It is particularly hard to get certain Vietnamese dishes in Sydney so when we stumbled across this corner shop, we maximized our taste buds by visiting 3 times within a month 😂. VN Street Food, as the name entails, serves a wide variety of traditional and simple dishes often found on the streets of Hanoi.
The food served here is definitely a Northern style – think cleaner nước chấm, less grease, and a lack of seasoning because the North love their bland flavours. After our third visit we were no longer satisfied and are now waiting to fulfill the cravings with our next Vietnam trip.
The food served here is definitely a Northern style – think cleaner nước chấm, less grease, and a lack of seasoning because the North love their bland flavours. After our third visit we were no longer satisfied and are now waiting to fulfill the cravings with our next Vietnam trip.
Food
This is bánh cuốn for $18 a slippery rice noodle roll with minced pork and mushrooms, accompanied with chả lụa (crescent pork sausage), chả (square pork sausage) and herbs. It’s a refreshing bite with a touch of sweetness (from the nước chấm – fish sauce) and lots of textures.
This colourful dish was xôi gà, a combination of sticky rice, pork sausage and grilled chicken for $18.50. The sticky rice is good; fresh with the right amount of crunch.
They had bánh bột chiên ($16) on their menu as a “Popular Saigon Street Food” however they did not cook it the Southern way. I’d rather they not serve this a t all then to dishonour a dish 😤. This is homemade fried rice cakes with eggs and scallions, topped with carrots, grilled pork and nước chấm.
A few things wrong with the dish: the egg was too fried, there’s not supposed to be onions in the dish, the pork was cut too thin so it was too charred and the dipping sauce was too sweet. Also the rice cakes were flattened and not chewy.
A few things wrong with the dish: the egg was too fried, there’s not supposed to be onions in the dish, the pork was cut too thin so it was too charred and the dipping sauce was too sweet. Also the rice cakes were flattened and not chewy.
We didn’t like this gỏi ngó sen ($14) because it was lacking proteins and carrots. They also used a lot of mint. The stem lotus salad we love the most in Sydney is our own and the one served at Hai Au Lan Nuong (LINK).
This is bún chấm, which is exactly like the next dish but with the fried tofu sitting aside instead of in the dipping sauce. It’s a very straight forward dish, with chewy noodles, earthy herbs, sweet fish sauce and crispy fried tofu. I’m not sure why we paid $16 for such simplicity 😂.
This is bún chả for $16, similar to some of the others but with caramelized pork meatballs drenched in dipping sauce. The flavours was a lot sweeter – they used a lot of fish sauce. The meatballs were dense but slightly lacking in seasoning.
This was their bún riêu for $18. Traditionally it’s supposed to be a tomato based broth with freshwater crab pieces but at VN Street Food, they’ve cooked it in the crab paste, giving it that yellow colour. It was a very strong umami dish, lacking the sweetness from the tomatoes, with a lot of toppings: tofu, crab, pork and herbs.
Service
This is not the restaurant you would go to for service. It’s literally a takeaway and sit down kind of restaurant. You order food and pay at the start, find a table and then they bring it out to you. Don’t expect anything more.
Review
It’s a really good spot for a quick bite. We won’t be going back any time soon because we’re saving ourselves for the motherland.
Thank you for reading! Happy eating 🤤.
Thank you for reading! Happy eating 🤤.
