Eat Drink Hong Kong

“Free noodles”, said the waitress. It doesn’t take anything more than that to convince me so in I went. To be honest I’ve been meaning to try Pho Lemon ever since it opened a couple of years ago.

It’s quite a small restaurant but the white walls and tables with a touch of green on the linen made it seem a little more spacious. Paintings on the wall add a hint of French colonial charm.

The staff are cheerful and friendly and, since it was still early and there were no other customers, more than happy to chat. They told me that they were offering a complimentary bowl of beef or chicken pho with every main course. They don’t do this every night. Sometimes the special offer is a free Saigon beer. Sometimes they don’t have a special offer but when they do it is usually from Monday to Thursday.

To go with my beef pho I decided I would order vegetarian rice paper spring rolls ($58) and Sarong prawns ($188). I also ordered a bottle of Saigon Beer.

I was most impressed with the spring rolls. They were stuffed with avocado, tomato and mushrooms and were really quite flavourful. It was a generous serving too. These dishes are made for sharing.

The background music was an eclectic mix ranging from Tijuana Brass to Parisian back-street ballads with electronic wallpaper music thrown in for good measure. It was such an odd selection it merely seemed to add the the general cheerfulness of the place.

The Sarong Prawns were delivered with a smile. I’d been wondering what sarong prawns were, it turned out they were quite a familiar dish after all. There were six large meaty prawns each wrapped in a cocoon of crispy noodle. There was also something that tasted suspiciously like thousand island dressing in there. Not that I have anything particularly against it but I do think it should have been mentioned on the menu.

The prawns are served with a refreshing green mango salad. This is a relative of the Thai papaya salad, som tam, but the Vietnamese version is fresh and tangy rather than spicy.

The crispy noodles are actually quite filling and towards the end I was extracting the prawn from its wrap in order to save a little space for the beef pho.

It wasn’t a huge bowl, though it was big enough and quite tasty. Not bad at all for a complementary dish. I do have to say, though, there are so many small Vietnamese pho shops around town now that I don’t think these would shake the faith I have in my favourites.

After despatching the noodles I took a well earned rest. The tables around me were filling up and the staff were quite busy though one did find a moment to ask if I’d like dessert. I chose the grilled banana with ice cream ($58) and rounded off with a Vietnamese coffee.