come, we ordered an ice coffee each. This was OMG strong. Like, super super super stong and super super sweet. Enough to put you on a buzz for quite some time.

iced coffee

We had the rice noodle with mixed shredded carrots and green stuff with big prawns. I didn't get to try this, but our friend who was a chef in a 5-star hotel didn't stop eating it with the restaurants home-made fish sauce cocktail - which must mean that it's pretty decent! :)

rice noodle salad with prawns

We had satay beef and satay chicken. The meat was yummy and tender but I don't think there was enough satay sauce. Skewered and pan-fried til slightly browned but not burnt.

satay beef

satay chicken

The pho with sliced beef was awesome pretty good. Quite a good pho - the soup was clear and subtly full of flavour. Not some cloudy soup which makes you wonder what they put in it to make it taste good - but rather, it's just clean tasting and delicious.

beef pho

We also had soft-shell crab rice paper rolls. These were refreshing and crunchy and nice too - but probably not the best rice paper rolls in the world.

soft shell crab rice paper roll

Sugarcane prawns were quite awesome! The sugarcane was emitted sweet juices when you bit and chewed into it, adding sweet tastes when combined with bashed up prawn meat. LOL. Mmm... yum.

sugarcane prawn

One of the really really good dishes for the day was the pork neck meat. Sooo unhealthy... it was a layer of super crispy thin skin, a huge layer of fat, and some super juicy tender meat. Melt-in-your-mouth moment - but probably unhealthy enough to clog many arteries :)

pork neck meat

So viet in HK? Not bad. Kind of different. Still value for money.

New Paris Vietnam Restaurant - 新巴黎越南餐廳 : http://www.openrice.com/english/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=9027

Nha Trang - 芽莊 : http://www.nhatrang.com.hk/