The ‘legendary’ street food of The Lunch Lady, Nguyễn Thị Thanh, is to be found here in London’s Covent Garden.
Cô Thành in Henrietta Street mimics Vietnam’s street dining culture with everything apparently sourced directly from Vietnam, including hand-painted signs, exposed brick and dark wood.
It’s bright, cheerful and very no nonsense. The seats are a bit hard on the buttocks, but then it’s the kind of place you sit, eat and leave and don’t linger. The food is fast and tasty and from what I could see, very popular with the Vietnamese in London.
We slid onto our seats and took a look at the simple menu – Bánh Mì, Bún and Phở plus sides/starters. If you’re unsure what you’re getting, a QR code brings up pretty pics of all the dishes.
The difference between Bún and Phở is that Phở uses bánh phở, which are flat, translucent rice ribbon noodles while Bún uses vermicelli or thicker round noodles. I’m told that in Vietnam Bún is not always as popular as Phở, which tends to be a bit hotter.
I am sure we all know what Bánh Mì are though, the love children of France and Vietnam, delicious Asian things in a baguette.
The set lunch menu is a choice of Bánh Mì or Bún alongside a side for £20, but we wanted to go a bit deeper than that, so ordered up some ‘starters’.
Firstly Cánh gà chiên, which French speakers might be a bit worried about, it is in fact beer battered fried chicken wings, roasted peanuts, nước mắm and smoked chilli glaze.This we found a bit odd. Enormous wings wrapped in a very sweet batter that fell off the meat immediately. All the flavour was in the lettuce underneath. We didn’t eat much of it. Not a winner for us.
Much better was Bo Bla Lot – Grilled beef rolled in betel leaf with roasted peanuts, spring onions and nước chấm dipping sauce.This had all the zingy flavours I expected from Vietnamese food, whereas the wings had seemed more Chinese in style. These rolls are very big in Vietnam and it’s easy to see why. Tender meat in that peppery leaf with the sharp fishy dipping sauce going perfectly with it.
We then had a Bun and a Pho. Mine was Bun Mam made with a fermented fish and shrimp paste broth, shrimp, fresh squid, roasted pork belly, aubergine, okra, pineapple, chives, vermicelli. This was excellent with the broth having all the punch you’d expect from pungent shrimp paste, which when fried can clear a room in seconds..
The squid was tender and the pork belly good and crispy on the outside. The lavish chives were Asian, longer and flatter than European, and I really liked the slice of pineapple for its sweet sharpness. There was a bowl of chopped fresh chili on the table, so I recklessly threw a few in, a bit of a mistake as they were a lot hotter than I expected and I was reduced to gasping for air
The Pho was very fine too: a beef bone broth, a beef patty of brisket and chuck, a fritter, spring onions and flat rice noodles. J was unsure how to deal with the patty by using just his chopsticks, and I had no idea either.
So he put it on a plate, reduced it to pieces and then put it all back in. He said the whole thing was then delicious. Both of us by now were going through napkins like combine harvesters, partly because of the stock splashing about and partly because both dishes gave us runny noses.
Dessert is not always a strong point in Asian cuisine. I quite liked my Iced Vietnamese dark roast coffee, fritters, condensed milk. Very refreshing. J’s was a bit unsure of his omemade banana and coconut ice cream, roasted peanuts (peanuts again!), lime zest, saying it was more banana and cream than ice-cream, but perfectly pleasant all the same.
We enjoyed Cô Thành rather more than we now enjoy the Pho chain. There’s definitely a more authentic feel to the food and the relaxed atmosphere makes it a good choice for a quick lunch or an evening pitstop.
16 Henrietta Street, London, WC2E 8QH [1]