Viet     

Unit 1-3
Duckworth Court
Milton Keynes
MK6 2RX

date visited: December 2011

type: Vietnamese restaurant

For – nothing I can think of 

I lived in New York for many years and one of my favourite restaurants was Indochine, a great Vietnamese place on Lafayette Street in lower Manhattan. With these memories ringing in my head I was really excited when I heard of the opening of Viet on Oldbrook. Even more so when I saw some of the early reviews of the place.

So one Saturday evening before Christmas my wife and I set off for a visit. In retrospect we should have stayed home. I think the previous reviewers must have visited a different restaurant.

A rather uninspiring space, we were shown to one of the many empty seats in the room. After sitting there for several minutes without any attention, I was pleased when the waiter approached. Not so pleased when the request was for us to move to another table. After another wait I called the waiter over to try and get some drinks. This resulted in us eventually receiving a not very cold bottle of Sai Gon beer and a tasteless glass of Pinot Grigio. This set the tone for the evening.

I shan’t bother with too much detail but here is what we had:

Seafood hot and sour soup – no flavour – very little seafood. Tasted as though the "chef" had poured some ingredients into hot water and served

Summer rolls with prawns – overwhelming flavour of mint – little else.

The waiter brought over the wrong appetiser and after a wait, the ordered soft shell crab – all I could taste was the batter.

Sweet basil spicy duck – tough and certainly not spicy.

Sea Bass with dill – listed as their signature dish. It looked good but all I could taste was the batter on the fish and the mountain of dill over it. And I mean mountain...

The greens at least tasted of the garlic on it!

All served on plates that were so cold they seemed to be straight from the refrigerator.

Our wine was a Petit Chablis – once again no flavour. Certainly none of the flinty notes that are the trademark of a Chablis. I have never left half of a £28 bottle of wine before.

And to add insult they then told me that their card payment machine was broken. Just as well I had cash with me for once...

One of the worst meals I have ever had. I was really looking forward to this. What a disappointment. Avoid at all costs!