Randomness Guide to London - Differences between Version 8 and Version 7 of Royal Margin, SE16 2UN

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== Line 21 ==

Comment added by Kake: 21 November 2007 - the Vietnamese spring rolls appear to have turned into deep-fried battered sausages with no apparent vegetable content.

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 Kake, Bob, and doop have 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) aren't bad at all, while chargrilled pork balls (£4.95) are good and moist, but could do with a bit more spicing. Vietnamese spring rolls (£3.60) are a bit greasy, but very nice with the accompanying sweetened fish sauce; in fact, Kake and Bob have a great deal of difficulty not ordering them every time we use this place.

Pad Thai (£5.20) is again competent, but almost entirely devoid of chilli. We've ordered the braised pork belly (£4.95) several times, and it's always good - and a welcome change from the usual cuts of meat. Vietnamese steamed crepes (£4.95) were good the one time we ordered them, but could have done with a bit more seasoning. Steamed rice (£1.50) is usually better than expected from a neighbourhood takeaway, but has occasionally been disappointingly average. Yum Jai ("Thai spicy fresh salad", £4.50) is disappointing; chunks of tomato with a few bits of celery and cucumber in an overly sweet sauce.

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 both varieties are quite tasty from a naive viewpoint, but I do wish they wouldn't cram so many noodles into the container; the portion's too large for the amount of soup, and it just makes them stick together.

The only really 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 once 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). This has only happened once though.

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.

Other reviews:

Food last sampled by Kake and Bob, 6 November 2007.

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