Which is the best street food Vietnamese restaurant in Marrickville? All of them…
It's Thursday night and we feel like a street feed. Our stomachs suggest Chinatown but our brains aren't up to the hullabaloo of the city. Just a little baby hangover. Instead we stroll to Marrickville for some Vietnamese. We choose Huong Giang partly because it has plenty of Vietnamese diners, and partly because the lovely lady owner drags us in off the street.
The cutlery\condiment\tissue ensemble on our table is the giveaway sign that this place is street food heaven. But it is food blogger hell - the green painted walls makes for green light which makes for ill looking photos, we do our best...
We order and in a flash we are given a bunch of different dipping sauces for different dishes with instructions for each.
I take a punt on the bun mang gat vit, or 'number 52 please' in English. It is rice vermicilli soup with duck, an instant new favourite. It's a huge bowl of light, clear broth, spiced with white pepper, very homely and refreshing, like grandma would make. In the photo above you can see Miss Chicken clenching her fists, I'm sure she is thinking "hurry up with photos so I can eat!!!!".
The duck is served on the side rather than in the soup, exactly how I like it, sometimes meat can overpower a lovely light broth, particularly duck. The duck is steamed and refreshingly simple, served with a little salad and some nuts. I just love a big bowl of soup with some protein on the side. $9. Bargain.
We try another mystery dish, so mysterious we forgot the name, and it's not on the takeway menu either. It is like a Vietnamese pork roll on a plate: pressed pork slices, salad, peanuts on top of 'rice pastry' which was lovely thick, wet rice noodles. Simple but it works.
And for extra nibbles we get an bun cha gio, rice vermicilli with salad with spring rolls. Always a winner.
The owners are extremely nice folks. When we are paying $10 a dish for fresh tasty food we don't expect much in the way of service but we do really admire the owners for going the extra mile, they were very friendly and engaging. No wonder the place was packed with regulars, Vietnamese and otherwise. As we leave Mrs Owner is all smiles as she chases a customer down the road with a mobile phone they left behind.
Huong Giang is at 287 Marrickville Road, Marrickville.
I think that "mystery dish" is called "banh cuon" in Vietnamese. Anyway, fantastic food blog! I really enjoy it. Contact me if you ever go to Vietnam, or want to know more about Vietnamese cuisine.. maybe I can help :)
ReplyDeleteUyen - http://danangcuisine.blogspot.com
I am quite a regular at this resturant. Simply coz of the hospitality & the simple homely food. I even bring my out-of-town visitors here, and they pass on the rave reviews. I highly recommend this place every time u need that hit of yummy Vietnamese food!
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