Picture of Viet Grill, E2 8DP

Historical version 9 of Viet Grill, E2 8DP (view current version)

  • 020 7739 6686
  • 58 Kingsland Road, E2 8DP (streetmap) (osm) (gmap) (bingmap) (streetview)
  • noon-3pm, 5:30pm-11pm Mon-Thu; noon-3pm, 5:30pm-11:30pm Fri-Sat; noon-10:30pm Sun

Vietnamese restaurant on Kingsland Road in Shoreditch, sister restaurant of [Cay Tre]?.

Kake and Bob visited on a Tuesday evening. The area around Kingsland Road has quite a number of Vietnamese restaurants, but we decided to try this one out since a number of reviews suggested it was one of the best.

We started with sliced beef grilled tableside and wrapped in rice paper (£5/person, for a minimum of two people). This is a self-assembly dish; a portable grill is provided along with a plate of thinly-sliced beef, rice paper wrappers, and various vegetables and pickles, and you're left to grill the beef as you prefer it before wrapping it up with the veg/pickles and eating it. Note that if you like your beef very rare, it might be wise to rest it for a minute before putting it in your roll, since otherwise the meat juices will leak out of the roll and make a terrible mess. (I speak from experience, and note that the staff member who showed us how to make the rolls failed to realise this would happen even though we told her we liked our meat rare.)

Our mains were slow-cooked catfish (photo) (£6.50) and Vietnamese quail curry (£6), and we shared a dish of water spinach in garlic (£5). Kake's catfish was a little earthy-tasting, but her steamed fragrant rice (£1.80) was very, very good. Bob says his noodles with beansprouts and onions (£3) were good too.

It's worth noting that although the place was practically empty when we arrived around 7pm, it was full half an hour later.

See also:

Last visited by Kake and Bob, 16 October 2007. Prices determined on that visit. Opening hours taken from takeaway menu, October 2007.
OS X co-ord: 533477 OS Y co-ord: 182945 (Latitude: 51.529137 Longitude: -0.075560)
This is version 9 (as of 2009-03-03 13:52:02). View current version. List all versions.