Viet Rolls Marrickville — Restaurant in Sydney

As their name suggests, Viet Rolls specialises in banh cuon. We ordered the #3 half & half banh cuon ($16) (half plain + half minced chicken, prawn and wood ear fungus) - really smooth rice noodles and they come with 4 meatballs (made of the same chicken and wood ear fungus) in a lightly sweet broth that tastes like diluted nuoc cham (like for bun cha). Generous portions too.

We also had the #13 stuffed chicken wings ($12), which came highly recommended. They were golden, crispy and plump - stuffed with mince, wood ear and glass noodles, so like a Vietnamese spring roll but with the added deliciousness of crispy chicken skin. This was the highlight of the meal for me.

The #59 steamed marinated pork leg ($20) reminded me of Korean jokbal (braised pork hock) in both the presentation and condiments. It was served with different herbs for wrapping, as well as shrimp paste (mam tom) for dipping, which is also very similar to one of the dipping sauces for jokbal. The flavour of the pork itself is very light, just a little smoky but without much seasoning. I did find the slices (particularly the skin) were a bit dry and chewy, not as tender as I would've liked. This dish also came with...

Staff were friendly but the food was mediocre, I ordered the rare beef and brisket and the steamed rice rolls with mince chicken and prawns. Which the waiter recommend I try, then got pushy with my hesitation to order it, saying "how will you know you don't like if you don't try" in a passive agressive tone.

In the steamed rice rolls dish, I have never seen prawns cut up into such tiny pieces before, I had to look really hard just to find 2 specks of prawn. The mince chicken was also cut up into such tiny, sparse pieces that all I could taste were the rice rolls. Although, the sauce that came with the rolls and little chicken balls were quite nice.

The pho was atrocious, the soup was served lukewarm with little flavour, tiny, tiny clumps of rare beef and majority of the brisket pieces where only the fat cuttings.

I had high hopes for this place but I honestly don't know why the ratings for this restaurant are so high. The goose dish I initially wanted to order seems to have good reviews, maybe I will have to go and try out this...

My friend and I have been coming to this restaurant regularly for the past two years, but unfortunately, today’s experience was very disappointing, especially when I took a new friend here and told them the food is really on point.

HOWEVER, when I ordered the mince crab soup, which used to be my favorite dish here. This time, they only give me two pork balls, two small pieces of beef wrapped in betel leaves, a tiny bit of vegetables, and nothing else…no crab meat, no flat fish cake…which were always part of the dish before. And it cost $20, which I found really ridiculous and unreasonable given how little was in it.

Attached photo was a $20 bowl of soup with just 4 pieces of topping!

We also had a few questions about the food, and the lady who served us didn’t seem very friendly or welcoming. That made the overall experience even more disappointing.

I’ve enjoyed many good meals here in the past, but based on today’s visit, I don’t think I’ll be coming back. I’ll also let my friends know about the changes in quality...