Little Saigon in Mount Lawley - Vietnamese food with Western & Chinese influences

We’ve just come home from a lovely dinner with burger boy’s parents at Little Saigon in Mount Lawley. It’s amazing that we live so close and have never tried it before - think we spend more time towards the Mount Lawley end of Beaufort Street.

My father-in-law loves everything and will eat anything, my mother-in-law on the other hand is an amazing cook and is fussier, but from our last Vietnamese dining experience at Lido with my family, burger boy and I knew Vietnamese would be a winner.

For entrée we ordered two serves of the beef rice paper rolls.

I haven’t seen beef rice paper rolls on the menu before, normally there’s just the prawn and pork rice paper rolls. It was a pleasant surprise especially because I love beef rice paper rolls and only ever have it at the homes of my Vietnamese friends or at home.

The beef was tender and the flavours were delicious. It wasn’t too salty and there was just the right amount of filling which made it easy to eat. The fish sauce was ok but probably not as flavoursome as I would like (note - my fussy mother cooks pretty good Vietnamese).

My father-in-law loves fried rice so he was pretty happy when fried rice was available at Little Saigon. This kind of surprised me as I didn’t think Vietnamese served fried rice with their dishes. I must say though, it was good fried rice as they used Chinese sausage which I absolutely love.

The satay beef was interesting and as my mother-in-law quoted “it doesn’t taste like your usual satay beef”, the satay flavour wasn’t that strong but it tasted fine, beef was tender enough. I’d rename the dish though as if I really felt like satay beef I’d be disappointed.

The caramelized pork was a winner, everyone loved this dish. Inside the clay pot was pieces of pork belly cooked with a whole boiled egg and the sauce was tasty. burger boy thought the pork and egg combination was delicious together.

The squid was super tender and tasted delicious in the lemon grass and chilli curry - my third favourite dish of the night and I’m spewing that I didn’t take a photo of it. Must have got too mesmerised by the food by then - wish dishes would take automatic photos of themselves so I can focus more on eating!!

I was a bit hesitant about ordering any of the chicken dishes because they sounded pretty ordinary. But because we knew my mother-in-law preferred chicken over fish, we ordered the baby corn chicken, carrot and snow pea stir-fry.

This dish was a bit bland and the chicken breast was a little tough and a bit overcooked. Chicken thigh would have worked better for this dish, but I understand not everyone likes chicken thigh.

I was hoping for my usual apple custard smoothie that I normally have when I dine at Vietnamese restaurants, but it wasn’t on the menu so I had the iced longan drink instead. This drink is pretty easy to make, you just pour the longan and the syrup from the can and add ice so although nice - the credit is to the suppliers of the can longan.

The Vietnamese food at Little Saigon has a Western and Chinese influence in that it has been modernised to suit western palates and uses Chinese ingredients in some of the dishes. Little Saigon is decked out with modern decor and is great for a nice dinner out. But if you’re after authentic Vietnamese street food (like broken pork rice, pho etc), you won’t find these items on the menu. The price was on the high side for Vietnamese food (it was around $17 for a main and the total bill was $110) and the portions are a bit smaller than I would have liked. But being just around the corner, we’ll be back when we feel like going somewhere close that we can enjoy a nice meal and a chat in a cozy setting.