Coming to a West End near you, a slice of Little Hanoi. Let Pho fever be unleashed. Again. Yep, you feel it too don’t you. It is starting, Cay Tre is going to sweep the intertubes, and with good reason: they flog smashing Vietnamese food to the public. Many of you are already quite familiar with the Vietnamese Kitchen’s group of restaurants, namely Cay Tre and Viet Grill, which counts Mark Hix, amongst its many fans. This time round however, Mr Hix happens to also be a very involved stakeholder with Hieu Trung Bui’s latest venture. So it is little surprise that the new Cay Tre in Dean Street shares much of its menu with the Hoxton branch and Viet Grill, such as the theatrical Chả cá Lã Vọng and the incastratable Mekong Catfish. Reminiscent of Viet Grill, but one in which its decor has been given a spit shine of the highest order. Pristine, white enamel table tops, black chairs with black leather cushions, wooden panel walls, painted white and pressed against cement walls (also painted white). Wah… so clean. The room is long and narrow, a little clastrophobic, and if you squint, you would be forgiven for mistaking this to be NOPI, but with less brass. Much less brass. My eating schedule is all screwed up these days, so lunch for us was at the sleepy hour of
Winter has well and truly arrived. As I write this on a bitterly cold Friday morning, there is but a shallow layer of snow building outside, not quite enough for me to stab my feet into it with heavy boots, but enough for me to feel Christmassy. I’m usually averse to boiling hot and soupy things (my tongue bruises very easily with heat), but my numbing senses needed some thawing, and what better way to do so, than to snuggle up next to my special half and dip our heads into a pot of boiling water. Blub, blub