Thursday, 17 October 2013

Song Que: Hoxton, London

Song Que

Date of Visit: 26th September 2013

Ambience
1 word – GREEN! I don’t mean environmentally friendly, I mean colour décor!  The whole restaurant is bright green, from the counter outside the kitchen and bar area to the front door and the walls.  I think the colour of the t-shirts of the servers were also green?  I can’t remember now but it was insanely OTT.

I wouldn’t say it’s a really small restaurant but it appeared very cramp as the tables were all joined up to save space and the walkways between each set of tables were narrow.

Don’t expect much of an atmosphere here – it really isn’t designed for a great ambience but does the food make up for it?

Food
Between two of us, we shared a few starters and a main.  We had a prawn and papaya salad, grilled quail, prawn paste wrapped around sugar cane, prawn cupcakes and a chargrilled pork and Vietnamese spring roll vermicelli dish.  I’m disappointed to say that nothing stood out for me.  The quail was nice but naturally I am comparing it to the quail I tried at Mien Tay and I remember it to be tastier there.  The prawn cupcakes were different but even now, I’m not entirely sure what it was.  The base was slight doughy and each one was topped with a tiny shrimp.  I mean it was ok but not what I would call “tasty”.  The chargrilled pork with the vermicelli was dry and almost tasteless.  Perhaps me having a cold at the time affected my sense of taste a little but the food was a disappointment to my friend too.



Service
The service was fair – we had no issues with ordering the food and everything came quickly but it was towards the end of the meal that we felt a little rushed since there was a queue of people at the door.  I had almost forgot to order a take-away but as we asked for the bill, I remembered.  They asked us to pay for the bill at the counter (probably wanting us to vacate the table earlier) but we told them we were not prepared to stand whilst waiting for the take-away.  In the end, we got our take-away in a matter of minutes.  Was the speed of delivery impacted by us hogging a table?  Quite possibly.. either way, the staff at no point was rude to us.  However, they could be a little more helpful.  For example, I asked if they had lemon grass pork with vermicelli or rice and the answer was no but they had chargrilled pork with vermicelli instead… but they clearly had lemon grass pork with other items on their menu.  My point is they could have suggested it was fine to substitute one for another.

Summary
Overall, I felt the food was very average but it seemed to be popular amongst the locals.  The menu was extensive so arguably some of the other dishes may have been better but there are too many other options around the area before I’d be tempted to give this place another try.


Song Que was recommended to me but frankly, it wouldn’t be one of my recommendations.  However, I am now determined to try out the other restaurants along the Pho Mile (especially since I may not be working in the City for long) to find a really good one so we don’t have to trek all the way to Blackheath area for Mama Pho/East Café for a nice Viet meal.

No comments:

Post a Comment