SôNg Quê Café

Song Que has always been my favourite bet to order Pho on the Kingsland Rd strip. Their beef broth is the most flavourful. I normally prefer some of the other restaurants on the strip for ordering family style meals because of more extensive menu of sharing dishes. But Song Que really lived up to the mark today with the quality of their non streetfood dishes meant for eating communally with rice. We started with the chargrilled lamb starter which was deliciously glazed if a little pricey at £8.50 for two thin lamb chops. The Cambodian style lime and pepper dipping sauce was a quite salty and best applied sparingly. Our other starter of papaya and prawn salad was very herbal with mint, and sawtooth coriander. For mains we shared the streetfood staple of bun cha with spring rolls and pork. Very good with plenty of lightly pickled as well as fresh veg. The star of our order was the deep fried whole sea bream with mango. Great that the garnish was green mango and fresh chilli. A lot of other restaurants on Kingsland Rd make do with ripe mango which does not have the authentic fragrance or tart note of unripe mango. I did not give full marks because the Vietnamese iced coffee was overly sweet and rich. I would have preferred more coffee and less condensed milk. It's a friendly raucous place. No BYO policy which is the case in some other spots on Kingsland Rd.

Unh did a great job as waitress! Food was tasty. I have tried summer rolls at about a dozen places in London, and I would suggest these over the others I think because they had larger prawns and lots of healthy veggies inside. The chicken with lemongrass is also pictured here and was quite tasty and flavorful and not oily, etc. Recommended!

I am a regular for close to 20 yrs. Our one and only choice of the best vietnamese food in London. Everytime if i come alone, i always order the same food (crispy squid and pho). Came for lunch today as soon as it was open. Dont know it was a different chef today or something changed? The Pho i had was no where near the usual standard and actually the worse Pho i had ever had including outside the UK. Soup was bland and there was so little stuff in it. I ordered extra beef balls for 3 quid and I had 1 ball and a half, in all. The pho I ordered was rare beef but it came out totally cooked when the bowl reached my table....what happened? This is not the Song Que I know. Will visit again soon and see if I was just very unlucky today.

I tried to visit this restaurant twice before ‘settling’ for other options on Kingsland. The first time there was a line out of the door, the second time they had a mid-day closure and I couldn’t return. Today was the day I finally place and order.... and the food was disappointing. My egg fried rice had many lumps of plain white rice. My beef noodle dish had hard clumps of noodles and my chicken bun left much to be desired. The flavors were good, but the texture of the chicken was lacking. With so many options, I’ll likely opt for the alternative next time around. No excuse for basic flaws in execution of your main dishes.

i love this place, this is the second time i’ve been, and both times have been amazing !! this time i went on my birthday and it was so lovely. i got the chicken pho which was soso good and for starters we got the spring rolls and summer rolls. i really recommend coming here if you’re looking for a vietnamese place in london !