Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Viet Cafe, Battery Road

Viet Noodle Soup

My mind has still been fixated on Vietnamese food for the past few days for some reason, so I have been coming to the Viet Cafe (6220-3215) at the basement of 6 Battery Road for relief. The basement? Yup...there's an outside entrance with big white signs just outside the stairway. If you can't find it, look for the crowd of ostracized smokers on the steps, wade through the cloud of carcinogens in the air, and descend down to the rather impressively large place.

Viet Vermicelli BowlThey had a bunch of lunch sets on the menu that didn't look that attractive to me, so I'd been going more for the basics: pho (or, as stated on the menu, "Viet Noodle Soup"), bun ("Viet Vermicelli Bowl"), and fresh rice paper rolls. They all turned out a little better than I was expecting, as seen by the decently fresh rolls and a refreshing bowl of bun (dragon breath alert). It was still a far cry from ideal, but given the dearth of choices around, this was good enough.

The service here was a bit spotty though, which was surprising for a place that I would imagine were much more polished due to the busy office worker crowd nearby. I was also a bit bummed that the meat in the bun didn't have much of a grilled aroma, that the pho broth was on the boring side, and that they put all the bean sprouts into the pho themselves. But I guess that the last point was just to help facilitate the operations during the aforementioned busy lunch period. At least the food was was better than Hue and Orange Lantern. And yes, these guys do sell out of food on a busy day, so don't come too late if you decide to make your way here.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've found that the Vietnamese place at the butt end of Circular Road is capable of putting out some good stuff. It sounds like you're working in the CBD, so you're right there. I wanna say it's right next door to Moomba, but it maybe a few doors up from them. It's been the best I've had downtown, years ago there was a place on Liang Seah Street that was great as well, Madame Saigon or something....

Anonymous said...

i still think pho house at suntec city is the best. especially when the boss is there doing the cooking himself. t

Jian said...

So where's the best pho you've had in Singapore so far?

bma said...

Pho Hoa, although I should probably go try the two suggestions above too.

Jian said...

I think Pho Hoa at Holland Village used to be really good when they first opened a few years ago, but now, they're just OK. There even used to be a crowd outside during dinner times waiting to get seats.

Anyway, if you like vietnamese pho, you'd probably love Thaksin Beef Noodles at Clementi (At the same coffeeshop as the famous Brothers Rojak stall).

Yes, this is Thai, not Vietnamese - there's no lime, and kangkong is served instead of beansprouts. But they're pretty much similar in taste.

I think the beef noodles at this little coffeeshop stall beats many restaurants hands down because of the very rich, flavourful, meaty stock used and the generous serving of sliced beef, brisket, tripe and tendon.

Order the $5 "Supreme" (instead of the $3.50 regular order). It has everything in it.

There's also a branch at Seah Im Food Centre. But strangely, they don't serve tendon here. So go to the Clementi stall.

Anonymous said...

So far, I have not tried any good Vietnamese pho in Singapore. Have you tried the one in Singapura Plaza,(Song Trang Restaurant), i think that is the most authentic Vietnamese food in Singapore so far. hehe.
If you have any better one,please recommend me. Thanks

Anonymous said...

I've not tried Viet Cafe.
Tried Orange Lantern and Pho 24 and their pho is really tasteless.

Best pho i've had is at Vietnamese Delights at 57 Amoy Street.