The Savoury Dining & Bar North Strathfield — Restaurant in Sydney

(3.5 stars) The Savoury Dining is a small restaurant chain that currently has outlets in Penrith, Campbelltown and North Strathfield. Their menu is extensive: street-style, French-influenced and traditional Vietnamese dishes with a spattering of contemporary Vietnamese–Australian fusion dishes. Arriving at their North Strathfield store as the skies cycled through orange, red, and purple, I plotted a course to sample across their range.

From the street-food menu, the pâté chaud pie ($7/2 pieces)—bánh patê sô—are French-influenced puff pastry triangles boasting flaky exteriors and seasoned ground-pork interiors. Grilled sate chilli prawns ($12/6) come split and threaded onto wooden skewers with spicy, buttery interiors. They are slightly over-cooked and harder than they should be to extract from their shells, but tasty none-the-less. We accompany our snacks with Patron Anejo tequila ($16/each) poured into tall glasses of coconut water ($5/each). They’re plucked from a drinks list that includes a small selection of cocktails, a pedestrian selection of wines and mainstream beers, and bottled Hanoi Premium Lager ($10).

From the well-photographed menu of Viet signatures, chả cá lã vọng ($32) is a grilled fish dish originating in Hanoi. Turmeric-marinated ling fillets are assembled over a collection of aromatic herbs and vegetables to protect them from the heat of the on-table burner. Wrapped in a collection of green leaves with vermicelli, chilli slices, lightly pickled carrots and a fish sauce dressing, they’re a meal highlight. From the fusion dishes, chicken-stuffed sticky rice ($19) ate best. It mashes up Vietnamese gà bó xôi or “no escape” chicken—where sticky rice is wrapped around chicken drumsticks and deep-fried—with a traditional Aussie roast chook. Here the boneless bird is stuffed with a moist mixture of sticky rice, lap cheong, and shiitake mushrooms. Bō kho pasta ($18) unites Vietnamese five-spice beef brisket with bocconcini, shaved macadamias and linguini. While the flavours in this one didn’t quite meld for me, the generous hunks of beef were beautifully tender. This worked as an inexpensive midweek feed for me, but choosing one of four set menus—ranging in price from $75–$85 for two people—could make dining here...

Overall the experience was good. Unfortunately when I showed up on time for.my reservation, I was told the table was still occupied and had to wait until the group before me has finished dining. This was ok but the host then forgot about I was waiting and didn't come back until 20 mins later when she noticed I was still in the corner waiting to be seated. She then approached and me and asked what was the booking name again? This surprised me that she had forgotten all to quickly. We then waited a further 5 minutes before being seated. It was a busy evening and most tables were occupied but this meant we weren't greeted by our waiter for another 15-20 mins. A very poor start and first impression after hearing positive reviews. However once we were waited on the experience improved somewhat. Our waiter was very friendly and helpful with the menu. Once food was ordered it came out quickly. Most dishes were satisfactory and I wanted to be wowed with the authenticity of the cuisine but sadly I wasn't. If you are trying a Vietnamese restaurant, most people I'm sure would want to try Vietnam's most famous dish, Pho. Unfortunately this was a huge disappointment as the broth had no flavour and i had only one slice of beef in my portion. I hope they can improve on this. The beef in Betel leaves was my favourite with lots of flavour packed into it. There were a lot of hit and misses as we were able to try about 90% of the dishes on offer during our sitting. I would recommend trying it of you haven't, maybe it was an off night. I certainly hope so as I really wanted to like this place. So I might give it another go and hopefully it will be better next time. But for the price you pay you really can't complain too much and you can see the staff are working really hard which is why I...

NOTICE TO ALL: savoury dining at Warwick farm is beginning to open. I drove past there and seen the shutters open but they're still doing some reconstruction. They are trying to finish it off before they start opening and for those that don't know it's just next to KFC. Theres also McDonald's opening there soon as well that used to be Warwick Farm Hungry Jack's. After so many customer complaint they shut the place down and demolished it. McDonald's will be replacing it and is opening soon too. Not sure about the exact dates for both maccas and savoury dining at Warwick farm to be opening. Gonna have to find out yourselves.

Savoury Dining North Strathfield: Good food, loved the beef pasta dish.

brilliant atmosphere and very spacious interior.

the short haired waitress, the waitress that wore ponytail hairstyle, and the boy were all nice and provided good customer service. They also had a friendly personality.

Vietnamese iced coffee is usually with a strong coffee taste, however, mine tonight was weak, no coffee taste and it just tastes like cold milk. Still drank it all though. But I expected the Vietnamese iced coffee to have more coffee taste in the drink, just like how they make the Vietnamese iced coffee elsewhere...places like cabramatta and Fairfield and Bankstown. That's the only reason why I dropped out the remaining ONE star.

the dishes and presentation was beautiful. Loved the plates and bowls and spoons and chopsticks that were presented.

Now since I'm living in Moorebank, it's near Warwick farm. The savoury dining at Warwick farm is opening soon so it says. Don't know when, but when it opens me and my parents will surely try the place. Also because it's closer to home.

*Savoury dining North Strathfield, thank you for the...