Chopsticks Vietnamese Cuisine — Restaurant in Sydney

It must has been months since I had dinner here. The reason why it took so long for my review is ... I'm still bewildered whether to love it or hate it. Counting our blessing ... The cost is value for money. The potion is generous (hands down for I'm a big eater. Need not to say I hate those "fine dinning" where you gotta throw in a Big Mac to finish it off. Sorry, side tracked). The service is friendly. The place is clean & bright. The Vegi Rice Roll is refreshing. Especially we've switched the regular brown sauce into fish sauce, with & without chili (as shown as the photo). I would recommend it without any reservation at all. The crispy noodle is great despite the chicken is dry & the entire dish could use some more seasoning. But still, nothing a little bit of fish sauce with chili can't fix (as oppose to fine dinning where "if you need salt & pepper you shouldn't be here at the first place". Sorry, side tracked again). The Chicken Vermicelli is fine ... chicken is dry & could use a bit more seasoning as well. I think if they could switch from using chicken breast to boneless chicken thigh with a bit more seasoning & marinate, it would be a whole level up at the very least. The Pho is the most controversial one (I'm crazy about Pho). The broth here is TOO sweet & a "different" kinda sweet other than coming from bone, meat & vegi. More like sugary sweet or says, candy of unknown favor. Adding chili, fish sauce & lemon doesn't help ... it only turn it into some kinda of "juice candy"! I can't even touch it let alone attempt to finish it. Having said that, there was an Asian young guy dinning alone a few tables away from us at the time, ordered Pho as well ... he finished everything including the broth! So ... what do I know? My feeling is ... it would be very odd that in the same place ... some dishes could be that good while some could be that bad. I can't help myself thinking ... the chef could be experimenting the road less travel. If that's the case, he won my heart already. Would I be back again. YES ... and I'll stay away from Pho next time. Revisit this place after 5 months. Still dare not to try their Pho again. (1) Vegi Rolls is always refreshing. But we didn't try their Rice Roll Sauce & stay with just fish sauce only. Recommended. (2) Chicken Stewer is nice & juicy with tasty Satay Sauce. Not the best I ever had but still above average. (3) Porkchop Tomato Rice - tasty. I wouldn't say the Porkchop was dry but definitely chewy T4 not tender. Luckily they retain the fat with it so it was not too bad overall. The extra $1 for the Tomato Rice doesn't worth it. I would stay with just Steam Rice next time. (4) Vegi Crispy Noodles - it was less tasty than Crispy Noodles with meat. Since we've ordered a bit too much ... so by the time we get the this Noodles it is not crispy any more. T4 it is really our fault. Lesson learnt ... next time I would have the Crispy Noodles (1) with meat & (2)...

I had high hopes for Chopsticks Caringbah after seeing their 4.5-star rating but my experience was incredibly disappointing. I ordered the crackling pork belly Banh Mi and the lemongrass beef Banh Mi — but was given lemongrass chicken instead. The meat in both rolls was dry and tasted unfresh. The meat wasn’t cooked and marinated in the sauces — they just poured a tiny bit of sauce over the top the bread. The bread itself was not crispy and did not seem freshly baked. It wasn’t stale but it wasn’t nice. While they did pack the rolls with meat, they barely included any vegetables — which completely throws off the balance of what a real Banh Mi should be.

They claimed this was the "authentic" way of making Banh Mi — but I actually know how Banh Mi is made and this was far from it.

To top it off, they charged $13 each — seriously overpriced for such poor quality. For comparison, my go-to spot (Marrickville Pork Roll) does a crispy pork belly Banh Mi for $11, and it’s consistently amazing: fresh bread, fresh ingredients, generous portions and actual flavour. Do yourself a favour — skip Chopsticks Caringbah. Don’t waste your money or your appetite. Major letdown and a...

The restaurant was very clean and the girl serving was very pleasant which is a plus. However, the place was empty when I walked in for lunch at 12.30 that should have been a red flag. The rating I am giving is for The Crispy Noodle Chicken, it was the most boring meal I have ever had and I like simple food but this was next level. The sparse chicken was blanched, bland chewy and tasteless the dish had a smattering of boiled vegetables which were equally as tasteless and the crispy noodles smothered the dish I had to search for the tasteless real food which I kept searching for. I ended up drowning the dish in two small dishes of Soy Sauce. I cannot remember ever having such a poor meal. The Chef needs to go and have a look at Mother Yen in Newton and take a few...