Friendly family business

The Viet Hoa dining room is large, clean, light and airy, with an impressive golden parquet floor.

The café part of the name is borne out by the bottles of red and brown sauce that take pride of place on each table.

The brown goop turns out to be hoisin sauce and the red stuff a simple chilli one, but they have both been put into recycled plastic bottles on which the only recognisable words are 'Sriracha extra hot chilli sauce - Flying Goose Brand'.

Apparently this has made all but the regulars strangely wary of hoisin sauce.

For diners wanting to go as a group and share, an appetiser called salted prawn in garlic dressing is outstanding - large prawns marinated and fried with chilli and garlic.

From the list of fifteen soups, pho is compulsory.

Ribbon noodles and beef, chicken or tofu are added to a delicate broth that comes with a plate of mint leaves, Thai basil and chillies, your job being to add the fresh aromatics to the hot soup - resulting in astonishingly vivid flavours.

Main courses include shaking beef, cubes of beef with a tangy salad, and drunken fish, fish cooked with wine and cloud ear mushrooms.

Both live up to the promise of their exotic names.

There are a good many salad and tofu dishes, including tofu with chilli and black bean.

Bun tom nuong is a splendid one-pot dish of noodles with chargrilled tiger prawns.

Also in one-pot-with-vermicelli territory, you'll find bun nem nuong, which features grilled minced pork, and that old favourite, Singapore noodles.

Among the desserts you'll find 'fried ice cream' - the connoisseur's choice.

Viet Hoa Cafe
Kingsland Road, London, E2 8DP