Green Papaya — Restaurant in London

Having read the generally positive reviews we decided take a punt and ordered papaya salad, beef (rare and well done beef) pho and the 'Concubine chicken noodles', wheat noodles with chicken thighs.

The papaya salad was lacking flavour and was drenched in a odd basil paste which was unusual and to my knowledge not authentic. In addition, the papaya salad was served with a large wedge of lemon instead of lime. Upon requesting the lemon be exchanged for lime we were told that there was no lime available in the restaurant. This was surprising as the pho, which was served later, came with a fresh wedge of lime. Upon questioning the waitress' previous assertion regarding the lime we were told that the papaya salad only comes with lemon and cannot be served with lime. This directly contradicts the menu which clearly states:

'The leading principles of the Vietnamese kitchen are the balancing of flavours and the use of fresh ingredients and, thanks to the highly customizable nature of most dishes, each diner can create their own personal taste experience'.

We decided to send the chicken dish back as it was not to our taste, this was duly taken off the bill which we appreciated. We did tell the waitress that we wished to exchange the chicken dish for another and requested that she comes back to our table in 5 minutes whilst we peruse the menu again. She never came back to ask about our decision. It was only when we had finished eating both of the remaining dishes that the waitress came to take our plates away.

The pho itself lacked flavour within the broth and smelt slightly stale which was obviously off putting, however the texture and taste of the beef was however quite nice. In any case, I had spent most of the day without food riding my bicycle and hence decided to eat the pho and not give it back to the kitchen.

To summarise, we found the experience disappointing, the food was less than average in quality and taste and the service was compromised by a lack of attention to detail and perplexing limitations on the most simple of...

very bad, absolutely not vietnamese food at all. I ordered pho tai nam through uber eats - they serve the well done "beef" with pork. Im fairly sure that The meat they use are from chinese noodle dish "mì vằn thắn". Please either stop selling vietnamese food or change the decivetive name, make sure you mentioned pork not beef so people dont buy it. I cant believe this got high review but it is my fault since most review are from people who dont know what actual vn food. I read a couple of bad comments and thought that it might be ok since it is not hard to mess pho flavour but they succesfully messed pho up so bad that it taste nothing like it. The food made my day so bad i cant believe it. My wife ordered bun thit nuong and oh my gosh dont make me talk about it. Absolutely horrendous food tasting experiment.

P/s: I dont know how to reply to the ow er comment but I dont own any restaurant like they said, check my reviews profile, mostly review for good food. Please read others' bad reviews as well, check who is the reviewer and how they said about the food as well. I trust the reader have critical thinking. Its very funny when you say I must have a business to leave a bad...

My go-to Vietnamese restaurant in London.

Really tasty food, has a half Vietnamese, half Xi'an menu. Unlike most places with a mixed cuisine menu, both sides of food are brilliant. Has all the Vietnamese classics and some spicy Xi'anese dishes. Try the beef pho or the dan dan noodles.

Prices are incredibly cheap, especially for Hackney. Cheaper than most of the other Vietnamese restaurants on Kingsland Road and better IMO. There's another Green Papaya on Kingsland Road too, but I've never been so can't comment.

I've never had a problem getting seated here. It's not usually that busy, and the staff are willing to fit you in. They take bookings.

Staff are friendly, but the older guy who runs it is a bit brusque (in a nice way).

Decor is interesting. There's a big bar for single diners or quick eats, then there's a large back room with a fountain, an ersatz pond and a big pig...