I have never eaten a Vietnamese meal before and frankly, Asian food (sans for Japanese) is not my thing at all. However, this restaurant happens to be in my backyard and I’ve always noticed a crowd whenever I pass by thus it piqued my curiosity. Reviews online for this restaurant is nothing but good, thus I decided to try it.

At 8pm on a Sunday night, there was still a crowd and the wait for a table of 3 was about 10 minutes. Supper goers will be delighted to know that they operate until 12am.

As we do not usually eat Vietnamese food, we decided to stick to safe choices.

The set up of the restaurant is like any budget Thai restaurant, very homely.

Prawn Roll – $6/ 4 pc

The fresh paper spring roll skin was really good. However, I didn’t like this sauce, because it’s the Yong Tau Foo sweet sauce, something which I really dislike.

Vietnamese Spring Roll – $6 / 4pc

Probably the dish I look forward the most, the Vietnamese fried spring roll did not disappoint. You’re meant to dunk the entire roll into the dipping sauce, and let the insides soak it up. However, I would rather they use the normal spring roll skin as I prefer the skin to be thin crispy.

Seafood Fried Rice – $7

The fried rice was a tad oily, but other than that, it was rather good, full of flavour and the amount of seafood was quite substantial.

Chicken Wing – $8

This is a very safe choice, since chicken wings can’t really go wrong. As anticipated, this was just very normal, definitely passable.

Pho Tai – $5.50

This is their beef pho, where the beef is served rare. They have other variations, like well done beef brisket, as well as one with a mixture. The beef was tender and juicy but I can’t say I like the rest of it. The soup here is on the sweet side, not something I like.

All these will be enough to fill 3 or 4 people, depending on your appetite. Overall, I’ll just say Vietnamese isn’t going to among my favourite cuisine anytime soon, but due to the proximity of this to my place I definitely will not mind having it again as it’s a lot better than other random stalls around!

Note that they have recently changed their operation hours.

*****

Ambience: 5/10

Food: 7.5/10

Value: 7.5/10

Overall: it’s my one and only Vietnamese meal so I can’t conclude whether it is the best in Singapore, but this definitely doesn’t turn me off Vietnamese food so I would recommend it if you wish to try Vietnamese food!

*****

Long Phung

159 Joo Chiat Road

****

11am – 12am