Of Café Hanoi

Last night I caught up with my Lawyer friend for our regular restaurant discovery and conversation time.With the growth in bars, cafés and restaurants around Auckland, we’re getting spoilt for choice. We decided on the Britomart District - specifically Café Hanoi, on the corner of Galway and Commerce Streets.I’d never been there so it was with some anticipation I arrived, having heard good things.Well.What a cool restaurant. The decor is fantastic and the welcome from the wait-staff was genuine and efficient and made us feel instantly at home.It was also very nice to see how busy it was. I’ve seen too many eateries with low patronage in recent times. They don’t take reservations for their evening dinner service so it pays to arrive early.On to the business end!Cocktails:Café Hanoi have their own cocktail menu, all flavours designed to complement the Vietnamese menu.We both chose ‘The Shaman’. It consists of Domain de Canton, Wyborowa Vodka, fresh lime, chilli, fresh ginger and honey. And it was fantastic.Anf then the food:We decided to get a number of shared plates.We chose: the summer rolls of braised pork & shrimp, with fresh herbs; a hotpot of caramelised pork belly with morning glory; wok seared market fish marinated in turmeric, ginger and galangal with snake beans, and the savoy & red cabbage salad with Vietnamese herbs and palm sugar vinaigrette.Overall, amazing presentation, amazing flavours and just the right portion size for the two of us. We accompanied the food with a glass of Johannesof Gewürtztraminer. A perfect match.I have no hesitation in recommending Café Hanoi. The staff were fantastic, the food was perfect, the ambience terrific. And it really wasn’t that expensive.I will definitely be returning.- S** Note: the above images are from their website. Hopefully they won’t mind. :p