Walrus – ohdenny

Van Mai is another popular Vietnamese eatery along the bustling Victoria Street, Richmond. In my attempt to seek out and try many of the Vietnamese Restaurants in Richmond, Van Mai on Urbanspoon seemed like a very popular place to try. They have a wide selection of dishes to choose from but of course, I had to choose my favourite Vietnamese dish (or as close to).

I love Crispy Chicken with Tomato Rice at Walrus (Springvale) and so my adventure to try out a dish that matches or even possibly tops that dish begins. Van Mai doesn’t have Crispy Chicken withTomato Rice but they do have Diced Pepper Beef with Tomato Rice dish.

I absolutely loved the flavour of this dish. The beef was packed full of flavour, it was slightly sweet, nicely marinated and had a pleasant pepper taste that didn’t overwhelm the natural beef flavour. One little con was that it was a tad too salty but eaten with the fresh lettuce, tomato and cucumber it balanced things out.

I pretty much only order Crispy Chicken with Tomato Rice because of the Tomato Rice. At Walrus it’s a vibrant red colour with stir fried with egg, at Van Mai it’s slightly darker and oilier. However, the taste is almost identical. Again, my only complaint is that it’s a tad too oily and I was wiping my mouth with a napkin constantly.

Other than the oiliness, the food they serve is delicious. Would definitely come back to try their other dishes.

Van Mai

372 Victoria St
Richmond VIC 3121

Vinh Vinh is located on the bustling Victoria Street serving, of course, Vietnamese food. Their lunch menu has a good selection of dishes for a decent price. It doesn’t appear to be a very popular restaurant, but it does have a spacious dining area.

The people are mostly friendly, and service is quite good. I was actually surprised at how fast my order came since I just checked my phone for a few minutes and there it was!

I believe their lunch menu is around $8, but don’t take my word for it, and it comes with complementary soup to boot.

I ordered the Crispy Chicken with Rice dish, usually when I go to Walrus in Springvale or really many other Vietnamese restaurants, they offer Tomato Rice with their Crispy Chicken. I don’t believe they do offer a Tomato Rice version, but they should.

I found their chicken to be overly dry, but crispy so I guess that’s a plus. So it definitely needed the sweet chilli sauce or to eat the chicken and rice with the soup to keep everything slightly moist.

The chicken had nice flavour but since it was overcooked, any positives were offset by the centrepiece of the dish.

The vegetables were more than acceptable, and added the fresh component to the dish which was welcoming and the complementary soup also had nice bold flavours to it. The soup with that sprinkling of spring onion, yep, that’s the good stuff.

Overall my dining experience was acceptable. I possibly could have chosen the bad dish or it was an off day, but for me, that one experience wasn’t a particular positive one. Would I go there again? Yes. Just to try their other dishes out even though this one wasn’t too good. If I was served something like this again, there are plenty of other eateries to try instead.

Vinh Vinh

387 Victoria St
Richmond VIC 3121