This week we visited a Vietnamese restaurant called Bau Truong. Restauranteur Jackie M, of Jackie M Malaysian had tweeted that morning that she had been to Bau Truong in Cabramatta and enjoyed their food, and I asked for suggestions for us a little closer to home. A response came that Bau Truong had recently opened a branch in Marrickville, which, while not exactly on our doorstep, was a lot closer than Cabramatta, so we decided to give them a try and trekked over there after work.
On first inspection they’re not the cheapest. Indeed our total bill for two without any alcohol came to $120, but then we did share three starters, two mains and a dessert. But that isn’t really that much food. I’ve seen people complain that they’re a bit expensive on other sites, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.
On entering the restaurant you’re greeted by this impressive mural that spans the entire wall from floor to double volume ceiling. But there was more of him to come!
The restaurant comprises two floors. This is the lower floor.
And this is the upper floor.
In the area on the second floor where we were seated, the artificial ceiling had more of these impressive, and perhaps intimidating faces!
But as I always say, we’re here for the food right, so let’s get cracking.
They have an impressive menu, with over 90 items of food.
We had heard that their entrees, or as they call them “bites” were small portions that were explained a little like tapas. So with that in mind we ordered three of them. What arrived was hardly small! I just say this so that you can decide how to order when you visit.
This is the crispy sticky rice with grilled chicken ($12). The chicken was nice, sweet and tasty, and the rice was indeed sticky, but was fried and cut into strips that were very easy to handle and tasted wonderful. The pickled vegetables were lovely too.
For drinks we each had a Vietnamese iced coffee ($4 each). Warning, it’s very strong! Good thing we like strong coffee.
The second starter was enormous. The Vietnamese pancake came with prawns, pork and I think chicken ($15). It also comes with an entire forest of lettuce and mint. The idea is that you cut the pancake into strips (it’s crispy), and then wrap the individual bits in the leaves and eat that. Great on paper, but not so easy in practice! Ultimately I did enjoy this, but as a silly westerner there were a few things that I didn’t like. The first was the inclusion of shell-intact prawns (fortunately head off). Sure the shell might be thin enough to eat, but I really don’t like it. It’s not so much the shell that’s the problem, but the lack of taste from the prawns because the shell is getting in the way. The second problem was that something inside of the pancake batter was a bit gritty. I think it was an ingredient rather than something that wasn’t supposed to be there, and I think it was something like soy bean, but it detracted from the rest of the dish for me. I’d skip this next time.
Our third entree was also not tiny, and included four large prawns in a crispy pastry with an orange glaze ($15). I didn’t realise that the pastry was going to be shredded and deep fried along with the prawns as a batter! Either way this dish was very nice. The orange glaze was a perfect accompaniment to the prawns. The prawns were succulent and tasty and were not still in their shells (or at least I didn’t notice that they were!)
On to the main courses. This was the beef stew ($22). Beef with carrots and ginger in a five spice flavoured soup. It was very tasty, the carrots large and chunky and the five spice was clearly evident. I commented that it was a bit like eating an Indian curry without any of the curry heat.
My only complaint with this dish was that the meat used was very fatty and sinewy. It had clearly been cooked for a good while and was mostly tender, but the fat and sinew was stuck fast to a lot of the pieces and made it difficult to eat. I am am more tolerant than Caroline to this kind of thing, and she didn’t eat a lot of this dish because of that, which is a pity.
You can see the piece of sliced ginger that I also ate thinking it was potato. Thank goodness it wasn’t as gingery as ginger can be! It was actually quite nice.
The second main was salt and pepper squid ($24). A large portion of perfectly cooked calamari, which was spiced with chilli and which was surprisingly spicy without being too chilli hot. Apart from the calamari, Caroline enjoyed the lettuce which was fresh and crisp, and I enjoyed more of the picked vegetables.
For dessert we had an interestingly weird, but very tasty, banana pudding ($12). The puddling/cake was clearly bananary, but also had something else that I think was cherry. It was very good. It also came with a bowl of coconut ice cream with berries and mango cubes.
I’m guessing the expense here was due to the amount we ordered, and the fact that the Marrickville branch of Bau Truong is a fully fledged restaurant rather than smaller eatery style restaurant. I will have to go to Cabramatta to find out.
This was our first taste of Vietnamese, and while we did enjoy the flavours of the food we had, I don’t think it made as much of an impression on me as Malaysian, Chinese and Japanese have. But then I still have to try pho, the Vietnamese version of Japanese ramen (or so I believe). I’ll keep Vietnamese in the rotation and try it again next time.
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