Saigon Delights Restaurant — Restaurant in North Island

Finally got to try this place as my friends who went here last week were so impressed with them! We tried the sharing platter which has 3 summer rolls (we chose all prawns) cut into halves, 2 crispy spring rolls, a chicken and a beef skewer with 2 dipping sauces. Then the grilled pork ribs and beef salad. I think their speciality is definitely marinades and sauces, particularly loved the beef skewer marinade, the pork ribs marinade and their beef salad dressing (with a kick). The summer rolls were generic (although it's hard for summer rolls to not be generic), the spring rolls were nice and the oil used was fresh, not overly greasy, the chicken skewer has a bit of a cumin taste and slightly dry, the beef skewer I love the marinade but was slightly over-cooked it was on the chewy side. The pork ribs also has a nice marinade and I felt the dipping sauce was a bit redundant as the pork was flavourful enough, also on the dry side. It came with rice which was very soft, if you like your rice kind of separated you probably won't like this, I personally liked it but my table mates not so much. The beef salad wasn't as tender as I had hoped but it was not chewy like the skewers with slight pink in the centre of the slices. The salad dressing was the main show though, couldn't figure out what was in it but was my favourite, and I don't usually like salads! They do 10% off on Tuesdays and being on Tinakori Road, sometimes not as busy as restaurants on Courtenay place....

We went along to eat-in but their liquor license hadn't come through yet, so we decided to get takeaway instead. The staff were super-friendly and efficient. We waited at our table while our food was prepared. The atmosphere is very contemporary rather than being anything authentically Asian, but it is clean and nice. Our dinner was ready in a pretty decent time-frame and we headed off home. Everything was containered up well. I think it was all compostable/recyclable, and it was well labelled. Sadly the eating was not so good. We had ordered two entrees and three mains and we were very disappointed with the quality of all the food. The meats were not the best quality with a fair bit of fat and gristle, and in general the flavours were not great. We really love Vietnamese food and have tried many places, but this was a very long way short of what we are used to. Really hope that they can turn this around as I would love to have a great Vietnamese restaurant down the road. Good luck guys, but please review the quality...

I ate lunch at Saigon Delights with two Vietnamese women - my wife & a regular dining partner of ours. The physical environment is lovely, we ate in the 'cafe' part nearest the street, the deeper recesses appeared ideal for evenings and a more restaurant type feel. We shared banh xeo - the tumeric tinged crispy pancake - filled with a traditional mixture of small prawns, pork and beansprouts. I ate this every morning for breakfast for 6 months or so in a Saigon market. I tried all the versions in that market and Saigon Delight's version is excellent. I chose to try their version of banh mi - once again an excellent rendition - not so traditional, but excellent nevertheless with far more meat than one would get in Vietnam. An excellent pho Tai - with raw sliced fillet was similarly appreciated. Mutterings of ngon and ngon lam from the ladies - delicious and very delicious - so overall a high recommendation from some old Vietnam hands. We'll be back no doubt. Well done...