cay tre soho

cay tre soho

our typical friday night is dinner and a movie. and it is usually around soho. being around soho means you have lots to choose from but that equally if you don't make a reservation you'll be facing a pretty long queue. after having found a showing for submarine i set out to figure dinner plans. this wasn't difficult as between the twitterati and the food blogosphere everyone is talking about cay tre soho. cay tre soho is the second outpost of this east london based vietnamese place. i love vietnamese food and so happily made a reservation for friday night. when i told o about where we were going he instantly recognised cay tre having read a review in the metro. 

in keeping with most new places in london, cay tre is more or less monochrome with soft yellow lighting. it's simple but in a way that demonstrates that thought has been put into its design. i liked the finishing touches like the glass box lights. the place mats are also the menu with a colourful floral design on each end. i had already decided that i wanted to try the mekong catfish thanks to a glowing recommendation from greedy diva. i would have liked to order the cognac luc lac shaking beef had it not been for o settling on a baby whole chicken in honey and five spice. to start with, we picked the prawn summer rolls. i am particularly partial to these with their translucent rice paper wrapped declaring the contents within. i love the sharp almost peppery flavour of the vietnamese herbs. on the side was a chicken liver dipping sauce. i have to admit i'm not a liver fan but this sauce was really good. it was quite thick and had the taste of molasses with a little bit of chili. 

vietnamese summer rolls

the mekong catfish arrived in a clay pot. the fish itself is on the meatier side and is quite oily so lends itself well to the caramelised fish sauce, caramelised whole cloves of garlic and chili. o's baby chicken was okay. it was perfectly cooked with a light crispy skin but i would liked the pungent five spice to shine through a bit more. the flavours were too tame for my liking and even o agreed that we could have ordered something else. on the side we had jasmine rice. 

to finish we had the sugar rich vietnamese filter coffee. the service was a bit patchy but i suspect that might be because of the recent opening. i will be back again for sure as i want to try the pho.