Miss Chu

Miss Chu

276 Toorak Rd, South Yarra

(Ph) 9041 5848

J had suggested we come to this super chic and trendy Vietnamese restaurant down the road from her place =) After doing some research, this restaurant actually only opened up a few months ago, but there's been one in the city for a while. They serve high end Vietnamese hawker food, eat in, takeaway or delivery (order online) - that's why they call it the tuckshop! We saw some delivery bicycles outside the restaurant - so authentic!

They don't take bookings here so lucky we came at 6pm on a weeknight, got a table up the back immediately. The decor is very trendy - it's a very long thin restaurant with a row of tables by the wall, some high tables and stools and some seating by the bar.

They have upside down Asian ceramic bowls (some real, some fake paper ones =P) as light shades! They also have all these wooden sticks poking out from the wall - I'm assuming you hang your bag/coats on them?

Water is self serve - literally from the tap, couldn't they have filled some bottles with tap water so it looked better? But I like their cups - I guess they reuse customers' Coconut Juice cups =P I wouldn't mind having some Coconut juice but I didn't like how it was frozen and not fresh =(

You order on a piece of paper and hand it to the waiter (seems to be quite popular now, like Pho Chu The), I guess that eliminates wrong orders and saves waiter time. We decided to share an entree - Prawn + Crab Vermicelli Net Spring Rolls (4 per serve) $6.00

Very interesting wrapping spring rolls with vermicelli instead of spring roll paper - how do they even wrap with vermicelli?! It must have come as a dried net piece already - it was really tasty with the homemade fish sauce (I assume?) The vermicelli bits broke off easily so was like little chips =)

J got the Warm Vermicelli Salad with Satay Chicken $13.00

Quite good with lots of herbs and flavour.

I got something off the Specials Board. Banh Xeo - wrap your own crispy pork crepe served with herbs & rice paper $13 The specials weren't on the menu paper so the waiter told us to just write it on the bottom. The entree and J's dish came really quickly, and mine still hadn't come I had to chase it up. But just as I did, it finally arrived - I guess it's freshly cooked =)

Wow so much stuff! This is one of my favourite Vietnamese dishes (see Tien Dat) - I like how they cut it up into more manageable pieces for you. This is the first time I've seen it served with rice paper and herbs - I guess once it's wrapped up you can eat it with your hands as opposed to with knife and fork (which they don't provide here =P) The crepe was super crispy and delicious but the filling was really really salty =/ I always try to finish the food I order but I really couldn't eat all the filling it was way too salty =( And because there was no mung bean in the filling, when you pick up a piece of the crepe, all the filling fell out... pretty messy meal =P

I only realised after we left that they overcharged us =( The bill was $34, it should have been $32, not that the $2 really matters but I don't like places overcharging us without our consent!

Food~
5/10 - I like the modernization of Vietnamese Hawker foods though it is a little bit on the expensive side compared to Richmond or Boxhill =P And I would have enjoyed the crepe much more if they just eased on the salt!

Service~
2/5 - the waiters are so busy that it took a while to try and ask one of them if my dish was coming

Atmosphere~
4/5 - super trendy and hip restaurant, suits the South Yarra vibe =)

C.
xo