#23 Ha Long Bay (82 Victoria St)

Attendees: Beata, Steph, Craig, Annabel, Joe


Ha Long Bay translates to Descending Dragon Bay. In Vietnam it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in Melbourne it is one of the many Vietnamese restaurant on Victoria Street.

Ha Long Bay makes the most of its Vietnamese theme with its décor. Like a tourist brochure, the feature wall showcases large evocative canvas photographs of rice paddys and rickshaws. Bamboo stalks, green walls and colourful paper lanterns complete the picture.

It feels spacious, unlike the tightly packed interiors of many of the restaurants along this strip. Overall it is a pleasant dining environment. Unfortunately there is nothing much original about the menu.

We begin, as is customary, with spring rolls and rice paper rolls. Standard. I’d been tipped off during the week that rice paper roll dipping sauce is a combination of peanut butter and oyster sauce. Something doesn’t taste right about this one though.

Number 27 is crab meat and sweet corn soup. It’s OK but no taste sensation.

The beef pho is a much lighter colour than we are accustomed to, with thinner noodles. It is not particularly flavoursome but with the addition of condiments convinces me to go for seconds.

For mains we pick lemongrass chilli scallops and beef samba. Again standard. The scallops seem fresh and the sauce tastes as expected. We chose the beef samba to see if it would be doing a Brazilian dance. Not such luck. It turns out to be stir fried beef with a lightly chilli sauce. Celery must have been on special this week as it features in all our mains.

The most original thing we can find on the menu is pork spare ribs. By original I mean this is not usually on Vietnamese restaurant menus. It was, however, our staple food travelling across America.

I forget to order the ribs (the special component) the first time around. We persist in getting them and it’s lucky because they are the highlight of the night. The ribs come hacked up in a clay pot with a salty, lemongrass-flavoured sauce. The meat is soft (though not falling off the bone like some of the delicious ribs we had in America) and the sauce very tasty.

Food aside, it is the banter that makes our night on this occasion. Energetically covering topics from Japanese gameshows to violent children’s behaviour to mating habits of animals, dinner stretches for an enjoyable two hours until we are the last people left in the Descending Dragon Bay.


Ratings
Spring rolls 7/10
Rice paper rolls 6.4/10
Beef pho 6.4/10
#27 (crab and sweet corn soup) 6.6/10
Special (pork spare ribs) 7.9/10
Lemongrass and chilli scallops 6.7/10
Beef samba 6.6/10