Hanoi Restaurant, Dubai - where streetfood has migrated indoors

My favourite thing about Southeast Asia is the street food. I love buying fresh little parcels of food, made fresh by the same person pushing the cart or carrying the basket. The vendors come when their produce is ready to serve, and leave when it is gone. You may have the best short meal of your life, and then never see the same mobile-chef ever again.
The random nature of street food is what excites me the most. Nothing is certain, other than that the food is always fresh, and generally darn good.
Now consider Dubai, which is a harsh sand-pit of a town, not suitable for street food at all because of the extreme heat through most of the year. In Dubai, vendors have to set up shiny, official looking restaurants just so they can serve the dishes traditionally thrown together by equally skilled vendors in much lower-budget surroundings.
So the joy of a chance encounter with a delicious meal is replaced by the thrill of the hunt for a decent restaurant in amongst the jungle of sand and concrete.
Hanoi was the result of a recent hunt.

You guessed it - they serve Vietnamese food.

We ordered a few varieties of the staple Vietnamese dish, Pho (rice noodles and some meat in a broth, served with fresh herbs and various spices), as well as some pan fried water spinach in oyster sauce (aka Morning Glory, or Kai-Lan), and a couple of curried and fried meat dishes for variety.

The first bowl of Pho was absolutely excellent. It was the 'Hanoi Special' Pho, and included beef brisket, beef balls (minced beef), steak strips and a whole lot of rice noodles. All the meats were soft and fresh, and the noodles were at that perfect moment in time when they are not soggy, and still have some good elasticity to them. The table was setup with bowls of fresh basil, mint and onion; as well as half a dozen assorted condiments for dressing up your meal just the way you like it. I like a touch of sugar and a LOT of chilli flakes.

The other soup was duck pho. It had less to love. The noodles were still great, but the duck meat had the texture of beef jerky. The broth lent some decent flavour, but it was hard to overlook how tired the duck was.

The mains were an unfortunate lineup of overly greasy, heavily salted dishes that you might expect to see on the menu at your local dodgy chinese takeaway. Functional and filling, but nothing to make your knees tremble. How do dishes like those deserve to share a place on the same menu as a soup as good as the Hanoi Special Pho? Because a large establishment like a restaurant cannot usually justify it's existence based on a couple of signature dishes. As soon as you are making a menu, you are expected to fill it up with 'stuff'. Even if it doesnt suit what you set out to offer in the first place, or appeal to your primary target market. Hey, even Harry's Cafe De Wheels in Australia sells terrible hotdogs. Need more proof? Just look at the salad menu at Mc Donalds.They aren't kidding anyone, but rather trying to reach a broader audience by selling products they have no real experience with or commitment to. But hey, gotta fill up that menu board with something, right? even if its altogether rubbish.

Unfortunately street food doesnt easily translate to a restaurant environment. They cant just close up shop when they run out of everyone's favourite dish, and making more of the same to cover the operating hours can end up with compromises on freshness.

RECOMMENDED

I really enjoyed my big bowl of pho at Hanoi restaurant, and I would order it again. The way the dish was handled and presented tells me that it is the main reason the restaurant was opened in the first place. Everything else on the menu is and afterthought, and just there for decoration.


The Bill (for 4): 

1 x Rare Steak Slice Pho - Dhs 29
1 x Hanoi Special Pho - Dhs 35
1 x Braised Five Spice Duck Mi - Dhs 35
1 x Panfried Marinated Chicken with Lemongrass - Dhs 40
1 x Sizzling Beef Steak with Fries, Egg & Baguette - Dhs 48
 1 x Panfried Water Spinach with Shrimp Paste & Chilli - Dhs 18
TOTAL: Dhs 205 (Approx. US$55)