Huong-Viet

Huong Viet is a somewhat ramshackle canteen attached to the An Viet Vietnamese community centre. The tables are rammed in tight, leaving barely enough room to get to your seat and ensuring that should you grow bored of your own conversation, you can make do with listening to the ones taking place either side of you. However, faced with a plethora of Vietnamese food on Kingsland road, Huong Viet continues to pull us back time and again with its heady mix of sublime food, bustling atmosphere and baffling staff. Having said this, Huong Viet is not for everyone, in fact on most visits you’ll see people lodging complaints about the service; it is chaotic when they are busy (ie most of the time), but that’s part of its charm, so long as you have a sense of humour and don’t expect all your dishes to arrive at once. There is a fairly simple rule for newcomers to adopt when ordering here: go for things that have squares around them on the menu – the recommended items. We’ve eaten almost everything on the menu and they are not wrong. On this visit two of us kicked off with the char-grilled squid and prawn summer rolls. It is hard to overstate how good the squid is. When it arrives we share a knowing look and then the conversation ceases until the squid has been hoovered up, although we do have a bit of back and forth over who gets the last piece. As for the summer rolls, superlatives come thick and fast. They are deeply good, so fresh that they make you feel cleaner for eating them. Delicious. Having held back from ordering another five starters, we move on to a very favourite treats – the steamed sea bass with ginger. Every single time this is perfect. Try some crispy seaweed on the side. Emboldened, we ordered prawn noodles – something that we had neither had before, and wasn’t recommended (by the squares on the menu). It turned out to be an inspired choice. Fragrant, light noodles topped, phad thia style, with peanuts and flavoured with a perfect balance of chilli and ginger. Other dishes to recommend based on previous visits include: Vietnamese pancake, lamb with galangal, chicken in a clay pot and the vegetarian curry. The damage: around £60, including service. Corkage is £1.50 a head, but we opted for the excellent Hue Beer on this visit.

I have mixed reviews about this place, i arrived and was greeted by very young man. Some of the staff are very friendly but some are extremely rude, the food is amazing along with the portion size ( overflowing plates and bowles) along with very cheap price. The layout is very old and authentic on the otherhand it is very cramped.

Thought I (a 'real' Londoner) should voice my support for the wonderful Huong Viet, and here's an idea - let's concentrate on the restaurant rather than who lives in the area etc. I've eaten here on numerous occasions in the last 10 years or so and have never had a bad meal. It's a fun, bustling place, serving decent, fresh Vietnamese food. What's more, I have never encountered any sweet, sickly radio active-style lemon sauces accompanying dishes as I have in some of the most highly thought of Vietnamese places on Kingsland Rd. It's great value, the occasional mistake has been rectified without fuss, and the food always arrives in good time (although occasionally in a haphazard order) It truly surprises me to see so many bad reviews, but from comments posted I guess my best advice would be to plump for house specialities rather than the fare you might find sharing a Chinese menu. My favourites include, Char-grilled squid, Steamed rolls, Mixed seafood with pickled veg and dill, fried greens with tofu and garlic, squid stuffed with prawn and pork or any of the rice vermicelli with lemon grass and chilli. All absolutely wonderful.

Amazing place,me and my mother were in dalston,starving and couldn't find anywhere to eat so I looked on my urban spoon app(what a life saver)and this little treasure came up.when we got to the road it was supposedly on all we could see we're houses but if you walk a little further (so glad we did) you find a place which I have to admit doesn't look like too much on the outside.we went in and was greater by a lively grinning Chinese women(who I suspect own the restaurant with her husband/family).we were the only customers(but from reading other reviews about this place this was a rare occasion)we decided to go for the char-grill squid with lemon grass to start.for mains I had the sizzling beef in black bean(which was definitely sizzling when it arrived at the table)and my mother enjoyed the hot &spicy lamb.it was all amazing but what really stood out was the home made peanut sauce that came with the squid and the hot&spicy lamb which was perfectly spicey(not too over powering).all in all we had a lovely lunch and experience at Huong Viet.the food was exceptional and the waiting staff attentive.even at the end they surprised us with free oranges!i will be coming back time and time again!

The worst service. The owners should be aware. I've been going to this place for the last 8 years or so, definitely less last 4 or 5 years because of the service. It's been a while now that i would only order takeaways there. But now, will never go again. Didn't see any fault for puttiing me on hold for 5 mins when i phoned for a takeaway order. When requested to speak to a manager, the person( not sure if he is the manager) said that he didn't see any problem with it but also adding that i was not welcome anyway. Real shocking service!

Do yourself a favour and stay away from this place. I have been to Vietnam and I fully appreciate that it might not have a 'service culture', but the service at this restaurant is just beyond bad. As soon as you enter you are just treated like a walking money jar that the staff are quite happy to pick from. For example, be aware of ordering a medium priced fish dish, and then receive the pricier version. You will almost certainly receive food that you didn't order at all as this is one way to increase the final bill. Instead of focusing on service (such as bringing the right food to the right table), the staff behave like second hand car salesmen flocking their stock. At the till, being told to pay for prawn crackers that you didn't even order is just the icing on the cake. Sadly, in such an aggressive and money-grabbing environment, the food gets totally lost.

What a strange mix of reviews?? My experience..... I could not fault this restaurant. I celebrated my birthday here 2 weeks ago with a small group of girlfriends. The atmosphere was lively and uplifting, the food was fresh and delicious, staff were warm and friendly. We had brought some homemade cupcakes with us for pudding which they took away for us and returned beautifully presented on a plate with decorative flowers and a candle, and some of their own sweet pastries as a compliment. They even wrote me a birthday card. I would return in a flash. I can only think thank there is mysterious second 'Huong Viet' that has encouraged the dreadful reviews below! By a super satisfied customer who had an excellent birthday party.

Rude!!! It's such a shame, as the food is really nice!!! Also always have a sign up to say Cash only!!! Not convenient...

I have found the food to be quite nice but the service is truly dreadful and the staff are extremely rude.

I went there for lunch today with a friend on her recommendation although she hasn't been for a while. The food was dreadful. One star is way too good for this restaurant. We ordered steamed prawn rolls which contained the tiniest morsel of an old prawn and were pretty tasteless. We also had crispy duck which was dry. The Singapore noodles dish was an unappetising dark colour and looked burnt although we were assured it wasn't. In fact it tasted as if was made three days ago and reheated. We ordered the dish with chicken but it was impossible to decide what the dark, dry slices of meat were. It tasted disgusting and we sent it back and I refused to pay for it. The chicken in coconut curry had no coconut flavour and tasted as if the sauce had been too runny and thickened with flour. A not to be repeated experience. I cannot believe anyone could award this place 5 stars a couple of weeks ago!!