Tan Viet

By Franz Scheurer

Cabramatta is Sydney’s ‘Vietnamese Suburb’ with wet markets, cheap clothes, terrific tropical fruit and vegies, exotic ‘things’ in bottles and jars, colourful sweets and lots of authentic Vietnamese food. There are so many places to eat that even the masses of people everywhere can’t fill them all. This is where Tan Viet stands out: people queue to get in. A large restaurant over two levels, it is synonymous with the fast and furious turn-around of Asian comfort food: noodles.

You choose your protein, be it beef, goat, duck or chicken, then match it to thin egg noodles, flat white rice noodles, thick Hokkien-style ‘drop’ noodles, or to rice or crusty white French-Vietnamese baguettes.  The dishes consist of a soupy base, served with a plethora of condiments and fresh herbs and sprouts and you spice the heady broth to your own liking. Like it fiery hot? Add chilli. Love it sour, add the tangy lime juice with scuds or if you’d rather have dark, salty flavours, add lots of the spiced salt. One thing stays consistent: the superb quality of the base stock.

We loved the ‘Criskin’ chicken, a dish found on almost every table. Crispy skin chicken served with a clear, chlorophyll-heavy stock and their version of Hainan chicken, a perfectly steeped chook served with a peppery, clear chicken soup with lots of fresh herbs. A red goat curry turns out to be a beautifully balanced dish, somewhere between a curry and a soup in consistency, served with fall-apart meat and lots of fresh bread to mop up the juices. A marriage made in heaven! We also liked the roast duck served with egg noodles in a complex, fatty broth with lots of cinnamon and liquorice root. Tan Viet is BYO, but they do serve great complimentary tea, which works well with the food. Should you ‘overindulge’ in the heat stakes then I suggest you order a young coconut juice, as the cool sweetness is a great antidote to the burning mouthfeel.

Leave room for the sweets. Don’t worry about the descriptions, just look at the pictures on the menu, chose the most colourful ones and dig in. They are a mix of pandanus leaf-coloured sweet noodles, golden peanuts, red bean curd, fruit jellies, coconut cream and shaved ice; most refreshing and light.

Service is friendly and chaotic. Staff are helpful but mostly overwhelmed with the sheer onslaught of diners. Value for money is exceptionally good and I love the food so much I’m just sorry I live so far away…

Score: 6/10

For more information (no bookings are accepted)

Tan Viet
2-3/100 John Street

Cabramatta

Tel.: 02 9727 6853