Kinh Do 24-2-16

 

 

Although we rarely head over to the north side of Canberra for our restaurant nights, we can always make an exception for the Kinh Do Restaurant in Macquarie!  There is nothing fancy about this friendly home-style Vietnamese restaurant but the food and service is always good and they serve the best rice paper rolls in Canberra! 

For our group of 5 particularly hungry people, we ordered 2 entrées (fresh rice paper rolls and Vietnamese spring rolls), 4 main courses (Crispy Chicken with butter soy sauce, Prawns with Vietnamese mint, Braised Lamb with lemon grass, and Caramelised Pork) and 3 desserts (2 serves of Banana Cake with coconut cream and 1 serve of Banana Fritters).  This was plenty of food and worked out to a very reasonable $24 per person.

The fresh rice paper rolls were as good as ever and a great start to the meal. Jam-packed with fresh ingredients and served with a yummy hoisin-peanut dipping sauce, they were (in Ron parlance) “to die for”.   The Vietnamese spring rolls were OK but not up to the same standard.  They were under packed with filling so it didn’t come through enough over the deep fried wrapper.   

With the main courses, everyone particularly liked the crispy chicken with butter-soy sauce.  The flavoursome sauce was a perfect match with the crispy chicken. Not too sweet, it had a great mouth-feel and imparted both extra taste and moisture to the chicken meat. 

Ron, John and Jim also really enjoyed the lamb dish (Braised Lamb with lemon grass) but Karen found it a little too sweet for her taste. Somewhat ironically, she preferred the caramelised pork.  Although this is quite a standard Vietnamese dish, it was well-cooked and not overly sweet.  The last main course (Prawns with Vietnamese mint) was also the least favourite dish of the night.  We all love Vietnamese mint but even this couldn’t rescue a dish with watery prawns. 

For dessert we chose a banana cake and some banana fritters when other dishes weren’t available.  The banana fritters were pretty standard but the Asian-style banana cake (served warm with coconut cream) was surprisingly yummy and one of the nicest Asian desserts we had tried.  A great end to a fitting feast!