Vietnamhaket
“Why is there avocado in my food?”
Vietnamhaket is a local chain restaurant with three locations around Gothenburg, Nordstan, Stampen and Fjärde Långgatan. They offer a wide variety of dishes with some of the more known Vietnamese staples, such as Pho and Summer Rolls.
People who know me, know that I am a big fan of Vietnamese cuisine. My favourite dish, however, is often not found on menus around Vietnamese restaurants in Sweden (It’s lemongrass tofu, ‘dau hu xao xa ot‘ with some added vegetables). Anyways, I also like decent enough food for a cheap price, and Vietnamhaket seems to deliver that.
I have eaten so far at two locations (Saluhallen Briggen and Stampen) and it was pretty much the same, so I assume it’s going to be the same in Nordstan. The menu is quite large with vegan options directly indicated. Yay! And also very trust-inducing. Prices are 120 SEK for all dishes, though the options feel a little bit limited to me. Mainly we see Pho, Summer Rolls and some stir fry, but I am missing more of a saucy stir fry with rice. Give me my rice!
Anyways, one problem is clearly communication to ask for ingredients, but eventually it will all be figured out. We had the person taking our orders just directly call a relative better at Swedish/English to explain the ingredients. No worries here, I like the family business vibe and if anything, it’s charming. But as it turns out, the Pho uses a mushroom broth in the vegan option, which is arguably a weird choice. So we opted for simple stir fry noodles with tofu, summer rolls and fried dumplings, but also tried a sort of rice noodle salad before.
The food itself came quite fast, but the place wasn’t buzzing either. It all looked competent enough, and upon taking the first bites a warming feeling comes into my body. It is pretty alright. The stir fry is very oily, but chewy noodles, great tofu and some crunchy veggies still work as good comfort food.
The sauce is on the sweeter side and does a good job. The deep fried dumplings are filled with some sort of tofu, cabbage and carrot mush, but don’t taste like anything and are rather dry. Not great. The summer rolls are alright, rolled a bit too tightly to fit, so the rice paper was already giving up. The filling is an odd choice with iceberg lettuce and avocado, next to cucumber, rice noodles and tofu, but fairly alright. Still, an odd choice. However, the sauce served definitely had fish sauce in it, so I am not sure what’s up with that. Be careful here.
Overall, pretty average experience, but we got a lot of food for a very cheap price, so it’s definitely a place to go back to in case some comfort food is needed. But it’s definitely not a place to impress your loved ones.
Price:
All dishes (tofu): 120 SEK
The Verdict
Average experience, but the cheap price and large portion size makes up for it. You will get a fair amount of vegan options, good tofu in most of them, but questionable compositions in many as well (avocado, iceberg lettuce and other surprises). Not very authentic and clearly adapted to the Swedish market, still, alright to fill your inner void with greasy Vietnamese food.
3/5 Leaves
Pro
Plenty vegan options
Good tofu
Very cheap and huge portions
Con
Communication can be difficult (asking about ingredients/allergies)
Too much oil used
Weird Europeanised interpretations on some dishes
Suspicious sauces (smells fishy, literally)
huge portions (a little bit too much)
Location
Barnhusgatan 1
Nordhemsgatan 28
Postgatan 26-32
Opening Hours
Mo-Su: 11:00 - 20:00
