Cay Tre

301 Old Street, London, EC1. Tel: 0207 729 8662

I used to live on Great Eastern Street and when I saw this place spring up I got very excited – for some reason I had a good feeling about it – there’s a deluge of Vietnamese restaurants on the Kingsland Road but in my view they’re mostly serving the same Chinese slash Vietnamese inspired slop – so crispy shredded duck and various noodles with a pho and a Vietnamese pancake thrown in for good measure. Cay Tre on the other hand the menu is fascinating and authentic. It’s a family run restaurant headed up by Hue whose cousin, uncle, uncle’s wife and brother all play their part in helping to run the business. It’s a small cafe, recently done up in a quirky funky design that helps in setting it apart from the now predictable functional cafe’s in Kingsland Road. You will find some fantastic treasures on this menu including the Cha Cha Va Long, a dish that is served in the 100 year restaurant of the same name in Hanoi. Chunks of marinated monkfish are cooked in a frying pan at your table in fresh fennel and shrimp sauce and then served on a bed of noodles, chilli, peanuts and more shrimp sauce if required. Campfire steak is another house favourite, sliced steak marinated in chilli and cooked in a clay pot – when served it sits in a flame at your table which gives the steak one final blast which caramalises the dish so you end up with a deliciously sweet chilli beef dish. So much is the success of Cay Tre they have now opened the Viet Grill just 10 minutes away on Kingsland Road.