Hanoi Cafe

Decent food and reasonable service, but not my favourite of the multitude of Kingsland Road Vietnamese restaurants. For starters, we had the Vietnamese spring rolls, which were superb, but only came with one small lettuce leaf — although they did being us some more when we asked :) We also shared the salt and pepper squid, which was ok, but tasted under seasoned — we couldn’t really taste the salt or pepper. For main, we went for the Hanoi sizzling fish bun noodle salad which I would recommend! The fish was cooked perfectly and both the fish and salad dressing had a great flavour.

Fantastic vietnamese in kingsland road. Came here as song que was crowded, but from now on this will be my first choice. We had the Lemongrass beef phở and the ginger chicken both of which had flavour going through the roof! A more relaxed placed compared to the other vietnamese places around, identical prices bit with a much better customer service. Recommend and will be back for more! :-)

Hanoi is pretty much slap bang in the middle of a number of good Vietnamese restaurants, some of which I’ve tried before but most of which are still to go. Sadly while this was OK it’s not one I’ll be rushing back to.
I ended up trying the lemongrass king prawn which was actually very tasty but I personally didn’t like the way it was served. Everything was separate on the plate and it made it slightly more awkward to eat than necessary. My biggest problem was far too much coriander. It threatened to take over the whole place! Portion size was decent and I’d probably get this again.
The second choice was chicken coconut curry with steamed rice. Portion size on this was not so good although the flavour wasn’t too bad and both dishes had a nice amount of chilli heat. Sadly the small pot of curry was bulked out with chicken and potato which meant that the chicken was lacking a little.
If you arrive before 8 o’clock you will get free corkage which is a pretty good deal (it will cost you £2.30 each after this) although the beers on the menu weren’t too unreasonable. Service of 10% is automatically added you your bill as well.
If you need something quick and everywhere else is busy then you could definitely do worse than Hanoi but it is far from the best on offer

I needed a quick fix of food before heading to a gig nearby and Hanoi Café looked like it would fit the bill. It looks more like a Vietnamese greasy spoon than a full blown restaurant — £7 for a bowl of phở therefore came as a bit of a surprise. The ubiquitous noodle soup was tasty enough but nothing special. I have certainly been to much more exciting alternatives nearby.

My regular Viet restaurant in Shoreditch. I’ve been to them all along this road — used to like Loong Kee but now this has become my fave, for several reasons… First of all it’s never ever busy. Secondly it seems definitely more homely Vietnamese than the other restaurants in the area, which I like. Thirdly, because it’s never busy, contrary to what a few people are saying here I felt the service to be fast and efficient.
Finally I think the food is delicious.
Also, I want to make a point of saying, if you’re going to go to a Vietnamese Restaurant, order Vietnamese food! Don’t order some exotic Thai, Chinese or Indian dish, because chances are it will be disappointing.
The ladies aren’t very engaging in there, but make the effort and they’ll definitely have a lot of interesting things to say!

It was I think the Chrismas eve weekend and pretty much all the Vietnamese restaurants were closed. I had wanted to take my dad to Tay Do having recently discovered it at the time, but as this was the only place open, I decided to give it a shot. After all, the general rule is that if natives are eating in a restaurant, it’s usually good. However after my experience, either these natives were eating for free, or they were literally in the same boat as us.
The service was okay, but very very slow. The green tea was very nice, the leaf variety, but that’s end of the pleasantries.
We ordered a rice dish and the Seafood Phở. Honestly, as I was taking my dad here after raving about all the Vietnamese restaurants in the area, I couldn’t believe how cheap they were on not just portion size, but even ingredients. His seafood phở, had 1 single prawn in it. I’m not even writing this for exaggeration. It was a single prawn. There was plenty of noodle and maybe 2 pieces of squid, plus some greens. Satisfactory it was not. I ordered lemongrass chicken, and it tasted okay, but the portion of both the rice and dish were tiny. Given the price which came up to around £20 for both dishes, we did not leave amused.
This is one place to steer clear of.

This is one of several Vietnamese restaurants in a stretch along Shoreditch High St and it seemed fairly popular, quite busy even on a Monday night. Hot and sweet ginger tea was perfect in the cold weather, as was a prawn coconut curry. I also really liked the water spinach dish, which sounded like it might be a bit bland but turned out to involve a lot of garlic and butter so was basically awesome. Summer rolls came with a nice peanut dip but I think only featured one prawn (srsly, never enough prawns). Only other slight disappointment was the aubergine and tofu curry which didn’t have much taste to it (although we still ate it all).
Pretty reasonably priced although portions were quite small so if you were hungry you might end up spending a fair amount. Probably 3.5 stars overall but I really liked the curry & water spinach and would go back for those.

I walked into Hanoi Café after seeing that they had a dish with beef and pineapple, so I was very curious to see how such a combination would be prepared in a Vietnamese style. Unfortunately, I was there on a Saturday and failed to recognize that the dish was on the weekday lunch menu.
Upon this disappointing fortune, the waitress recommended a lemongrass beef plate with carrots, soft noodles, salad, beansprouts, basil, and a sweet sauce. The portion was quite large and was quite a bargain at just under £6. I was instructed to mix the ingredients together in a bowl with some hot sauce. The mixture was very sweet and tangy; I would have preferred chili peppers with the dish or a sauce that was spicier. Otherwise, the dish was great, and I would recommend it. The beef had a perfect char finish and was delicious.
The waitress was very helpful and friendly in helping me select a dish and guiding me on how to eat it properly.

I had the duck phở at Hanoi Café and it was good, but nothing amazing or anything better than the other places on Shoreditch High Street/​Kingsland Road. The summer rolls were also tasty. We had to ask twice for our bill despite the place being empty, which dampened the experience a bit.

Phở no! (Sorry…couldn’t resist.)
The sun is shining after what seems like an eternity of it being smothered by gray clouds so I decided to tear myself away from my computer and treat myself to a walk up Regent’s Canal for some lunchtime phở.
My plan was to walk to Kingsland Road and pick something at random, which is not always the best plan. When I walked in I noticed that there were only two other people eating (a couple girls who ended up running out on the bill) and Nothin’ on You was on the stereo. Radio-​friendly hip hop & phở isn’t a combo you get every day.
There was no need for me to flick through the many paged menu because when I’m at a Vietnamese restaurant I’m a creature of habit. I order prawn summer rolls, beef phở and iced coffee with condensed milk every single time.
The coffee came out quickly in a glass filled with ice cubes in the shapes of hearts and stars. I have yet to find a phở place that serves it in a phin fiter, the little metal Vietnamese coffee makers that perch atop your glass. It wasn’t bad. I drank it all in a few long pulls on the straw.
The three spring rolls were brought next. Each long roll had one prawn, which meant that most bites were just rice paper and rice noodles and paper. In other words, they were a flavourless vessel for the peanut dipping sauce.
I was concerned when I saw the phở. It was served with a lemon wedge, some sad looking bean sprouts, and a few leaves of Thai basil. Where were my peppers? Where was my lime? Where were all my other sauces? (Thank Jesus there was sriracha or it would have been game over.) The broth was weak with black pepper being the boldest flavour. I added what I could to make it more interesting — even the left over peanut sauce. The beef was soft. I ate all of the meat except for one piece, which was too marbled with gristle. I ate about a quarter of it and then thought, «eh…what’s the point?» and pushed it away.

I ended up here last night for the first time because every other Vietnamese restaurant on the strip was stuffed full with queues out the door. The Hanoi Café on the other hand was half empty and only a couple of peeps waiting so I went in.
I can see why now. Although the décor is nice and the staff friendly, the service was SLOW and the food seemed not so fresh, though the duck looks awesome.
Maybe a bad night and would hazard to try again, but not in a hurry. I think there are better places nearby. alas.

I’m surprised that this lovely little café hasn’t been reviewed yet! This is one of my favourite vietnamese restuarants on the high street and I’ve pretty much tried them allliving only 5 mins from them. I love it more for its simplicity than anything else. Other places may offer more variety on their menu but its just so cosy and warm that you could sit there all evening without feeling odd. The portions are healthy sized and the service is good. Everything tatses great though once again I must state the menu doesnt have as much variety as its competitors. Still worth a visit!

There are so many Vietnamese restaurants on Kingsland Road it’s difficult to know which one is the best. Hanoi serves standard Vietnamese food and the service isn’t particularly spectacular. I enjoyed the meal but I would not describe it as a memorable evening– nothing really sticks out as exceptional. There are other nearby Vietnamese restaurants which I think serve better food and provide a friendlier service.
If you decide to go to Hanoi you probably will not be disappointed but I think that it’s worth checking out the restaurants as well.