Huong Lua Modern Vietnamese
1-5 Railway St
Chatswood, Sydney
Vietnamese food has a lightness to it that makes it so appealing. It’s also extremely fragrant too, so you invariably end up with food that is delicate and aromatic. It’s a great combination.
The stuffed chicken wings were an amazing starter. These wings arrived with beautifully crispy skin on the outside and were filled with a mix of ground pork, black pepper, wood ear mushrooms, glass noodles, egg, shallots and onion. It all combined so perfectly and was big for a starter.
Another great starter was the Hanoi crispy prawn and crab spring rolls. The three big rolls were each cut in half creating six pieces of pastry filled with wood ear mushrooms, shallots, egg, carrots, taro and glass noodles. These were spring rolls with a difference!
It was a coolish evening so a curry seemed like the perfect choice. We decided on the coconut curry duck which came in a rich sauce with green peppercorns, onion, coconut cream, coriander, taro, capsicum, zucchini and sweet potatoes. We grabbed some rice to have with our main and to soak up all the tasty curry.
We weren’t originally going to have dessert but once we took a look at the menu we knew we had to try them. They all looked so good. The black sticky rice with mango and vanilla ice cream sounded like a great combination. It turned out to look and taste great. The textures and sweetness went so well together.
The deep-fried coconut vanilla ice cream brought back childhood memories of the deep fried ice cream at Chinese restaurants as a treat. This was better though. The coconut was great with it and it all sat on a bed of biscuit crumbs with a tangy berry sauce. This dessert was a total winner!
There is a liquor licence here too so you can grab an assortment of drinks, including non-alcoholic ones of course. We decided on a few glasses of red.
Huong Lua really impressed us. The food was very tasty and fragrant and creative too. The serving sizes were large and it all arrived quickly with friendly service. This is somewhere we’ll definitely revisit.