Mien Tay

Great food. Goat curry and the Mien Tay spring rolls are a must eat. Service wasn't overly friendly however Mien Tay is all great, cheap food and not the surroundings.

First visit with a group for a b'day, food was average but serivce was below average! To sum up, the b'day cake we brought in to ask them to serve for us after looks like it was about to fall apart as it didn't seem like they'd kept it in a cool place, but worse of all, the waiter said to us he didn't have enough plates (14 plates) and suggest we use nakpin or something. We ended up taking the melting cake back home..disappointing end of a b'day as you can imagine. Our first and last visit for sure, so there you go...

Very bad service, the waiter wasn't able to take the order right. 3 people, 3 dishes, 3 drinks, I don't think it's hard. We had to reorder the drinks as they never came, and 1 dish came 30 minutes after the 2 others, and the owners don't even have the decency to apologise. On top of that the place look dirty and the food is not even great...

This restaurant became licenced in May so your Time Out review about BYOB is somewhat misleading so I was interested to see just how they were managing that so I went there last sunday to see.

There is a sign on the door just saying "We are now licenced". It was not as full as previous Sundays and plenty of free tables. There was no wine list and no sign of any stocks of drinks.

Inside it was obvious many were still bring their own drinks. A sign on the wall repeated that they were now licenced and had at the bottom in very small writing "We encourage any alcohol but not soft drinks". I felt comfortable with my wine bottle.

When the bill came it was not itemised but was now split into two figures meals and drinks. The drinks showed £5-10p. We had only ordered one carrot juice. I therefore would guess the juice was £1-10 and there is a corkage charge of £2 per person. Or perhaps the juice was £2-10 and corkage of £1-50 per person?

Nothing on their web site or the menu so its a try it and see situation!

Still lovely food though!

It's alright. Tried all of the Vietnamese restaurants around there, and have no doubt that Cay Tre and Viet Grill are the best quality. I occasionally try a different one (e.g. Mien Tay) but always end up regretting it. Song Que is the best of the rest - don't mind the rudeness, seems to be part of the course - but the manager can actually be quite charming.

My fave of Kingsland road bunch. Salt and pepper squid is amazing. Yes, the tables are sticky and the service hit and miss, but at least they're not rude like they are at Song Que. I love it.

Let me make this simple and straight
Service- alright - trying bit too much
Food- mediocre -been to better places and worst places
Place- was all jammed up in a small table - bamboo table felt icky (as in there was grease on it)
Price - reasonably leaning towards the cheap side

Kingsland road is the harbour for many Vietnamese restaurants and so i had to try all of them. i've already ate at most of the other places and had left to try Mien Tay. It was packed when i went and i had to wait for around 30 minutes even though originally the waiter said the wait would only be 5-10 minutes. We were rushed to order so i ordered the famous vietnamese dishes; the PHO, Pancake, Salad (i can't remember which). When it arrived the Pho (main course) came out way before the starter (salad). The pho was normal, not that great and there was not enough of the accompanying beansprouts for me to enjoy. The beansprouts also looked brown and somewhat old. When the salad came it was lacking the crunch and so was the pancake. The salad was soggy and by the time we came to eat the pancake we was so hungry that it tasted alright.
Would not recommend this place to anyone, it deserved 1 star however i gave it 2 as it was reasonably priced but not worth it.
BTW we was also rushed to leave

Best Vietnames around, super cheap and excellent food! The service can be great or it can be awful, but it doesn't matter the food is too good for this to be an issue.

Don't go here you you want artistic menus and a lovely wine list, or if you require the staff to wait on you hand and foot. DO go if you enjoy eating good grub, actually not good grub, if you enjoy eating some of the best grub around.

All the bad reviews here seem to start with some complaint about the service, which obviously caused their tongue to reject anything that touches it. I wouldn't listen to them; I've been to most of the Vietnamese restaurants around and this is the best.

I have to agree with Dao: I went to eat there last Saturday and the food was terrible. Everything we had was overcooked (the 'salt and pepper' prawns and squid were chewy and the 'mackerel in banana leaf' was incredibly dry). I really don't know how this restaurant could possibly get 5 stars.

This restaurant is the most authentic Vietnamese food I have come across anywhere outside of Vietnam! Very reasonable, unpretentious and quick service. I'd recommend just about everything I've ordered there, but old favourites are the fresh rolls, quail, green mango salad, and the fish cooked in banana leaf. Just writing this is making me want to dash down there.

I was tempted by about 7 vietnamese places on the way there but glad we stayed true to our destination. Toilets aren't great but doesnt really matter when the food is this good and the staff this friendly. Friday night and we turned up without a booking but they were still able to seat us upstairs. A hearty meal for four came to £36 with easily the best spring rolls Ive had for starters. Cant recommend this place highly enough, 11 out of 5.

Dao, I don't think you know what your on about mate. The food is great @ Mien Tay, fair enough the service is not what you get at other top restaurants, but if your dumb enough to think that you will get top notch service for a low end restaurant then think again. You receommend Song Que? pffttt...i've been going there for years, and let me tell you, it's service is not the best, and the food is actually mediocre. They rush you like any other low end/asian restaurant, I've had people in the queue waiting, literally sitting right on top of me whilst having dinner. It felt like having dinner on the tube.

Asian restaurants generally are terrible when it comes to service, but I think most of the time, the good food definitely outweighs the bad service.

From the minute we stepped into the place, our group were made to feel like we were a burden. Our greetings were met with sighs as the place was starting to get busy, even though we already had reservations.

The service was terrible and despite them wanting us to eat and leave as quick as possible, they were inattentive and slow (except for bringing the bill to us!). About five dishes that we wanted to order were "unavailable" and some other dishes we asked for, they refused to cook for us because it would "take too long" and they wanted us gone quicker.

The food that did actually come was dry and overcooked, and just not enjoyable to eat. I can understand and put up with poor service for great food, but great food this was not. With so many other Viet restaurants around, it's not worth putting up with such rude staff for such average food. Would recommend going to Song Que just a few doors down - amazing food with much more welcoming staff.

We ordered a rice wrap starter pictured in the menu, but received brown fried pork wraps. The pho was bland and tastless with freshly shredded chicken that seemed to have just been added to the dish. My partner's dish, which sounded appetizing, paper wrapped beef was generic with disappointing fried minced beef served with rice paper wraps that were not even steamed properly and had hard pieces in it, his was served with a miniscule amount of sad looking pickles and dipping sauce that seemed to appear with every dish just about. Before we could eat our last bite off of our dishes they pulled our plates from under us and delivered the bill without it being asked for, clearly because they were filling up and wanted to get the table turned over as fast as possible. When we asked for fried bananas instead of the bill they told us they were out, which may have been true, but the overall uneasy feeling of the staff led us to beleive otherwise. Do yourself a favour and spend your money somewhere else.

This place served the best authentic Vietnamese food I have had for a long time. I can honestly put my hand on my heart and say that the pho beef soup served with plenty of fresh herbs is truly worth dying for.
The atmosphere seems to be welcoming and humble and the new extension really provides the leg room for large groups. A great choice for a family get together.
5/5

Always very yummy, always good service.

bathrooms smell of mothballs.

I found a website for Mien Tay, may be of use for other people - www.mientay.co.uk

First and foremost, the Food- Very good, the goat curry and seaweed yeah! is highly recommended.

The atmosphere is somewhat noisy, so not ideal for a romantic meal. More appropriate for a curry with the lads.

Only vice I can think of is the seating arrangements. Ten of us sitting around a table that could only seat 8 at most. Maybe this was due to the sheer popularity of the place resulting in limited seats but we did expect better as we had pre-booked. There is hardly any legroom which was also a pain- some parties were suggesting opening the windows to stick their legs out of! Not a joke maan! On a more sober night, maybe we would have complained, but our laughter at the sight of one of the group trying to get to the toilets in such a cramped room easily outweighed the chance of any potential complaints

Best til last- the price! just over £10 a head.