Co Thu Quan Street Food

Fish balls, Co Thu Quan

We were in Richmond doing some shopping the other week so we stopped by Victoria Street for some Vietnamese cuisine. We weren’t really sure what we were after, but saw this place right where we parked, it seems to be new-ish and the menu offered some dishes a little different from the usual, so we gave it a try.

The decor is a bit different from your regular Victoria Street Vietnamese, they’ve actually got a theme and stuck to it. It’s street style so they have long benches and have made it a bit hip in that regard, it’s a nice touch when you’re used to the same old in Richmond.

Spring rolls, Co Thu Quan

Starters

They do have traditional main meals but we wanted to try the street food style dishes as much as we could. We started off with some fish balls, and also got some spring rolls because we knew Oscar would be able to get into those. The spring rolls with the Chinese sausage in them are a rarity in restaurants here according to Emmy. While those regular fried spring rolls would be a rarity in Vietnam!

I think I might have had them before at home or something, but it’s definitely good to try something different at a restaurant. The fish balls I know I’ve had at home before, and they’re always good, a good little snack.

Bot Chien, Co Thu Quan

Mains

Next up we had Bot Chien, fried rice flour cakes with egg and squid (at home I don’t think it’s normally made with egg). These were good, they were so crunchy it was almost like they were deep fried, there wasn’t a lot of squid but that probably would have overpowered the dish. This one was definitely a better than home made, good call me.

Canh Bún, Co Thu Quan

The lone dish that we got that could be considered a main by itself was canh bún, it’s a noodle soup dish which is like a cross between bún bo hue and bún rieu but with seafood instead of meat. I hadn’t tried this one before so it was quite a treat. The smell of fish is quite strong, but the taste is not overpowered by that and it’s certainly something that I will want to try again in the future.

Crab soup, Co Thu Quan

We also ordered a crab soup which was sort of for Oscar, it had some egg mixed in and was corn starchy thickened. The crab was quite minimal, it was a challenge finding any. We were already quite full but there was a dessert on the menu that was physically calling to us, seriously, it was tapping me on the shoulder.

Coconut Iced Cream, Co Thu Quan

Dessert

Coconut iced cream with some lychee, and green jelly type thing (the stuff that comes in the three colour drink). While it looked a treat, the iced cream was a bit disappointing, too icy, seemed like vanilla iced cream with bits of coconut as opposed to a coconut sorbet or plain iced cream with coconut somehow fused into it :D. That one was not a winner, but oh well.