悅木 The Vietnam Woods
灣仔莊士敦道22號York Place 1號舖
Shop 1, York Place, 22 Johnson Road, Wan Chai
https://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/review/into-the-woods-of-wan-chai-e2149985
Walked past Vietnam Woods, which I initially thought was a Japanese restaurant, it had a simple Chinese font characters, the front of the restaurant looked classy, neat and simple.
Upon entering, the restaurant was so spacious with high ceilings, a rarity in Hong Kong.
All the tables were spaced out with generous spacing like in other countries where space isn’t a limitation.
Sat down and was given the menu, the menu was interesting, the size of the menu was huge!! About 3 sheets of A4 paper (portrait) put side by side. The menu was printed on both sides.
big menu that spans over the entire table
Whilst I was browsing the menu, the environment was truly relaxing with birds singing and chirping in the background (not real birds, but the soundtrack they played).
I felt I was truly in the woods, which reminds me of my experience at Soland’s in Central where they played similar sound tracks with naturalistic interior.
Soland's: http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/commentdetail.htm?commentid=142441
Complimentary prawn crackers and fish sauce was served before the food was ordered.
Ordered the Crab paste and tomato noodles to compare it with Pa Ha Noi at Jordan, the noodles came with baked egg and crab squares, an item that I was going to order as well. Apart from that I also ordered the noodles with beef.
Previous review@Pa Ha Noi http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/commentdetail.htm?commentid=2130230
When the food arrived, the bowl and spoon was huge, it was really fun, because the bowl reminded me of Wagamama in UK.
The crab noodles tasted as good as Pa Ha Noi, except the crab taste wasn’t as strong as Pa Ha Noi, however as a bonus there were two pieces of baked crabmeat and egg.
The soup was more on the crab flavour, not much tomato taste, and there was some grounded pork mixed with the crab paste just to beef it up.
There were no crab shells to be found, especially at that price, and there was chopped coriander as garnishing.
In comparision to Pa Ha Noi, the crab noodles at Pa Ha Noi has a stronger crab taste, but has too many herbs and crab shells bits, however here you get baked crabmeat and egg and less herbs especially if you dislike them.
The herbs are chopped at finer at Pa Ha Noi, and there are sliced raw onions as well.
The crabmeat and egg was delicious, it was peppery, the appearance reminded me of baked egg fish intestines and steamed egg with beanthreads, which reminds me of the process of curing concrete and beanthreads are a bit like steel used to strengthen up the concrete!!!
For the beef noodles, the noodles and components were served separate which was good, and you have the fun of putting the components in and adding the amount of sauce to suit yourself.
Finally, there were two drinks I wanted to try, Avocado smoothie and Jackfruit smoothie. I never thought this would be on a Vietnamese menu, because it seems like an Indonesian drink.
Previous avocado milkshake I had @ Padang http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/commentdetail.htm?shopid=6275&commentid=2133593
The Jackfruit smoothie sounds interesting too, as I have not really tried fresh Jackfruit.
But unfortunately they were not available that day
smoothies n dessert
For dessert there was Jackfruit milk pudding and Pandan milk pudding too. I am hoping to try that on my next visit.
In the end I ordered White chocolate pandan cake, another dessert which I thought was Singaporean, same with the Pandan milk pudding.
Before it came, I assumed it to look like the Singaporean Chiffon ring cake, probably topped with white chocolate, to my amazement, it looked the same as a slice of Opera, it was pale green with different layers of filling.
I was really impressed by the Pandan Cake, because Pandan has finally been used as a flavouring to make a cake that is not the traditional Pandan chiffon cake.
white choc pandan cake
The Pandan cake was just bliss, the layers of cream were light, and there was lemon rind which didn’t not over power or spoil the gentle taste of the Pandan.
There was some whipped cream to go with it, that was appropriately sweetened, which did not make the delicate Pandan flavour bland.
Overall the Pandan cake was very enjoyable and not too sweet.
It is so good to see Pandan used as an ingredient to make cake, rather than Chiffon pandan sponge.
Interestingly, Singapore and Vietnam both have Pandan in their culinary usage, I wish one day I could try the Vietnamese Honeycomb Cake which is made of Pandan (Banh Bo Nuong) and Indonesia and Vietnam both have the Avocado milkshake.
Whilst dining there, other people ordered the raw beef which you blanch in the cute pots provided.
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