The Little Viet Kitchen — Local services in London

Overpriced food and (very) rude staff.

Me and my wife visited Little Viet Kitchen last Saturday 20th and left disappointed. And so decided to leave a review of 2 stars on tripadvisor. An app we use regularly to review restaurants both positively and negatively such as this case. But never were we actually treated with as such as contempt as with little viet kitchen. We understand everyone can have different opinions and we accept that. What I personally don’t accept is staff being so inappropriate in responding to criticism. Dave, consider this our response to your response to our tripadvisor review. When you say your service charge is optional as “clearly stated on the menu” I suggest you make it even clearer on the menu, because neither of us could see it. Also, you have other reviewers mentioning the same thing so maybe take some criticism on board and make it even clearer. I’m sure your viet cuisine is completely authentic and all the reviews that feel the same way we did (and there are some if you take some time to read them) are all wrong. In our view we felt it wasn’t. We are not experts but have had tried different Vietnamese restaurants and to our view it was “westernised”. Regarding the service issue, I sincerely recommend you inform yourself before replying to a review. No we weren’t referring to your explanation. We liked your explanation. Not one bit embarrassed. Let me tell you what was embarrassing. Embarrassing was another member of staff 10 minutes before pointing to the crab meat and saying “that’s papaya” and when we said “sorry that’s crab” he says must be on the other side “there this white thing” pointing to the crab meat once again. And then be told.. he was going to check and never come back. That’s when we called you. Now.. you saying that we were rude because we signalled to you is the highlight of your review. We signalled. To which you moved your head in a kind of “what?” gesture instead of doing the natural thing of hold on I’ll be with you in a second. But even that didn’t upset us that much to be honest. Your response on trip advisor.That should embarrass you. Responses actually. We’re not...

Really really lovely place with lovely staff and a really great drinks list including loads of great gins and some British wines which is always appreciated! Myself and a friend went for the first time last night (Saturday of Easter weekend) and managed to get a table at very short notice and had a really lovely time. I have very mixed feelings on the food. What we had (prawns to start and tofu dry noodle salad for main) was really lovely but the menu is extremely meat heavy and both of us are pescatarian - and would always rather eat fully vegetarian where possible. Both specials were meat, there is only one veggie option for starter (crispy tofu) and only a couple of options for the mains. The main we had usually comes with a spring roll but they only serve pork spring rolls so we couldn't have that option. I will definitely eat here again but it's not going to be a regular haunt for me because the range of food I can eat is so limited. I appreciate that perhaps vegetarian food is not authentically vietnamese but this is 2016 in London and you kinda have to offer a little bit more of an option. All that is needed really is be a veggie spring roll option and a vegetable noodle broth dish which I don't think is too unreasonable. As a final positive comment we shared the special starter of Macha panna cotta and it was absolutely out of this world. Best desert I think I've ever eaten and I eat out a lot! Would love this to be my new regular restaurant but I'm afraid I'll only be going back...

Unfortunately as with a lot of trendy restaurants the table was tiny and sandwiched tightly in between two, 3 panelled Louvre shutters which made it claustrophobic, and dark. We ordered 5 dishes and literally 15 minutes later they all turned up at once leaving us scrambling for space. Little plant had to go and water put on the floor. Spring rolls look nice, but were bland not meaty and the diagonal cut made them cold quickly. Sauce was ok. Ribs tasty but over sauced with sticky sauce, I can see people liking these but salty and overpowering the pork. Whole fish very tasty. But all the sauces have a similar theme so we didn’t have a variety of flavours really. Breaded prawns were crispy and soft inside with a Mayo type sauce and this dish was different. I think of Vietnamese as more subtle and herby but with the menu that evening it was all a bit “same same but different “ as they say in Asia. We purposely avoided the Pho as we had it many other places. Would have been nice to see the prawn pancakes or other herby dishes that night. We had. Pork ribs, breaded prawns, pork spring rolls, fried sea bass, chicken dumplings. 2 beers £75. But everything turned up at once and made the meal table busy and rush. We were out in an hour and...