Historical version 6 of Royal Margin, SE16 2UN (view current version)

As a local takeaway, this place is very good; one of the best we've found so far in SE16. (It's also a restaurant, but we haven't yet tried eat-in.)

Formerly known as Hue, it offers a range of Vietnamese dishes as well as a small selection of Chinese and Thai dishes. Normally this lack of specialisation is a bad thing, but almost everything we've tried from the Royal Margin so far has been quite competent.

Sugar cane prawns (minced prawns wrapped around a stick of sugar cane, £4.80) were unusual and interesting, while chargrilled pork balls (£4.95) were good and moist, though could have done with a bit more spicing. Vietnamese spring rolls (£3.60) were a bit greasy, but very nice with the accompanying sweetened fish sauce.

Pad Thai (£5.20) was again competent, but almost entirely devoid of chilli; the wedge of lime was a nice touch for a takeaway, though. Braised pork belly (£4.95) made a welcome change from the usual cuts of meat. Vietnamese steamed crepes (£4.95) were good, but could have done with a bit more seasoning. Steamed rice (£1.50) was better than expected from a neighbourhood takeaway.

They do offer pho, in both beef and chicken varieties. Kake is very far from a pho expert so can't really comment (except to say that I've had the chicken pho twice, and liked it).

The only bad dish we've had from here was the vegetarian noodles (£4.50), which were lacking the advertised tofu, and in places were hard to the point of inedibility.

You can order and pay online at http://royalmargin.justeat.co.uk/ — but note that this is possibly not the best option. An employee just told me on the phone that they don't bother checking the internet orders if they're busy (after I phoned up to ask why our food still hadn't arrived 45 minutes after the expected delivery time).

Other reviews:

Food last sampled by Kake and Bob, 19 August 2007.

Comment added by Kake: Tuesday Sep 25 2007: Whoever packed our food tonight must have been distracted. They didn't give us the usual number of Vietnamese rolls; they forgot all the sauces; and they failed to properly close one of the tubs, so it leaked over everything else. The braised belly pork is still good though, well worth ordering.

OS X co-ord: 535766 OS Y co-ord: 178834 (Latitude: 51.491645 Longitude: -0.044161)
This is version 6 (as of 2007-09-26 02:57:41). View current version. List all versions.