Vietnamese Restaurant: Roppongi

BONGSEN Restaurant.

I have often rode past BONGSEN Restaurant on my rides around Tokyo and wanted to try their Vietnamese food.  The other night we walked from Harajuku to Roppongi and the walk had us in the mood for some pho.

The restaurant is presentable and the staff very friendly and attentive.  We started our meal with a can each of 333 while we were waiting for the food to arrive.  We ordered less than normal, not knowing just how hungry we were, but thinking we’d order more later.  The first two dishes were great: stir-fried morning glory with pork (a little salty), and then steamed rolls.  The steamed dumplings weren’t spring rolls or gyoza, but something in-between the two.  They were delicious and we planned to order more.  Next came the pho.  You can choose from two sizes and we luckily chose the smallest.  This is the worst pho I have ever tasted.  It had little to no flavour and was a huge disappointment.  I have no idea if it was sent out by accident or if this is really how they serve their pho, but we were so let down that we decided not to order anything else and to just leave.  Bad, bad pho.  I can recommend the other dishes, but I would NEVER order the dirty dishwater tasting soup they have the nerve to call pho.  Shame… it would have been good to have found an all-round Vietnamese restaurant.

Sri Lanka Festival 2006

 

I attended the Sri Lanka festival in Yoyogi Park for the first time this year.  I had meant to go last year, but I forgot.  This year I had it in the calendar and had booked Eri and Take in to join me there (had invited Shanna too, but she had family in town).

 Being held in the same location as the yearly Thai festival it’s hard not to compare the two – best not to though.  There were some performances and other entertainment, but I’m not going to try and paint myself as some kind of cultural aficionado – I was there for the food.  What can I tell you? I was under-whelmed.  Possibly the food is a lot better in the restaurants, but what I had was dry or packed with MSG.  The samosas were okay, but not amazing and the roti wasn’t fabulous. I had the vegetable dish that’s chopped up and stir-fried with vegetables, which was really disappointing.  Lacking in spice and heavy in pepper and MSG, this dish really didn’t sell me on much else, so we decided not too over indulge (as had been my plan) and to take a walk into Yoyogi Park to sit under a tree and have a chat.