My sister was constantly talking about going to this vietnamese place called Cafe VN that wasn’t so far from me, so we decided to go for dinner one night. It’s a place that hadn’t really registered but thought we’d try to give it a go.

Bright green lighting draws diners in, like a moth to a flame.

We started with some spring rolls and then the chilli salt squid. I was a bit disappointed by the spring rolls. For a Chinese equivalent of a spring roll, it was pretty decent – large and filled with lots of real filling instead of simply just wrapper. Unfortunately I was looking forward to the great crispy skinned vietnamese spring rolls when they use rice paper wrapping instead.

The sqiud was actually pretty good and a huge serve as well. Pieces were soft and juicy though there could have been much more chilli around.

Being a huge pho fanatic, I ordered the house special that came with prawns and beef. The serving size was huge and, even I didn’t finish all everything the came. The prawns were huge and there was plenty of meat, the only thing of note was that they didn’t use very traditional pho rice noodles, instead flatter, thicker noodles I’d expect in a stir fry.

It looked the same when my sister ordered the pork bun (rice noodle) dish with the wrong noodles.

Service was great and friendly, mostly due to a warm Australian waitress helping us out. Food was okay, although not very authentic.

Name: Cafe VN
Found at: 144 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5DP
Website: http://www.cafevn.co.uk/