Ninh's Vietnamese Restaurant — Restaurant in London

OK, what to say about Au Lac... TL;DR - an enjoyable dine-in experience, but a big let down as takeaway.

The long version - I've eaten in the restaurant a couple times and have found it to be a lovely experience, if a little pricey. This was my first time ordering takeaway from them.

First of all, I think it's a serious statement of intent by them to be charging on average £9 per main dish, given that is a fair bit above the going rate for the area. When you decide to spend that sort of money on takeaway, you would naturally expect the quality of the food - both in terms of ingredients and overall enjoyment - to be better than the usual fare in the area.

Unfortunately I am sad to report that I did not find this to be the case. On the whole the food was tasty, and I must commend them for getting the order to me early (a rare feat! But then it was a Monday night so perhaps a slow evening), but the simple fact is it just wasn't up to the standards that a £9 price tag demands.

Flavours are, as per the restaurant eat-in experience, fairly authentic, so the flavour profile overall is a refreshing change from the typical samey taste you get at other eateries, however I was disappointed with more bland flavours from some dishes, and some dry, overcooked and gristly meat. I would expect a far better raw ingredient quality and cooking technique for the money.

Specific notes - as other reviewers have mentioned, the chargrilled pork has a particularly delicious flavour, so that was delicious. I tried the mongolian duck - this was disappointing. The menu says 24h seasoned and medium rare meat, and I got bland, grey, overcooked and extremely chewy duck. The sauce was pleasant enough, but nothing to write home about. Same overcooked duck in their stir fried noodles. The biggest disappointment of all was the sizzling beef with ginger & spring onions; extremely tough, gristly beef, all chew no flavour, in a congealed, tasteless grey sauce. Very, very disappointing.

The egg fried rice was tasty, thanks to the addition of an unusual savoury fruity flavour, however the portion size for £3 could have been more generous.

So, overall, I think had I received this exact meal from any of the other cut & paste Asian takeaways around Islington/Holloway then I would have been overall pleasantly surprised, thanks to a few enjoyable flavour touches and a little extra 'freshness' to the palette, however at £8-£9.50 paid per dish I would not order again without some assurances from the restaurant that it was an off night, and perhaps even then would need to see those prices come down a pound or two across the board.

A not altogether unpleasant (apart from the beef), but nevertheless expensive lesson learned. I would welcome reciprocation from the owners though and am happy to discuss further.

PS From an eat-in experience, a couple more notes; the rare beef pho I found tasty and enormous, and don't order the Vietnamese coffee as it took them longer than it took to order, receive and then eat our meal before it arrived! (Ordered the coffee when we first sat down, tried to cancel it after having finished an enormous pho but they refused, and then it finally arrived just as we were...

Been ordering take away by phone to collect (cheaper than ordering delivery via just eat) and eating in for the past 20 years, even when it changed owners. New owners (wife) is incredibly shouty and rude when errors are made which happens a lot, taking no responsibility for missing items ie pancakes for the aromatic duck, no vinegar sauce… … last night took the biscuit when we picked up an order and didn’t get the dish we ordered and something else with a different name , seemed person taking the order assumed it was bunh when I did not use that word once! Their English was very unclear and limited so hard to understand but we knew what we ordered but wife owner insisted we ordered something completely different as it was on the menu!?? . We ordered Chargrilled pork with rice and salad but got a rice noodle dish!! Owner Talking over me, shouting, arguing, insisting it was our mistake!! I knew what I ordered FGS, if it’s easier they should use numbers to order!! Food was cold by the time we ate it trying to sort it out on the phone. Wife said they had no driver to bring replacement dish but surely they had their own cars to deliver it. Seriously disappointed, won’t be back, end of an era for us I’m afraid. Too many mistakes, we also got a carton of veg for pho instead of aromatic duck last night!! Anyway too Argumentative, expensive and difficult, beware! Such a shame, they should learn from their parents (old owners) a bit about customer service. We are customers...

I have a mixed feel about this place. Its in my local area and I have been several times. Dinner is ok, food generally good. Prices are ok although once tried the hot and sour soup which was horrible, could taste the cornstarch in it. More like from a canned soup really. But for my local its not that bad. Lunch when they are open (currently friday Sat and Sun I believe) on the other hand is terrible. The service is horrible. I once went when there was a guy as the waiter. He was borderline rude. I saw him treat a mother with a very young child very badly. What I witnessed was this mother walked in with her young child and asked for a highchair for her child. Behind her a group of about 5 people walked in about 3 mins later one also including a child. The waiter then ran to get the group of 5 seated. The mother and the child who walked in first reminded the waiter to give her a high chair, I then heard the waiter said theres only 1 highchair and the group of 5 will be having it?? As u can imagine the mother was quite upset and just left. From what I witnessed it was more the case the waiter wanted the business of the bigger party and therefore was ruthless to the mother on her own. I felt quite disgusted by this hence my mix feelings...